... "Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'"

[Jean]

Yeah, it feels good to be back too.

 

NF Coaching suits my needs. If you want an adaptative plan and accountability, I recommend the solution with the caveat that it is of paramount importance to properly communicate your expectations and what doesn't go according to your needs, which is somewhat difficult when your starting point is "I'm underwater, halp!" as I was. My coach has tried to be very present (which is usually a plus) at a time when I had low mental energy and also needed to adapt to using a smartphone (because these are tools of the devil and I wasn't using one regularly before that) so the onboarding has been a bit stressful. It could have been less if I had properly communicated that I needed it to be taken slow.

 

I've started in January but have experienced a troubled year from March on (being fired and starting a new job shortly thereafter), so I dropped it in March and have been back eating that horse Goku style since a few week. Everything went smoothly, the welcome back was very positive, a few adaptations have been made and we're doing good enough once again.

 

 

[Tobbe]

Ugh! That's tough ?

 

I'm actually with NF Coaching too since like six weeks back. But I had the opposite experience – onboarding was too slow! But that's addressed now and we're working towards my goals at a pace that's right at the limit of what I can handle, which I think is exactly where you should be! 

Did you get back on with the same coach? Was that by your request, or did they suggest that?

[Jean]

I like my coach so the question was moot. I've just disappeared one day, logged in again 8 months later, followed the previous plan for 1 week to prove to myself I was serious about it, then reconnected with him.

 

A coach is like a therapist, in my opinion, in that it is essential to have a good feeling for them and we shouldn't be afraid to shop around until we do. My understanding is that we can ask for a change of coach any time we want if it doesn't clap.

[Tobbe]

10 hours ago, Jean said:

I like my coach

 

Yeah, I like my coach too. I think they do a really good job with the match making  

[Jean]

I am working part time this year (80%) and should have my Fridays off most of the time.

I don't work well in noisy offices with frequent interruptions. Monday is "accountability day", that is the day we have most of our recurring meetings. Not being ready for them is very stressful to me, so I need some peaceful and uninterrupted time to prepare.

 

In order to enjoy my free time I need:

 

 * to have handled the urgent stuff before leaving work.

 * to cast away and not touch at all anything work on Friday and Saturday.

 * to differentiate between weekends:

 

a) where I am doing something (schedule a small time slice on Sunday end of the afternoon to anticipate what will potentially fall on me on Monday).

b) where I am doing "nothing" but I do need the rest (not schedule anything at all, deal with whatever happens on Monday).

c) where I am not doing anything specific but have energy to handle things (schedule a time slice on Sunday morning to anticipate what may fall on me on Monday, be ready to spend a few to several hours on Sunday to get these things under control and still have an enjoyable week).

Things should get better with time as our team (including myself) gets more experienced and used to working together. Keeping the work climate enjoyable so that people stay and we limit turnover is of paramount import.

 

So:

Thursday, before leaving work:

 * my desk is clean

 * everybody who was waiting for an answer has got one or knows when they can expect to get one

 * I have a resume ready of the things I was doing / should be tackling the next week so that getting back into it is painless

 * I am deciding what kind of weekend I'm going to have between :

 a) personal active weekend.

 b) personal recovery weekend.

 c) no real planning weekend.

 

Friday, Saturday:

* be a rock: hear nothing, deal with nothing, have an empty mind when it comes to work.

 

Sunday:

a) active weekend: dig into emails/DMs/missed phone calls at the end of the afternoon.

b) recovery weekend: recover, put a high focus on going to bed on time to have slept enough for Monday.

c) no planning weekend: dig into emaisl/DMs/missed phone calls early in the morning, deal with what needs to for me to have a nice week.

[Scaly Freak]

I do something similar. I work five days a week, so I have scheduled a two-hour block on my calendar every Friday afternoon, of "wrap-up time". I spend this time reviewing the week and making sure I have finished everything I can, and have prepared everything that needs to be done to make it as easy as possible to pick the rest back up on Monday. 

