Work

Monday was my first day back “in the office” since December 20th. It’s the first time in a long time (ever?) that I’ve taken off a full two weeks during the Christmas and New Year holidays. Given that I was sick that entire time and rather than using that time to recharge it was spent recovering, I wasn’t really looking forward to returning to work. But, I spent time last Sunday evening reviewing my calendar for the week ahead to set expectations and make a decision to enter into Monday optimistic and ready to start the year off strong.

In an ideal world I would have ensured my first few days of the week were not quite as meeting-heavy as they were. It would have been nice to have a more gradual ramp back into the work grind but it was not to be. There was no time to gradually get up to speed to safely merge. I had to get from zero to sixty immediately.

Much of the first half of the week was spent doing some internal and external interviews to bolster some research we are doing in support of a new strategic initiative. I also wanted to spend some one-on-one time with the team members that I support to catch up on their holidays, wish them a happy new year, and align on the performance review process that is kicking off. I started working on a couple of personal deliverables I need to complete before the end of the month. In particular, I drafted an update I will present to our executive leadership team later this month. In addition to establishing the structure and outlining the story I want to tell, I also identified all of the data and other inputs I’ll need to complete the slide deck.

I also spent some time with my manager reviewing all the things currently on my plate and seeking some guidance on how best to balance both the individual contributor responsibilities on my plate in addition to my people management responsibilities. I seem to have become the default assignee for all the special projects my boss’s boss spins up and I’m now at the point where something has to give. I’m not able to effectively move them all forward given my current capacity and the last thing I want is for the team members I support to suffer.

Personal

Although I started feeling relatively better this week, I’m still not sleeping well. Despite my efforts to consistently implement good sleep hygiene habits, I’ve had a terrible time falling and staying, asleep. My wife’s hypothesis is that it’s stress related and I don’t necessarily doubt her. I was very intentional this week to wake up and go to bed at the same time each night. I also ensured I exercised each day. I managed my caffeine, water, and food intake. After heading to bed, I didn’t have any screen time. I just read my book. If I found my mind and/or heart racing, I practiced breathing exercises and prayed. Still, I struggled with managing more than four hours of sleep each night. And I had to fight hard for that four hours. There are a couple of environmental things I’m going to try (seeing if I can make my room a little cooler and darker) as well as some supplementation I might experiment with but I may just need to head to the doctor soon.

I’m still getting used to this new season of parenting. Just because all my kids are all adults now (18, 20, 22), there is still parenting happening. It’s just different. And I’m still getting used to it. They are all in different stages of work, school, and pursuing careers but they are all living at home still. It seems like that will be changing soon with two of them on track to transfer to other universities in the fall but in the meantime, I’ve trying to encourage them to take advantage of the time they have at home. A time to stretch, grow, try, and fail while they have the safety net we’re able to provide them while they are still under our roof.

My son returned this week after spending the last week+ visiting friends on the East Coast. There were some things I wanted to catch up on so I invited him to grab a beer with me on Wednesday. Although he’s 22 years old now, I think it’s the first time just the two of us have sat across the table from one another, enjoyed a cold beverage together, and just talked about things going on in his life. I enjoyed that. I’ve learned that he’s much more receptive to substantive conversations if we’re out of the house and doing something together (i.e., hiking, shooting hoops, etc…).

I’m embarrassed to admit this but one of the “exciting” things that happened this week is we got our Litter Robot delivered. This was a purchase I avoided for a couple of years now but I finally pulled the trigger. With three cats in the house and me being the only person who works from home, I end up scooping cat boxes way more than I would prefer. Especially when the cats really belong to my girls. So, rather than continue to gripe about being the only one who keeps the boxes clean or continue pestering my girls to clean the boxes, I decided it was an investment in my own sanity. The verdict is still out on whether it will meet my expectations. One cat took to it right away, one cat is still a little leery of it, and the other doesn’t think it’s a big deal.

Exercise

I was still not feeling 100% this week but I wanted to make sure I at least spent a little time moving each day. Most of my exercise this week was on the stationary bike but I also got a little walking in as well. Due to my taking a step backward with my health, Friday and Saturday were both inactive days.

  • 🚴🏽‍♂️ Bike = 21.5 miles, 1h 18m
  • 🚶🏻‍♂️ Walk = 7 miles, 1h 40m

📷 In addition to the exercise and fresh air, the best thing about my walk was this view:

Media

📚 I’m currently reading The Confident Mind by Nate Zinsser. Zinsser is the Director of West Point’s Performance Psychology Program and has worked with collegiate, professional, and Olympic athletes in addition to military and business leaders. I’ve enjoyed learning more about the research and data that demonstrates the correlation between what/how we think and how we perform. It’s especially interesting learning about the relationship between our thoughts and the physiological responses elicited by them.

🍿 I watched Carry On, Mississippi Burning, 1917, and Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever.

Things I’m looking forward to next week

  • 😴 Sleeping and feeling better
  • 🏋🏼‍♂️ Remaining consistent with exercise habits
  • 🎂 Celebrating my mom’s birthday
  • 📺 Season 2 of Severance
  • 😉 Doing a more concise, summarized, bullet point weeknote