Presenters: Karen Richardson, Executive Director, Virginia Society for Technology in Education; Margaret Sisler, School-Based Technology Specialist, Westfield High School, Fairfax County Public Schools
Join Karen Richardson and Margaret Sisler for a conversation about finding joy and balance in a sometimes overwhelming world. How do we make time for our own well being and deep relationships when we see the work that needs to be done and brings us its own joy? What role does technology play both positively and negatively in finding personal space?
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Transcript
hello everyone this is Karen Richardson I'm the executive director of the Virginia society for technology in education and I'm so excited to be here today as part of brainstorm twenty twenty our first foray into virtual conference I'm here today with Margaret Sissler and Margaret take a moment and tell us who you are hi I am a school based technology specialist in Fairfax county I work in a large high school I'm also a member of the district conference team
I've been in education for a lot of years now and it's been really interesting to see the evolution of how I take care of myself and prioritize my own work I'm excited that we get to talk about that today good so I'm just going to kick this off a little bit by talking about how this presentation came about
Margaret and I had a little back and forth email and she mentioned to me that she was taking a class and I replied back
really yeah I thought you just finished the degree are now are you working on your doctorate now that she replied and said no I'm taking a dance class I'm doing something for myself right now and I thought wow when was the last time I took a class like just for fun just to learn something and and not a credit or a or any he sort of forward just something in the moment I'm learning something new a good movie and on and it's I center I think this would be a really good presentation for the virtual conference in this was probably February Supreme virus we're just thinking self care in the digital age what are you doing to try to help yourself with a rupture of information and and all those sorts of things that technology brings to us and then of course as we move along into the planning process of this the virus came about and so today we really are going to focus on self care but in the context of the contemporary days where where we're at home we need home alone with AT home with many family members three baby home with pets who knows what what kinds of things can we be doing both at personally and professionally to help us get through this time and perhaps even find some inner strength find some changes that we know we just needed to make in our lives but we finally had the time to do some reflection a chance to step back and I'll just say personal before I turn it over to Margaret be careful I've been doing this work from home thing since two thousand one it took me a long time to figure out how to find that balance add on the frenzy of your children being there and the virus out there and everything about your lives being changed it's gonna take a little while to do this so again my over achieving friends out there don't make it your goal to find your work life balance by tomorrow afternoon let's be gentle with yourselves and I think our goal today is to give you some tips about how to do that in a pretty rational step by step kind of way so Margaret get a started I think first to talk about self care is really important and what you said about giving yourself time to figure this out
I think it's really important that we don't go into this
self quarantining or isolation thinking that I have to reinvent everything about myself I think that's really important
and the grace to have some hiccups along the way is really is really key Glennon Doyle is an author former teacher of blogger and she speaks very openly and candidly about the need for self care recently I heard her speak about the difference between our inside healthcare in our outside here the outer self care is the thing that commercially we've been sold a lot that I need to go get a few solid have my nails done and get my hair colored every three weeks and all of those things are wonderful anything make you feel wonderful that's that's great but they're not the only kind of self care to consider the work that we have to do on our insights is really important and I think our time today is really to think about that inside health care it's not the stuff that I'm gonna pay somebody to do for me it's not the fancy bath bomb it's not those things even though they can be lovely and I do love it back on I really want to talk about the things that make more difference in ourselves
so the first one of those is think about resetting our priorities I think setting priorities is something that is easy for me whenever I start a new project whenever I want to make a change but that is not always something we think of when we're in the midst of the work and so resetting priorities right now is really important some thinking about what your goals are what can we reasonably do you in this time and what do we spend our time focus time we only have so many hours in every work day in every regular full twenty four hour day we only have so many hours what are we gonna send those
I'm a very visual person so I've been known to sketch out what my priorities are thinking of that the jar with the big rocks in it I have to spend time on those big rocks first and then fill in with little rocks and all the little thing things that come along and so that's really important to me as I think about saying yes to things or saying no
in every instance that I'm asked to do something new I have to think about doesn't meet my priorities doesn't match up and I've had these conversations with my supervisor at work so that if I say yes to something and it takes a lot of time it needs to be something that works with my priorities that we've agreed upon as my my goals and if it doesn't and he's asking me to do it I'm gonna have a conversation and say I'm happy to do that ians it means I don't have the time to spend on these other things that we have a priority which would you rather I spend my time on that has led to so many great conversations and really clarifying what I need to be spending my time on I'm an overachiever I'm a recovering overachiever I should say I'm still recovered in that process but I feel like I need to be able to do everything and there's no possible way I can and so having these conversations ahead of time on your priorities has allowed me to not feel like I'm letting someone down and yet I'm still able to meet the things I need to spend my time on