 

If your mind works similar to mine, deliberately making an effort to prepare for next work week at the end of the last work day of the previous one, will make a huge difference in making it easier to relax and recharge during the weekend.

[Jean]

My mind works like that so thanks for the tip. I have a hard time protecting that block from either:

• recent outside sollicitation (urgent or not, for example from a junior engineer facing a road block).
• deadlines to meet that can't be met (trying to do more in not enough time than can actually be feasible).

One of my primary work objectives is to manage to set achievable deadlines at first, to defend them when people try to bring them earlier and to defend postponing the deadlines that can't be realistically met when it becomes obvious it is so.

 

I'll have to find how to organize my day in order to reach that objective and take my "wrap up" block to make it work.

[Scaly Freak]

It can be challenging, yes. One of the things that I do, that makes it this a lot easier in a remote work environment, is that I schedule it on my Outlook calendar in the form of two one-hour meeting blocks. This makes my calendar look like I have meetings for anyone who wants to schedule something with me, and also gives me something to point to when I need to say "I have a conflict that hour. Can we push this to Monday?"

 

Other than that, it does require me to defend my time and that in turn requires a certain level of determination and discipline. It took me a while to learn it and it wasn't always easy. Once again, working remotely as opposed to in an office where any idiot who sucks at time management thinks it's my job to help them solve an emergency of their own making can simply walk up to my desk and start talking to me, has really helped. 

 

For an office environment, clearly visible headphones can be a good deterrent. One of my colleagues in my old job would put a "working on Project <insert name>, please do not disturb" sign on her cubicle wall and it also worked surprisingly well.

[Jean]

 

 

Things are starting to go my way and I am not used to it.

 

I've got the results of the asbestos analysis that I needed in order to plan works on my new future home.

The person I had mandated for an energy audit of said house that I've been waiting on for some time has been very reactive to my new call.

My town sent me a sizeable tax refund that I wasn't expecting (and am expecting to be erroneous so I'm waiting for the actual assessment to see what's going on).

People at work are respecting the boundaries I have set.

I am following my workout plan and have energy for it.

*

 

Someone please don't wake me up and let me keep living the dream.

 

Life's being good.

 

 

*I'm late on my communication and response to several people but hey, I'll deal with one thing at a time.

 

[Tobbe]

What a great update!

 

I'm sorry for my ignorance if this is mentioned in the thread already, but what are your house plans? Building something new from the ground up?

[Jean]

Renovating an older house. There's quite a bit of work to do, quite a bit of it I can't do myself but there'll be plenty of space in it once it's finished, including a room dedicated to working out and cabinets to store my stuff. ?

[RES]

I am so damn happy for you!!!!! 

[Jean]

So, I love being myself. I have a positive outlook, I'm smart and I'm starting to look good. Living in my skin and my head is a pleasure and I intend for it to stay so long term.

 

There is, however, one thing I want to change and that is how I prioritize things. I put a way too high priority level on work things and a way too low one on personal things. The end result is that my productive time all goes into work and my personal time is more often than not dealing with three feet under me trying to raise again into the light. This is backward, it cannot work.

 

I am, hence, adding a new layer of responsibilities going forward. I am responsible of my domain and my domain can't be left to rot. It needs me in my best shape to take care of my house, my vineyard, my friends and most importantly myself.

 

I thus hereby declare the start of

 

the Era of Baron Jean.

 

In the Jean Barony, you should expect to find a warm meal, a bed, accompanying beverages and a friendly ear.

 

To sustain that, the Barony has:

• a well tended vineyard where friends are welcome and invited to lend a hand.
• a well tended backyard with a relaxing spot fit for casual drinks, conversations, naps and barbecues.
• a well tended garden with tasty herbs and vegetables.
• a castle with:
  • safe and secure access. Heavy doors, appropriate door cylinders, restricted access to the ground floor windows.
  • warm or fresh interiors, depending on the season, due to appropriate insulation, state of the art heating, a fireplace and appropriate ventilation.
  • a bedroom for guests.
  • a welcoming common room fit for aperitives and discussions.
  • a dedicated fitness room with free space.
  • ideally two bathrooms.

