In my last post, I mentioned some changes I've made with the change of
seasons. Some, like de-googling and working out more, are sticking
well. I've managed to get in more weekday bike rides, and added some
outdoor running to the mix, to change things up a bit. The changes in
my health are slight at this point, but noticeable, and for the
better. I'm also adding in more stretching, as my body is rebelling a
bit at all this.
At work, though, my switch to virtual office hours has been something
of a dud, not because I don't stick to the hours, but because the
targets for this experiment haven't respected them, and continue to
send random pings via Teams whenever they feel like it (often later in
the day when I'm focused on other tasks and/or getting ready to shut
down). The experiment has not reached its full 8 weeks yet, but I see
a need to adopt one or more added guardrails:
1. Set myself to Away or Offline outside of office hours. quintin
suggested this in com chat last week, and while I have toyed with this
before, but not consistently.
2. Be more disciplined about not responding to messages outside
designated time blocks. This may involve using a combination of Do
Not Disturb or shutting Teams down completely during focus blocks,
to kill any chance of a notification sneaking through.
I may try one or both of these this week (unannounced) and see if I
get any pushback.