hi I H. shared with you a conversation I had with a similar over achiever yesterday and I don't know if it's tech the technology support people who just know that now is our moment right now is the time when we really can sh hello people the power of these tools I've talked to a couple people who said the teacher who like close their doors and and didn't want to die in the hallway has suddenly reached out to me and I am going to give her the best of ever because I I know she's going to this is going make a big difference but you're right you could be doing that all day long and and so I was ruminating on how wonderful it is to have this kind of quiet time she's like are you kidding me I have three kids and I've been working fifteen hours a day and then she didn't say what my boss really has been pretty nice about it how much of the you're that you're putting on yourself is really coming from your boss and it is the fact that you're stepping up and having those conversations with your boss is incredibly important you can't keep going like this that the schedules people have been telling me that they've been putting in are just not sustainable and so even your boss doesn't know and you need to have that conversation or has those expectations and then maybe that's a whole nother extroverts you need that but I think sitting down and thinking how much of this am I doing to myself because I just think another half an hour another forty five minutes I can answer this email and solve this problem another there's another that and so I think we do need to be gracious with ourselves I don't know what company it was the headline went pass quickly that someone pushed out the expectation to their employees that they're expecting about fifty percent productivity right now from people that's what we are anticipating you've got family you've got other issues going on everything takes longer now right going to the grocery store and everything takes longer back off a little bit give yourself some time to to figure out what you're gonna do and then and then I think that idea of priorities I'm hoping leads us to think a little bit about restructuring as well I think that's really important to realize how much that pressure comes from ourselves and ask why do we feel that pressure to you and and sometimes that it's a little deep and some work that we have to do on our insights to care for ourselves but asking that question of yourself is really important I may never get this chance again well we might have other chances to and if I don't take care of myself then I can't be good for the rest of my staff as well so burning myself out league one is not going to serve anyone well yeah so restructuring your top
Hey we're in this for the long haul right now restructuring our time is going to be really important so we have this opportunity now with this pandemic that we can consider it how we spend our time during the day and that many of our jobs are a little more flexible at the moment many of our days are where a lot of have a little more routine built in we're allowed to take some scheduled breaks in between and we need to take time for ourselves so one of the things that's been really key for me and that I've done over the last four weeks now I think we're on we're we're going into week four is thinking
I think it's sweet for involvement in together but something that has been really good for me settings a morning routine time aside for my house gets by the my people are up my my day gets going before I check on the emails before I start anything that's going to take me some time I found that that's a really important time for me that I wasn't making time for before I was the sleep till the last minute rush out the door and just try to get as much sleep now that I'm getting more sleep I don't have to rush to get up in the morning that's been my quiet coffee time that's in meditation time built in there just looking out into nature has been really important to me
and so starting my day off that way has made a world of difference because I'm already more centered and calm and then I can take on all the things that it's about to throw at me
I think it's time for your meals away from your work space now that our work spaces our house it's much easier to just grab something and come back over and keep working and that's not good for us you know we need to set and she will enjoy our food and not rush through and we have a little bit of time for that take your half hour or a little longer and it make a meal that fills you and and sixteen zero and then enjoy it and enjoy it with the other people in your house you don't feel like you have to isolate away I think that's important
and then I want to talk about all the number of video calls here in so many
call way more meetings than I would have on a regular basis because we can't just run down the hall and have a quick conversation everything is much more scheduled and regulated right now and so I need processing time if I sit in a meeting and take notes and give myself a to do list I'm really great with the to do list but I need time to really think that through and think through and process what just happened and how everyone interacted and what I really need to follow up with so thinking about how I can process patents schedule my day differently to give myself that time in between maybe that time I'm gonna go outside and take a walk and I'm going to process out loud to my I phone because I can dictate right then and there and I can respond and kind of plan out what's gonna come next it gets me the movement it gets me some processing time in between sometimes some days it'll give me some sunshine just being able to break up the screen time from the video conferences is important