 

The Baron will endeavour to report here weekly what he has done to reach those goals. This week targets are:

• pre-pruning half of the vineyard.
• trimming the hedge around the castle.
• studying what vegetables to plant and harvest when.

 

In order to be worthy of his domain and to make himself fit and available to his people, the Baron will also:

• go to sleep at a minimum 6 hours before his planned waking up hour.
• eat delicious meals throughout the day.
• absolutely, under no circumstance and for no reason as imperative it may outfit itself to be sacrifice his free Friday to do anything even remotely engineery. Friday is gardening/masonry time, hurried people can take care of themselves and wait.

[RES]

4 hours ago, Jean said:

In the Jean Barony, you should expect to find a warm meal, a bed, accompanying beverages and a friendly ear.

 

❤️ 

[Scaly Freak]

5 hours ago, Jean said:

In the Jean Barony, you should expect to find a warm meal, a bed, accompanying beverages and a friendly ear.

 

Yes, but are there pets....?

[Jean]

4 hours ago, Scaly Freak said:

 

Yes, but are there pets....?

 

Pets are not currently planned but are welcome when they come accompanied.

[Renate]

14 hours ago, Jean said:

So, I love being myself. I have a positive outlook, I'm smart and I'm starting to look good. Living in my skin and my head is a pleasure and I intend for it to stay so long term.

 

High time ! ? Go get 'em, jefe

[Jean]

So, when the going gets tough, eh?

Yet still work related stuff: it seems that no matter how many fights I win (by winning fights, I mean successfully conducting assignments meeting client satisfaction with available means while setting ourselves for easier successes next time over), there's never time to rest and it's just yet another time very sensitive fight right after (sorry, I mean, right in the middle of it. It's "go fight a dragon" right while you are fighting a chimera and winning).

 

Well, let's get going. 6 hours is very doable and should always be able to fit on my schedule no matter what pretend urgency other stuff has. I'm going to sleep.

 

Have fun out there. ?

[Jean]

Maintaining equanimity is hard but we'll get there. Also, one day, I'll have gone far enough that other people won't get to play around with my life.

 

 

[Jean]

I may be realizing that, as humans, many of our problems come from a lack of skills. Some are better at relationships and some struggle to understand which words to use and when to get information before talking in order to approach a situation from an angle of probing/understanding rather than jumping to conclusions and projecting their view of the problems and solutions without care for the actual nuances of the situation.

 

There's work I can do on myself on that topic but this isn't about me. What I find is that how we approach relationships, successes and problems reveals a lot about ourselves and that taking a step back and actually trying to understand what prompted the apparently very clumsy remark from my vis-à-vis can help me understand what they need and better tailor my own efforts and reactions.

 

What I then have to decide is whether I want to put in the efforts or not. I'm tired of always working further and never allowing myself to rest. I need to rest and I need people to understand the energy, time and skills that go behind us staying afloat as opposed to not meeting client satisfaction. I need to be a better communicator and that doesn't mean taking upon myself to reach ever further but rather to outline what realistic targets and steps need to be taken, what constitute success, how we are reaching it and how that is enough.

 

I'm pretty tired of these games, though, so I'm not sure I have the patience to deal with it anymore. One thing I must be wary of: I've let myself be taken down by this game once already, of getting head first and with all my energy into making projects succeed, to the point of being underwater and loosing my ability to communicate what is actually happening properly. The outside image for my boss is then that 1) the situation isn't under control (when it is but things look ugly when you're in the middle of sanitizing what used to be a complete mess) 2) I'm somehow responsible for their unrealistic expectations not being met. - I don't know how to bring someone with unrealistic expectations back down on earth so I don't have a magic bullet but I have to stay lucid about when the situation is healthy but needs work and when it is becoming toxic, and be mindful to stay away from toxicity without taking anything away from my sense of worth.

