Why the lock down has me coping better than usual (work edition).

This lock-down has not had the effect I thought it would. For the most part I’ve been coping well, very well even. Psychiatrist agrees he’s never seen me better and can also say the same for many of his other patients.

Of course this got me thinking: why have many bipolar folk and others with some or other variety of mental health challenges fared well? At least anecdotally this seems to be the case – from the chats I’ve had with my fellow bipolar bears and how I’ve felt myself.

Granted most of what follows is my experience working in IT 9ish to 5. That’s not everyone’s situation. Fair enough. And there is elements of life that are doing better too – that post for another time.

Working from Home (all of the time)

One the one hand it’s proved that it’s entirely possible to conduct pretty much everything I need to get done work wise remotely. The idea that it’s a necessary evil to the business of doing business has been categorically blown out of the water.

Seriously, the ability to wake up and get on with things on my own terms has been wonderful. I mean I love a meeting as much as the next person but lets be serious: 9 times out of 10 it’s a superfolous waste of time that could just as effectively been said in a two line e-mail. It’s not necessary to all pile into a room and engage in a dick swinging contest of who says the most in an hour long meeting that will run over time.

Productivity

The second game changer of working from home is that your productivity is measured by your output rather than just showing up at an arbitrary time and leaving again after 8 hours. Think about it: one can actually go into the office and achieve precisely nothing for a week – distractions, the peanut gallery, ones own inability to focus in an open plan-esque environment. And you’re measured rather on the hours you spent in a building rather than what you actually did for 8 hours a day.

At home however, it’s a different kettle of fish. Here one has to ‘prove their worth’ by their actual output and that output needs to be tangible. There’s no space to fluff and bullshit your way around your tardiness in getting things done. You have one job, and you’re expected to finish that job by X time and no one gives a damn how you do it or when you decide to do it.

Working Hours

When you work it is also something I’ve changed my tune about. When it was 8 hour work days for the sake of 8 hour workdays there were still project orientated outputs. But, significantly, those outputs were far more difficult to achieve when you’ve a room full of people, all with opinions and no one that actually does the work.

In the past this would mean I’d do my time in an office, not working 100% and taking more time than was necessary to finish something and then going home and staying up all hours to finish the work I was supposed to do (and somethings the work someone else was supposed to do so I could so what I needed to do).

Turns out that’s unhealthy – the going to work and then working at home again thing. What this lock down has done is actually improve my daily routine. I’m up by 6, in the shower by 7, at my desk by 8, take lunch when I get hungry, close out by 4ish and get to bed by 8. I guarantee I’ll have closed more tasks in that 8 hour day than I ever have working in an office.

Medication

My medication regime is also strictly adhered to. What I’ve been lying to myself about is taking pills round about when I need to. No. There’s method to the madness that is medication half-lives. Pills at 8AM, pills at 8PM. And they’re working as they should. The 4AM wake-ups are gone, the weird 4PM ADD is not there and the anxiety of not finishing shit in time is gone.

All this is my own experience, of course I’m sure many others won’t have had the same. If you’re found you’re doing OK or better than OK during the lock-down share in the comments 🙂