at and I know that are I live in a pretty rarefied world I haven't maybe I should admit this on a you tube video but I I haven't had a formal like personnel review probably since two thousand and one yeah I haven't had a real boss so I understand that my ability to kind of call the shots on my day are are different than other people's but here's the lesson I can tell you picking up a nine to five day or whatever seven thirty to four day whatever it is that you would normally go into your bricks and mortar and trying to drop that into your home life is simply not sustainable and so I think one of the big lessons I hope that comes out of this is you know we we keep talking about how we need to not be judging kids by the amount of school seat time they put in we need to make up for grown ups too I'm hoping one of the ships that come comes out of this particularly for folks who aren't necessarily right in the classroom with kids that's a different conversation that I'm not quite prepared to have in fifteen more minutes but for seat time folks especially it's much more about getting the work done when I start my week I know what my goals are for the end of the week I don't always know how long it's gonna take me sometimes I'm surprised and look I have a little free time left over other times while this took a lot longer but it's up to me and I've been able to say I'm better from eight to eleven and then like you I need a break three hour trunk and I need to be away from the screen I need to be doing something physical whether it's cooking lunch you're going outside now that the weather's nice but but that's a good time for me and then a long about four o'clock in the afternoon I'm re energized I'm ready to go again I often work more than eight hours a day on a variety of different projects but I do it in the strong so it never seems like at five o'clock I'm like oh my gosh I can't do this anymore because I haven't had to do that and I'm hoping that as we work through this that ability to kind of call the shots on your time can be a little better so you can push back and say I have two two hours you meeting schedule today and honestly that's all I can get in today otherwise I can't do the things I need to do that come out of those meetings and again we're right in the midst of this even if it's a month then but I still feel like we're in emergency mode here as you settle in and realized we've got another month or two of this let's let's try to figure out those wastes flex time kinds of ideas I think people will be more productive and less amount of time when they're able to structure around their family time and and that's the last point I'll make sure and I actually posted this on Twitter today
I mean generations hot who knows generations of people have structured their family lives around work so everybody goes to school everybody goes to work and then you do your errands your hobbies and everything else in the free time away from work but now how do we figure out structuring our work around our lives and what kind of long term impact is that going to have for us when parents go back to work and say I I need this afternoon off because I'm doing this with my kids but all come back in at four o'clock or a log on from home with from four o'clock here's how I'm going to divide up the time here so I'm going to show you that I'm being productive and suddenly we've flipped the classroom as it were grief star work lives as it were where life takes precedence and work is the thing that certainly sustains us in many ways but we've made we're starting to make that flick look a little bit and we're finding that we have time for things that in the past we didn't feel like we did and I'm excited to see if that can happen or not I don't know and I think the last thing I'll say about this in terms of school though is that this is the first time we have had to innovate outside of the structure of bricks and mortar and region schedules suddenly he we can learn without those two things and if we want school to be synonymous with learning then we also need to see that school can happen without bricks and mortar and ridges schedules and what does that mean and I think that's the exciting piece of that let's not go back to business as usual let's figure out how do we make these structures different so they're much more humane for people they are much more humane for our families and for ourselves where we can start saying this works for me you said I'm getting more sleep now it's not right that you shouldn't it sleep before you go to work we just expected that is a part of our lives now and I'm we can really rethink those things all right I put the soap box away I think one of the key pieces there Karen is that we have to consider and reflect on the pieces we want to keep moving forward with any something isn't serving us how do we change it hi we let it go or if something is now serving us think that more sleep is really priority for me how do I make sure that the he's all the way through and that I don't lose it when this is over because I'm learning these lessons that are really going to take care of me moving forward I've learned that sunshine in the middle of my day and some movement makes me so much more productive than if I just try to plow through it
we knew that and I've forgotten it he don the bricks and mortar in the schedules that I've conform to for so long now I have the opportunity to do that doesn't mean I am in less productive impact I think I'm probably getting more done now that I'm not having that slump and crash in the afternoon that I can re energize
yes I think you are yeah S. so I'm hoping for a world where you yeah yeah I'm hoping for a
world to be our reality and the reality for students are our teachers everyone involved in this for parents as they go back to work I think it's
commentary that we've put ourselves aside for so long
because the work drives our need to work and I under can that comes from a great place of privilege that I can even say that that I am able to work from home I'm able to continue to be paid and continue to do my job through this disruption so I do know that I'm saying that with a great deal of privilege and and I I don't mean to make light of it but I want to spend this time thinking about what are some of those simple pleasures that we can rediscover during this time so for me that has been being outside honestly just getting out and noticing all the trees blooming normally I missed this time it's a really busy time of year when everything is blooming and I'm yes I might be at work until it's dark of night and there are times when I don't even get to see all the things that are blooming around I have been outside taking walks even small walks around the neighborhood I'm not really traveling anywhere
and so noticing the variety of trees that are blooming noticing how they're staggered and so some of them really early and then another round comes in I don't know that I've paid that much attention to blooms in my neighborhood before he's been glorious my friend started posting on Instagram Kobe things of beauty as a hash tag and everything she's noticing something and it might be something with her child her beat her outside St and it has caught on and really made me think about this it's harder for that I can do close on these blooms and how I captured some do drops on the grass one day and it just sparkled and it was fantastic just a few minutes out made me really notice
I also have been working on a patio garden I love that into your ago I let it go and I didn't have time for it and it made me so sad it's back and I've got time to work on it I know it's survived the frost so