 

The basic situation is: my boss is under the illusion that I am underworked because his control panel tells him that I am. The reality is that I am currently overworked and have to reach many simultaneous deadlines (which I do) and will have less work further down the line (at which point I'll need the time for recovery). Part of what his indicators tell him is true (on the broad spawn of time he is considering, I will have some time for new projects, it is just absolutely not now) and part is flawed because his model considers that non-billable time doesn't exist and you have to deal with a lot of non-billable time when you sanitize projects that were already underwater when they befell to you. We'll see if I can muster the energy to lay it down to my boss with proper factual backing.

Seems like a good time for this song:

 

[Jean]

Preparing the record:

• pre-pruning half of the vineyard:
• trimming the hedge around the castle:
• studying what vegetables to plant and harvest when:
   
• go to sleep at a minimum 6 hours before my planned waking up hour:
• eat delicious meals throughout the day:
• preserve my free friday:
   

I'm veeeeery tempted to give up on trimming the hedge under the pretense that you don't want to do noise on a Saturday out of respect for your neighbors but guess what you don't want to have out of respect for them either? A hedge that's half-falling over their lane. I think they'll forgive me the maybe 1.5h of noise for that.

[Jean]

• pre-pruning half of the vineyard: turns out an uncle made me a timely offer to buy it off me and I've decided to be smart rather than prideful and take the offer. This one is off the list (and I didn't do it).
• trimming the hedge around the castle: I've been 'saved' by the snow. I may have jumped on the first excuse available but the snow that went down Friday night lay a fine layer on the hedge and my garden and was enough for me to call it quits.
• studying what vegetables to plant and harvest when:
  • March:
    • carrots
  • April:
    • onions
    • carrots
    • cabbages
    • potatoes
  • May:
    • tomatoes (very high chances that won't work at this altitude but I'll give it a try anyway)
    • carrots
    • cauliflowers
    • broccolis
  • June:
    • basil
    • fennels
  • July:
    • broccolis
    • chinese cabbages

• go to sleep at a minimum 6 hours before my planned waking up hour: I haven't tracked that efficiently and don't know if that was actually reached.
• eat delicious meals throughout the day: half done: it has been done on some days but missed on many too.
• preserve my free friday: half done. My phone was shut down though I did spend the day worrying about what needed to be done workwise.
   

Lessons learned:

• don't spend time thinking you have to do the thing: do the thing.
• if you are too spent to actually do the thing: don't do the thing, don't think about doing the thing, sleep and recover (that will help you not being spent and actually being able to do the thing).
• don't let yourself be eaten by work. You have your domain to handle, be worthy of it.

[RES]

On 2/25/2024 at 3:11 PM, Jean said:

preserve my free friday: half done. My phone was shut down though I did spend the day worrying about what needed to be done workwise.

I can relate to this...I wish I could fall back asleep when I wake up thinking of work  

[Jean]

Quick update: I'm failing bigly. Mainly, I am always tired and there's a dark cloud upon my mind that comes from dealing with not high enough energy levels and inability to reach certain deadlines. I'm not sure how much of it comes from myself and how much is circumstances and expectations not grounded in reality.

 

The thing with me is: I keep fighting when I'm down and can't be taken out by outside forces, so I've got this.

 

My main focus are:

• to be kind to myself: do allow myself time to do things, don't start the day off having already lost half the battles in it.
• to give myself time: take the time to sleep, take the time to cook, take the time to exercise. That should be the unmovable block in my days and work should have to fit around it instead of the other way around.

I've been there before and haven't succeeded yet. It is a constant struggle but we only loose when we give up. I'm alive, I'm fighting, I'll fuse my armor back together.

 

 

[Scaly Freak]

10 hours ago, Jean said:

Quick update: I'm failing bigly. Mainly, I am always tired and there's a dark cloud upon my mind that comes from dealing with not high enough energy levels and inability to reach certain deadlines. I'm not sure how much of it comes from myself and how much is circumstances and expectations not grounded in reality.

 

The thing with me is: I keep fighting when I'm down and can't be taken out by outside forces, so I've got this.

 

Reminder that to fall back and regroup, and recharge, is an important part of continuing to fight.

 

And expectations can and should be adjusted when circumstances change. Be kind to yourself.