How to Work in Tech
(and not lose yourself)
For those of you working in the tech space, I see you.
It is an exciting space to be in. There is so much opportunity for positive impact, which is why many of us decided to work in the space.
It is also challenging. The burnout is real. The turnover is fast. The pace is frantic. The stakes, even when we’re not saving lives, can feel just as high.
When we see one of our clients have outstanding results from our hard work, when we see a non-profit who has tripled their fundraising or trained people in the field to use a tool to improve their funding opportunities, it feels so worthwhile. And, these results ARE tremendous, and are worthy of celebration.
We don’t often have the time to celebrate them, however. Because we have to move on to the 20 other tasks on our calendars, in Slack, in our project management tool, now.
Whether we acknowledge it or not, this constant pace and pressure, whether we feel it being placed on us or are placing it on ourselves (usually both), has a detrimental impact on our bandwidth, on our energy, and on our health.
We’re talking about impact, here, and this is an unintended impact of work that is meant to make a positive impact. In order to make that positive impact, we have to prioritize our approach to ourselves - to our readiness, to our wellness (an over-used word that is relevant here) and to our bandwidth.
In order to increase the bandwidth needed to do this work WELL, in all aspects of that word, we have to create it ourselves. No amount of efficient software or processes will create it for you - as we so often tell our clients, technology amplifies the issues that are already there, they don’t automatically fix them.
We have to address the urgency. Because the urgency exists not only in our schedules and in our communications, but in ourselves.
Start with incorporating pausing, throughout your day. Before you join each meeting, inhale so that your belly expands (instead of your shoulders rising), and exhale through the mouth, four times. Just try it, and see how this affects you.
We have to begin simply. With re-training our body/mind with body/mind exercises, and THEN designing our calendars and our processes to support the decisions that come from these exercises.
Whether you are in a decision-making position for your organization or team, you are in one for yourself. Starting small and being consistent, with short breathing or other body/mind exercises during your day, will give you perspective on the approaches and actions over which you have control. It will give you agency.
Isn’t our work with clients about increasing their agency? To do that well, sustainably, equitably, for ourselves and our teams, let’s do it for ourselves.
If you’re not subscribed, join us here below as we dive more deeply into these topics (and I share an expanding library of more mind/body practices to apply in the day-to-day):