A few days ago a friend told me, "Urte, I have to apply for Hartz 4." Then I realized at once that Corona hits the self-employed and freelancers hard. Orders are falling away because companies are cancelling further training programmes. Projects are stopped or put on hold indefinitely. Lecture entertainers are superfluous from now on. Those who have a permanent job are lucky and have an "unconditional basic income" at least for a certain period of time. The world has become noticeably more volatile, uncertain and complex. The word "volatile" is also used to describe it. What was safe yesterday is shifting in the twinkling of an eye and is literally pulling the ground from under our feet.
Seeing crisis as an opportunity
Companies are quickly trying to catch up on digitization and, wherever possible, send employees to their home office. From one day to the next, even true online followers are trying to acquire Zoom and WebEx skills and move their offers to the Internet. According to a study, 10 to 19-year-olds spend 287 minutes a day on audiovisual media even before the current time. That is almost 5 hours a day. The rest of the people are now trying to catch up. In addition to the overstrain, the social isolation that will soon set in and the staring at the screens, unfavourable postures due to prolonged sitting, which also causes back problems, are added. According to DAK, this is already 52%. This alone costs the German health system 52 billion EUR/year. And the trend is rising.
Overload and increasing complexity. What can be an answer? Four tips from my experience.
1. Goodbye optimisation mania
The time of the optimization mania is over. The skills we need today and tomorrow include attention, concentration and active listening. Regardless of industry and profession. "Method surfing" is of limited help in this respect. Namely only if you get stuck with a method that helps to change habits and develop new routines. Therefore at this point a simple method - the pomodoro technics.
- Formulate a task or an objective in writing
- Set aside all digital and other interrupters
- Set an alarm clock to 25 minutes and
- Focused work on the topic.
After 25 minutes the time is over and you treat yourself to a reward. This is important and serves for relaxation. This can be a coffee, some relaxation exercises, a short walk or a short answer to the WhatsApp/Telegram/Threema messages. If the task has not yet been completed, simply reserve another 25 minutes for the afternoon or tomorrow. The advantage: By focusing on the process and not on the result, the pressure on ourselves or teams is reduced. In addition, it allows for open and focused thinking and acting and thus leads to a higher quality result.
2. Learn „Unlearning“
Every thought or movement is stored biologically and this is exactly the moment when we have this thought or perform the movement. If emotions are connected with this thought or movement, this is immediately stored deeper in our head. If we now have this thought frequently, our brain pushes the "pattern" into the subconsciousness all by itself, so that it is more or less automatically executed. This means that we can also unlearn certain things or thoughts by consciously not using or simply "forgetting" new learning and old things. This works for 4 things at a time - e.g. four new words. (Therefore here are only 4 tips. :-)). In order for these 4 elements to become firmly established in the mind, however, they must be repeated regularly. 20 times over a period of 4 weeks is a good start.
3. Strengthen body and mind at once
Now there was not much movement in tip 1 and 2. It's coming up now. Movement means not only to move the body, but also the mind. Best together and at the same time. This not only helps to build up external strength, but also internal strength - similar to bamboo. Bamboo is the most stable organic material and at the same time highly flexible. So flexibility is also an answer to complexity and overstrain. In the case of bamboo, this is due to the inner and outer structure of the plant. We can do it in a similar way, for example with Asian health exercises from QiTIME. QiTIME is an active build-up program for relaxation, fitness and new energy and helps people to strengthen body and mind at the same time. It is based on traditional Asian health exercises and elements of martial arts. These help to find inner and outer peace and to concentrate better. They are taught in a combination of online and on-site courses and can be easily integrated into everyday life. But since we are in the home office, you can simply start with the QiTIME App starten, die es seit neuestem für kleines Geld im Apple AppStore which is now available for little money in the Apple AppStore. And if you say we need it for Android, too, then please contact the team.
4. Stadtbewegung – Sport und Bewegung für alle
Dieser Tipp geht zur Zeit nur an Berliner und draußen seit heute auch erst wieder, wenn sich die gegenwärtige Lage entspannt hat. Seit 2017 bietet Stadtbewegung e.V. Sport und Bewegung im öffentlichen Raum. Der Verein vernetzt dabei Menschen jeder Altersstufe, aller Herkünfte und sozialen Schichten mit niedrigschwelligen Sportangeboten. Dazu gehören Laufen, Gymnastik, Qi Gong. Einiges davon demnächst auch online. Einfach mal reinschauen. Wer mag, kann auch einfach seine eigene Trainingsgruppe aufmachen, um selbst wirksam zu werden.
Alle 4 Tipps kann man natürlich auch bei der Rückkehr in die Normalität einfach weiter anwenden. Wenn ihr weitere Tipps habt, die ich oder andere unbedingt ausprobieren sollten, postet sie direkt unter dem LinkedIn Artikel oder schickt sie an urte(at)qilabs.team