I started a little early this year but I have the time to do it and that's been really great I'm also working on setting up my space outside on some these stays on my yeah
as I'm sitting in these meetings why not stuck in a little sunshine during the time and listen to the birds while I'm listening to my meeting
I think we also you mentioned getting up and cooking as an activity that really kind of re energizes you I think spending time together on meals making crafty projects I've seen so many families playing games and doing puzzles it's so exciting to bring that stuff back that we let go of
hi I'm just a little tiny bit older than you and I have a sense that sometimes we're getting back to what my childhood was a little bit more like effect because even now many of our hobbies and our family activities or even out of the house right here in a soccer you go play soccer on Saturday morning or you go to church on Sunday or your Inquirer abandon and all of those things that better you really are back on yourself as as a family or whatever unit you're living in and we did put puzzles together when I was a kid it wasn't what you just did walk a snow day you know we often had a puzzle
when we watch TV we watched it all together there was no sense of everybody going off on their own there was one TV in the house and we generally watched it together and we we talked about what we watched in those sorts of things so I think that's you know what it we're kind of old fashioned I joke with somebody that I'm turning into my grandmother I've always loved to bake and can and freeze but I did it as a hobby if I didn't do it like kind of with your gardening I do it well this year I really feel you know I'm I'm not pickled beets and I know our tomatoes are two meters did get hit outside a little bit but my husband is now growing food I believe for a whole local community so there's another there's a few more tomato plants they can get planted out there but a couple of did get hit but I'm planning on canning I'm back to baking sourdough bread every week and just you know feeling that sense of home and domesticity that maybe I had put aside as well as in the goals of the work and and those kinds of different sorts of achievements as well but I love your idea of going out I had a huge garden and often again yeah this time of year to travel time of year every day is something different is blooming and you are absolutely right so you need to come to my farm sometimes Margaret yard evidently at one point in the eighties once was an arboretum yeah the doctor who owned the house had planted a variety of different screens many of them are gone because they weren't necessarily trees for tidewater Virginia but we have a ginkgo tree we've got a couple of unusual trees out there and you are absolutely right about that they don't come out all of the same time one of my favorite ones I look at it but you're not dead are you and I said know it's just a little bit hydrated so even even though I'm pretty close to nature here I've been taking that time to go out and what what's looming today and I've been trying to share those pictures with people as well and then the last thing I'll say about this too is I think this is the time to really think about that device work as well I know a lot of parents that said might kids been offline devices all the time and I'm examining my own usage right I
read the book and I think what's the news what's on Twitter who posted on Facebook and I'm not usually like that I'm not a huge media consumer like that but lately it just seems like everything's happening now and on the edge and I might miss something I'm so I'm really taking that screen time app on my phone to heart to make sure that when it says you're done I'm done I don't do the just ignore it for fifteen minutes kind of thing and I think for grown ups and kids we need to examine that we also need to see the power of our devices I'm taking my pictures with my phone I'm assuming you are too high and sharing them via my phone I have my phone up when I am cooking because it's a recipe those devices can be powerful supports for us but we need to make sure that they're also not just I've been scrolling for an hour now and haven't really accomplished anything so I think there are wonderful things we can be doing it and we don't the other just
simple reminder I'll give to people is Martha Stewart has a staff folks
and I somebody posted that you know if you don't have champagne vinegar or preserved lemons you know it's okay to use a real lemon or regular old vinegar and I thought I don't think I've ever had preserved lemons at my house so you know be careful things can be simple bread doesn't have to be logged in either though you know you don't have to cook a meal but I've hours or those sorts of things fries delicious it's nourishing and and you're doing a good thing don't don't be intimidated by the folks who seem to be suddenly turning into Martha Stewart so I think giving yourself grace there whether it's with screen time whether it's with measuring yourself against others on social media is really a key point to finish up with because I for one was feeling like my screen time was way up but I needed to be on when we were in the emergency planning stages of all of that is happening so one of the things I did I was feeling really bad about my screen time and so I turn that off because I needed to give myself permission hi the other trade off was I took after that were stocking time that was not really useful time off of my phone I hope my phone I don't scroll on Facebook I don't spend the time there I swear I I spend more time but I've also had to limit myself on my my TV watching Netflix binging because I would find myself just with that on in the background as noise and I don't mean that I would rather have the doors open and listen to the birds and so I'm not turning on the TV during the day and that's a choice that works for me and it might not be the same for you just like the screentime app works for you it doesn't work for me finding what works for you and reflecting on that is why is it making you feel bad or why do you feel like you can't do that is really the key here it's gonna be different for all of us each of these pieces that help you find that inner self care is gonna vary for each person
I think that sounds like the perfect
thank you so much Margaret right this was terrific I am going to go out in to our grid view now and and this stuff thank you so much I really appreciated this today and I hope everyone else blessings to you folks it is Easter weekend for those of you who celebrate it's beautiful outside here so spend some time on yourself thanks Margaret and everybody have a great rest of the weekend
hi everybody
