I am suffering from two new conditions, they both cause a tightening of the chest, but I don’t think it’s COVID. Not sure if I am alone here, but the last few weeks I have had cases of both acute #FOMO and recurring video conference fatigue.
As a busy professional, with a team spread across South East Asia, I can do my job from anywhere. In fact in the before time I frequently did: working from home, from the airport, from the hotel, from a coffee shop etc. Now that I am grounded, I don’t have less work to do. In fact with all the scenario planning, economic second-guessing, reporting of risks, and frantic chasing of debtors – I have more to do than ever before!
VC fatigue is a condition brought about through the new working norm where we have no face to face meetings, and instead stare at faces on a screen all day. Before, there were far more natural breaks in the day. Walking from one meeting room to the next, across the other side of the office for a coffee, or driving across town for the next meeting. But with everyone working virtually you can reach the end of the day, having had meetings literally back to back for hours, and not having had time to draw breath let alone think.
I never thought I would say that I miss the Jakarta traffic, but to allow for the frequent chance of delays, meetings are always at least an hour apart, giving space to switch mentally between one topic and another. It was also easy to moan about the inconvenience of endless international flights, but now I realise travel provides plenty of opportunity for a mental pause – you can’t take a conference call whilst going through security and immigration, or whilst in the air.
In fact, I have some ideas for new features the software geeks should seriously consider. Zoom should include a coffee break option, Outlook should automatically block out 15mins before and after each meeting and WhatsApp should be limited to 10 messages per hour.
Of course in Indonesia, we have another break system. The nearest mosque to my office-based-office is loud enough that it’s hard to ignore the regular prayer calls – a lovely reminder to breathe, stare out of the window at the trees for a minute, smile and be grateful. In my new spare-room-office, I need to have the window closed to stop the motorbike noise from the street below interrupting calls, and the mosques are quieter at the moment, so unfortunately now I often don’t hear the prayer calls. And hence, in this weird time, when everyone else seems to be endowed with excess leisure time, I reach the end of my days exhausted and very ready for a G&T.
But then I open any news site, Facebook or Instagram, and I’m confronted with a proliferation of helpful suggestions on how to occupy my time with life enhancing cultural pursuits. Books lists (80 (yes 80!) books courtesy of the Australian Financial Review), free concerts from the NYMet opera or Radiohead, baking recipes, Netflix new additions, a friends daily Facebook suggestions of best 80’s albums to revisit… it’s endless… and it’s giving me #FOMO. I just don’t have the time, or the energy, for all this extra leisure stuff! I would love to read a book a week, or learn to speak Bahasa Indonesia, or take Harvard’s free online Justice course, but it ain’t going to happen right now.
Maybe I need to remind myself of the great things I am doing whilst incarcerated: 1. Super regular exercise – our gym and pool are still open thank goodness, and there is great yoga on youtube (#yogawithkassandra or #yogawithadrienne), 2. considering doing my own hair highlights – very scary, needs more research first, 3. writing this blog, and 4. meditation. The advantage of a very routine world and a super calm city is it’s easy to get back into a daily meditation habit (the Insight Timer app is a good tool to help).
I really hope I can continue to do all four of those things in the after time and get over my 2020 chest problems to boot. Maybe meditation is the key. Breathe, and remember it’s OK to schedule breaks and not be available 24/7. Breathe, and remember just because someone has recommended a podcast/book/show, it doesn’t mean I have missed out if I don’t see it!
Om Shanti.
Letter from Jakarta. 