Managing The Remote Work Day When Sitting Still Is Difficult
I am fidgety. During Zoom meetings, I move around a lot in my chair and ootch and scootch. I’m finding remote work more challenging than days when I was on the move. Are you? And listen, I love to work. I work a lot. But trying to fit into a little screen all day is very confining to my physical body and my temperamental hunger for variety.
Remote work is a privilege but it’s also challenging for a lot of us who struggle with sitting in the same place all day. When on video calls, we are performing on camera, constantly regulating emotions and our bodies. And we don’t get to shake it off; we just go straight into another meeting.
Even though I’m 47 I often feel like a kid sitting through a day at a school that is just not made for what I need. I get restless. It’s tough to hold it all in. I often think of this apology note my 9 year old son wrote to his babysitter.
This is how I feel after a lot of meetings. The Anxious Achiever is about destigmatizing all that goes on in our brains and bodies, and it's about breaking down preconceptions of what work should look like. Everyone should do more of what they’re great at, and less of what they struggle with. Maybe you have ADD or ADHD. Maybe you tend to run hyper. Maybe your anxiety makes you restless. I am here to say: If sitting still and behaving all day on Zoom is hard for you, you’re not alone, and there are answers. Here’s what I do.
Build in Movement Breaks
This one is straightforward. Try to move every hour. Take walking calls. I try to do a 20 minute dance cardio video on YouTube twice a day. Buy a treadmill pad. Shake it off. The more you move, the better your work will be. If you have 10 minutes free, move, even if you don't feel like it. Build movement intentionally into your day.
Create Variety For Yourself
There’s a reason consumer goods giant P&G creates a career roadmap where the average new hire works five different roles within their first 10 years at the company: humans seek variety and new challenges. Some of us need more variety than others; we are seekers and searchers.
Long days packed full of Zoom can feel repetitive for those of us whose brains seek variety and stimulation. I’ve learned a lot from interviewing people who manage ADHD at work. “ADHD brains are novelty brains,” Stephanie Ozuo told me this when I interviewed her for The Anxious Achiever. Ozuo was always amazing at job interviews and full of creative, strategic ideas. But “When I would actually get into jobs, especially the 9:00 to 5:00 typical office jobs, I would really struggle... I remember sitting at one of my old jobs, sitting on the chair, and it felt physically painful to start a task. I just internalized that as, "Oh, there must be something wrong with me or I'm lazy.” Ozuo got fired from several jobs until she got treatment for her ADHD. Now, Stephanie is a career advisor with a master's in career development and management. “I help people get into work. That's my vocation and that's what I studied, but I also have a creative agency and a film club.” Like me, she has multiple businesses. She has created days that work for her, with varied tasks and rhythms.
Combat pilot Nate Swann was at his best during war scenarios that would send most people hiding and screaming under a barrel. He found the ability to hyper-focus in chaos and stress. During calmer times, Nate’s ADHD meant he struggled as an airplane pilot for the army. He told me,
“It was one takeoff, one landing, six hours later up in the sky and it was very boring. That was not the best environment for me ... .As a young officer looking for opportunities to excel in other communities, I asked to leave the airplane community and come back and fly helicopters… I was selected to be an Apache pilot… and it was the absolute perfect environment for me ... .We use the aircraft now specifically in both a scout reconnaissance mode as well as an attack mission, so there’s a lot that you have to do…. I have always excelled in areas where there’s a lot of activities... I find I am more relaxed listening to rock music, having the TV going on, or playing a silly game on my iPad. That environment is very relaxing to me because it’s almost like I sped up the world around me to keep up with where my brain is at all times.”
There are two ways you can incorporate more variety into your days without becoming a combat pilot. The first is to be much more intentional about how you structure your tasks during the day. If your day doesn’t offer variety, create some. People who feel they have some agency over managing their time are happier at work, and it’s no wonder why.
You probably know that it’s good to separate meeting or correspondence time from “deep work” time. But those of us that can't sit still also need to divide work between meetings and video calls, independent work, and variety. Maybe we need to get out of the house, so even going to the Post Office might offer some variety. Think of the pace of your day and consider whether it offers variety of task, location, and energy level.
Pacing our days allows us to keep our energy high for the big things, and then move our body or calm our mind when we need to. Pace is also about the structure of your days. Some people like a steady pace - they want to work 9 to 5, and then they want to be off. I find fidgeters work better in short bursts. They want to go for a run in the afternoon, or take some time to garden in the middle of the day.
Can you break some days into bursts- or chunks?
The second way is to practice seeking less novelty. In her new book Uncertain, writer Maggie Jackson asks us to tune in during meetings, to actually listen, observe, and seek uncertainty in what we assume will be rote. “If we can focus on the now we will perceive more. The arousal sparked by surprise inspires the wakefulness that we need to actively interrogate our environment. Searching for clues and perceptions makes our brain perform better.” And to do so, we need to practice focusing. This is so hard, and that’s why Dan Harris says we all need to meditate.
Practice Being Still
“I have the attention span of a 6 month old golden retriever.” That’s former ABC News anchor and #1 bestselling author Dan Harris describing himself. Harris is one of America’s biggest proponents of meditation. That’s because meditation is proven by science to calm propulsive, impulsive, just can’t sit still tendencies. Data show that meditation helps boost emotion regulation and increase attention span. Harris and Jeff Warren co-wrote one of my favorite how-to books called Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics.
Listen to my interview with Dan Harris: