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The Dev Health OS

Cerebral Calisthenics 3

Now that you’ve identified your level of burnout, it’s time to recover. To get the most out of these CCs, be sure to refer to SECTION 2: BURNOUT PREVENTION in the DHOS manual.

Slowing down is the foundation of restful work. If we’re always working at a sprint, overdoing it, working too many hours, and time stuffing, then we’re essentially running from ourselves. We’re losing ourselves in work rather than enjoying our work, unhurried and free from stress in our bodies. We aren’t allowing ourselves to experience what truly matters. Slowing down creates a way to work and be productive in a way previously impossible, in a way that’s healthier for us, better for our companies, and better for everyone around us.

Let’s bring our inner Zack Morris and learn to pause time to our advantage. In order to slow down, you need to look at all the things in your life that keep you goinggoinggoinggoing, press pause, rearrange the picture, and then resume. The DHOS breaks this down into the following steps: Prioritize, Substitute, Under-Scheduling, Playing, Concentrating, Pacing, and Pausing to Relay.

CC 3.1: Building an Essentialism Plan

Prioritizing & Building your first Essentialism Plan. What are your major priorities in your work and life? Are the “hell yeahs” aligned with company principles, vision, OKRs, or the guiding metric of ultimate importance?

See SECTION 2: Using the Tools in the DHOS manual for more info about how to create your Essentialism Plan.

How to Create Your Essentialism Plan

  • Complete this prior to starting work (e.g., complete this template the day before beginning the work)

  • Schedule about 30 minutes to complete the plan

  • Always keep this visible. Stick it on your computer monitor, print it out and put it on your desk or a whiteboard.

  • All work here should fall into the category of offensive work.

    • Offensive work can be described as work that “moves the needle” or “gets things done in relation to your goals.” Examples of this include completing a feature, launching a campaign, reviewing a design.
    • Alternatively, defensive work can be described as work that is necessary but doesn’t move the needle towards completed goals. Examples include replying to emails, recurring meetings, sending messages in Slack.

  • This is only for the Hell Yeahs. This is not a primary to-do list with tasks. Items here should address a bigger picture or scope.

  • Items in an Essentialism Plan start with actionable terms such as the following:

    • Launch
    • Start
    • Review
    • Complete
    • Support
    • Ask
    • 1st draft, 2nd draft, 3rd draft, final draft

  • The number of Areas of Focus and points in each category can be altered for what you need.

  • We begin with items related to health because this is the foundation of what work we want to do.

  • “Future” items should describe areas of work that you may like to research or explore but are not of ultimate importance now.

[Start Date] - [End Date] [Duration (ex: 2 weeks)]


Personal Health (The Foundation)
>


Work area of focus 1
>


Work area of focus 2
>


Work area of focus 3
>


Work area of focus 4
>


Future
>

CC 3.2: Substituting

Returning to the time budget, we cannot add a new activity without eliminating one that demands equivalent (or greater) time and energy from our schedule. We go over our time budget if we don’t eliminate what we add. This is how we can easily go from a 40-hour work week to 50 hours or more. If we don’t substitute, we’ll just keep overspending our time. Take a moment and look at your schedule and make note of what can be easily substituted if a new demand arises. When you have a plan, it’ll be much easier to swap out requests.

CC 3.3: Under-scheduling

Underscheduling positions us to be satisfied with our work and allows us the potential to exceed our expectations. We allow ourselves more time than we think we need to complete a task and a comfortable margin to accommodate the unexpected.

How to under-schedule

  • Write a Daily Action Plan
  • Give yourself wide margins when scheduling meetings, travel, and deep work. Be honest with yourself when it comes to time commitments; don’t expect traffic to be light or a colleague to end a meeting early when scheduling your time. In fact, plan for the opposite.
  • Schedule breaks throughout the day and your lunch away from the desk.
  • Schedule transition time
  • Have a 72-hour moratorium on activities that add two or more hours weekly to your schedule.

CC 3.4: Playing

Playing forces us to be in the present moment. Playing is active, engaging, unpredictable, challenging, and fun, yet it also demands our full attention and focus. Our brains explore, build, and strengthen new neural pathways through play. It has been shown that after we engage in a playful experience, we return to work more energized and experience improvements in brain function, creativity, social skills, and cooperation.

