In the business world, we are sometimes presented with requirements that go well beyond the normal day to day routine. When a traumatic brain injury is part of your reality, surviving these periods can be very challenging. Since my TBI, I’ve designed a daily routine that allows me to intersperse short breaks throughout the workday so I’m able to keep up. This last week was a harsh reminder of just how quickly things can change, and what that can mean to me.
Typical Requirements
As a caregiver, I do most of my work from home. My workday often starts between 5:00 to 5:30 am. I’ll address high priority requirements, answer emails, and schedule my visible activities for the day. By 6:30, I’ll take my first break for morning meditation. By just after 7:00 I’m working again until I hear my mother awake (usually around 8:00), then I’ll take care of her needs and get her situated. By 8:30 I’m back to work, emails, phone calls, online meetings, support tickets, project activities, or whatever else needs done.
Because I’m working from home, I’m able to manage my break schedule effectively and try to end my workday by 5 to 6 pm. By the end of a typical day, across 11 to 13 hours I log 9 to 10 hours of work interspersed with 2 to 3 hours of breaks for rest and recovery. This I can do indefinitely – but sometimes my requirements change rather abruptly.
High Performance Requirements
High performance requirements can be driven by many factors. Most commonly it’s an information technology issue, hardware or software, that needs to be resolved to keep the company working. This last adventure, however; was the vice president of IT flying into our site for an intense two day session of brainstorming, strategizing, discussion, and planning for both short and long term directions for our organization.
Had my normal scheduling approach been an option, things might have worked differently. But as it happened, after two days, I was fairly frazzled. Here’s how it all played out…
The night before the first day, I got to sleep at a reasonable hour. At 3:30am I wake up for the normal reasons a sixty year old man wakes in the night. Back to bed, I’ve got a stuffy nose, but should be ok. By 3:45 I decide it’s time for nasal spray to make it so I can breathe normally. It works, and by 4:10am I’m starting to drift off. Timing is everything… 4:14am the house phone rings. This NEVER happens… the Universe is snickering, I’m sure of it. It rings until the answering machine picks up, no message.
Excellent. I pull the covers over my head and…the phone rings again. REALLY?!? Out of bed and on my way to the dining room, but before it rings a second time, the caller hangs up. Choice words are spoken, and I’m back in bed. By 5:00am I realize it’s pointless trying to get more sleep and that in reality, my day started an hour and a half ago.
I start with my supplements, doubling up on my brain supplement stack and brewing an espresso. I check my email, meditate, and brew some coffee fruit tea while I wait for mother to awaken. Once she’s awake, we do our morning routine: I try to prepare her for her day then I’m on my way to work onsite. Everything in place, I just wait for our VP and our new infrastructure SME to arrive. I should be taking a break by now, but they arrive and so the first session starts.
We break at noon and I’m on my way home to check on mom. It’s a long time to leave her on her own, but the preparations were sufficient and she’s okay. I prepare her lunch, get to my room for a short meditation, then come to sit with her for a few minutes; then it’s time to leave. I’m back before 1:00pm. The afternoon session starts. We take one bathroom break mid-afternoon, but other than that, it’s all work and discussion. I bow out at 4:30 because my mother’s already been alone too long, but there’s an event planned at a local restaurant starting at 6:00pm that will include dinner. I prepare mom’s dinner, meditate, and talk with her on the way out the door; only wishing the day was already over.
In this last session of the day, there’s a point where the discussion comes around to my personal challenges related to my TBI. I get the usual comments indicating they’d never have known if I hadn’t said anything… but no one besides me gets to see what happens inside my head, so it’s understandable. At this point, I’m starting to notice the number of thoughts that I begin to communicate but never finish, they don’t seem to see them. I notice the number of things I want so say but can’t give voice to. I notice that my battery gauge needle is deep in the red zone and try to listen more than I speak.
It’s just past 8:00pm, I should be in my jammies and finishing my last cup of evening tea, instead I’m just walking in the door. Mother’s hip is paining her from a fall last week, so I help her into bed, brew a cup of tea, and start getting myself ready for bed.
Day 2… Setting the Stage
I manage to get about seven and a half hours of sleep, which is really a bare minimum for me, and then only if it’s a single night. Unfortunately, I’m coming in short two nights in a row this time – that’s never good. A morning much like yesterday, supplements, coffee, coffee fruit tea, meditation, getting mother situated for a morning without me there. Again, I’m onsite before 8:30am.
When our VP walks in, I engage him in a conversation and quickly sideline into the limitations I experience since my TBI. I don’t want him to think I’m incapable of doing my job, that’s not the case – I just do my best work under certain conditions. I’m capable. I’m creative. I’m knowledgeable. But my endurance isn’t what it used to be. Our VP is perceptive, he gets it and immediately he offers a suggestion that I call break times when they work for me. This is good.
Day two turned out much better than day one. I can’t say I wasn’t exhausted by the end and yes, in my last meeting of the day I felt somewhat inarticulate. But, the whole experience was SO much better than day one.
Lessons Learned…
The Value of Communication: I think that the single most important thing for brain injury survivors to never lose sight of is that no one else can see what’s happening inside your head. I’m not going to say it’s easy, but the most important lesson learned for me was that finding a clear way to communicate my needs made an amazing difference in the outcomes.
We Notice What Others Don’t: On day 2, I apologized for being inarticulate towards the end of day 1. My VP responded very sincerely that he hadn’t noticed at all. This served as a strong reminder that others only hear the words I speak; they don’t hear the chaos in my mind nor do they always notice when I let a sentence be my last because I can’t remember what I was going to say next.
We Sometimes Feel More Broken than We Are: Despite my trepidations going into these sessions and my own perceptions of my shortcomings, I delivered very well.
Regular Breaks and Meditation Make a Huge Difference: Instead of my normal two meditation sessions per day, I included one midday as well. The first day was shy on breaks, but the second day included a realistic break schedule and that was the day I delivered my best performance. Another point worth making here is that when it’s the only option for some recovery time, even a bathroom break can help. Walk slow and mindfully both ways.
In Closing
High performance requirements come along that are even harder for us to keep up with than our regular days. Preparation helps, but the best laid plans can change very unexpectedly – such as the good night’s sleep that eluded me for reasons beyond my control. Making time for your needs is so critical…whether you meditate or walking outside is how you decompress, make time to do it. Do your best to schedule in periodic breaks throughout your day and take a bathroom break if that’s the only option.
Two other key points: first, is the value of communication. What others don’t know about; they don’t allow for. Second, you may well be coming across much better than you realize.
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