Emotional Crisis Guide for Manager and Individual Contributor

Learnings and insights:

If you’re finding that you’re reacting — and perhaps overreacting — in similar ways, take a step back and remind yourself: “This might not be about this specific person or work situation. This is happening because I’m anxious and scared about the future”
Don’t let a sense of urgency in one part of your life bleed into every single other area. Not everything is urgent right now. Some emails can wait.
“Stress” is about the short-term: Will the grocery store has what you need? How can you finish these projects for work today with your kids running around at home?
“Anxiety” is more long-term. It’s worrying about the future, whether you’ll have a job or get sick, for example. Everyone is feeling a lot of both right now
Take 15 minutes to create a list of everything that you’re worried about. Then label each one as a ‘within’ or a ‘beyond’ to see your sources of stress and anxiety laid bare. Beyond are outside of your control. Within are issues that you can act on.
Separate what you can control from what you can’t. It’s a small way to lift some weight off your shoulders.
Reminder for managers: Protecting yourself emotionally is the best thing you can do to protect your reports emotionally. Think about how your actions are going to affect someone else’s day.

This is a personal learning notes from the books and articles I read, the videos I watched, podcasts I listened to, or people I talked to.