How to Take Care of Yourself While Meeting Deadlines in a Healthy Manner
By Geraldine S. Pearson
As we move into the second year of a pandemic, with its associated limitations and influences on our work and personal lives, it seems important to continue talking about the process of self-care. This is especially relevant to those professionals (most of us!) who live with deadlines and requirements separate from our social isolation, our telecommuting, and our drastically different lifestyles.
I think the factor that has most influenced how we deal with deadlines involves the challenges associated with finding a balance in our lives, between the personal care activities that “take care” of us and the demands of work or academia that imposes deadlines. Let’s face it, most of us have struggled with this balance and right now, after the longest period of pandemic stress we may have ever experienced, the balance seems somewhat elusive, hard to achieve, and even harder to define. But the deadlines remain and can loom and confound us as we try to muddle through everything else.
There is so much in the media about self-care and the ways to do this successfully. I tend to judge the stresses of the world by the microcosms presented by my outpatients in my psychiatric practice. These children and adolescents and their families are, to a person, undergoing enormous stress with virtual or in-person school, the threats of illness and death from COVID, and the general garden variety difficulties that come from having a mental health issue. I constantly talk about self-care: healthy eating, regular sleep, some time outdoors, maintenance of hygiene, and connection to others. These connections might occur via the phone or zoom, or with facetime systems. They don’t substitute for that hug from a grandparent but seeing a face is better than nothing. The same self-care concepts apply to the adult who is trying to care for self and other family members while maintaining career pressures that involve deadlines.
These deadlines can be work assignments, dissertations, anything that HAS to be finished on time. Perhaps the key to getting them completed is embedded in all the other efforts we make to try and stay balanced. Is the key to success a process of chunking down the time, planning for short bursts of work, punctuated by enjoyable activities? Certainly this is a simplistic view of a complex problem but I’ve observed that the most successful individuals are those with realistic expectations, a willingness to say when they are going to struggle with a deadline, and the ability to avoid self-flagellation when they perceive that they are not succeeding. Importantly, all of these individuals are able to identify what they enjoy and then carry out the activity.
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What if individuals find themselves mired in an unhealthy mental state? This could be an exaggeration of past mental health issues that re-emerge in times of stress or it could be a new state of simply being unable to continue functioning. If individuals find themselves at the point where they are unable to move from one day to the next in their work or personal lives, it is essential to get some help. This could be assistance from a university health services, a mental health clinic, or even a trusted friend or advisor who can listen and validate that they are struggling. Asking for extensions of deadlines, changing the day to day focus towards one of increasing self-care, and focusing on what YOU need might help. But if it is not enough and if your difficulties in functioning continue more than a week, please ask for some help, reach out to someone, and figure out if your feelings are the result of this very difficult past year or a symptom of something more serious requiring intervention. This pandemic has to end sometime and we will look back at this time and reflect on what we’ve learned about the balance between personal and work life. Deadlines can be changed. You are the most important element in that process while deciding what you need to function in a healthy and effective manner.