How to Play

  • Identify hobbies or activities you’ve always wanted to try. Start by blocking out just a few hours a week on your schedule to explore these options and protect that time.
  • Find something you can do for 10-15 minutes per day between working. For example, Gabe brings a basketball to the office and practices dribbling outside. This resets the brain and introduces movement into the workday.
  • Find something you are purposely not “good at” but enjoy doing.
  • Read for pleasure, not for purpose.
  • Look into alternative sports/hobbies like indoor rock climbing, aerial silks, surfing, paintball, mountain biking, or dirt biking

CC 3.5: Concentrating

When we focus our attention on one thing at a time, we might be doing less at once but more overall. We’re creating the opportunity to enter into what psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls a “flow state,” a period of time when we become “deeply focused” on our current task, working with “effortless momentum.” When we are in flow, we experience a strong sense of clarity, breezing through obstacles, making movement on tasks, and feeling a sense of general happiness while we work.

How to Concentrate:

  • Turn your phone on Do Not Disturb and turn off computer notifications during deep work. (note: make sure to give your teammates a heads-up so they don’t think they’re being ignored!) You can actually live a life free of most notifications and still be very successful at work.
  • Do a notification cleanse on your phone and aggressively turn off most notifications except for text messages/calls.
  • Don’t get sucked into being on Slack all day long. Turn off notifications permanently and schedule time to check Slack or regularly use their Do Not Disturb features.
  • Take social media off your phone and schedule time to use it on a computer.
  • Get a nice pair of headphones that has noise-canceling features.
  • Listen to Brain.FM while doing deep work. They use a science-first approach to create music that helps you concentrate.
  • Build yourself a comfortable work-from-home environment. Maybe that means investing in a special chair or a desk that effortlessly raises and lowers to accommodate times when you’d like to stand. Or maybe that means creating a work-friendly outdoor space or putting up artwork that inspires you. Remember, these are not frivolous expenses; they are investments in your overall productivity and well-being.

CC 3.6: Pacing

When we pace ourselves, we are regularly taking a moment to stop and assess the present moment. In practice, pacing looks like breathwork, meditating, stretching, walking, or perhaps playing with our pets. These moments give us a chance to process how we spent the last hour or so, let go of anything bothersome, release any tension or distractions we begin to carry with us and prepare our minds for the next section of work. We don’t get “wound up” in our work, therefore, we don’t need to unwind.

How to pace yourself

  • Starting the day slower helps keep a similar pace throughout the day instead of starting fast and crashing midway. Create a wider margin in the morning where you can regularly have 15-30 minutes to write, read, meditate, pray, or do something that calms your mind and body.
  • Don’t look at technology, social media, or the news when you first wake up. Purchase an alarm clock that isn’t your phone and leave your phone in another room.
  • Take regular breaks at work where you can move your body. Go for a walk, dribble a basketball, stretch, or do some yoga.
  • Purposely notice how fast you’re walking, speaking, eating, or thinking. If it’s fast, try something that is soothing for you like meditation, laughter yoga, or even just breathing.
  • Practicing wide margins can help you pace better. Give yourself ample time to complete work or prepare for/transition between meetings.

CC 3.7: Pausing

Sometimes you just need to stop and walk away from work, even if just for a few minutes. Here are some suggestions for pausing before things get out of control.

How to pause

  • Be aware of the “critical voices” in your head. Maybe even write them down. These voices are not the loving part of you and are often pushing you harder than is healthy. Identifying critical parent voices can help you replace them with healthier thoughts, which reduces some of the pressure you may feel.
  • Try laughter yoga. Laughter yoga is simply laughing with others or watching a YouTube video on purpose. It may feel strange at first, but your brain doesn’t know the difference between “fake” laughter and real laughter so you get the same neurochemical boost from laughing with a friend or at a funny TV show. Plus you can do it for much longer and at any time you want.
  • Call a friend who will let you vent about something that frustrates you. Let them know in advance that you don’t want them to help you solve the problem; you just want them to listen.
  • Try building a consistent meditation practice with any app or style of meditation. Being able to meditate for 5-10 minutes five times per week is so much more important than meditating for 1 hour per day and falling off after two weeks. Consistency is key.