Carolyn Birsky
How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff

If you’ve been reading the news or your LinkedIn feed, you’ve likely seen the layoffs happening across the tech industry. Maybe you yourself have been impacted. Whether this is your first layoff or you’ve been a part of one before, the experience can be quite disheartening.

You go from having a full work day to hours on hours of open time. You had a group of colleagues you worked with daily and suddenly you’re no longer interacting with those folks on a regular basis. There are moments when your new found freedom feels amazing - and others when it’s absolutely brutal.

So how do you support yourself through it?

Below are some ways in which I’ve been taking care of myself throughout my own layoff journey. Hope you find them helpful too!

How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff
Carolyn Birsky
Start, Stop, Continue, + Support

In business, there is an exercise called Stop, Start, Continue. The purpose of the exercise is to enable teams to give feedback, clarify priorities, and create agreed upon next steps. By putting all of these ideas out in the open, it’s easier to get everyone on the same page about what action needs to be taken. It’s often used at the end of project sprints or the end of a quarter to help teams self-evaluate and improve upon processes for the next project or quarter ahead.

It can also be a helpful exercise for your own self-reflection.

Start, Stop, Continue, + Support
Carolyn Birsky
How To Support Your Grieving Team

We’re all experiencing grief right now. It might look and feel a bit different from what normally comes to mind when we think of “grief”, but ultimately that’s what it is.

We’re grieving the loss of life - both the actual loss of life of those who have died of COVID-19, as well as the sudden loss of our “normal” lives. It feels like overnight the world we knew changed and we’re mourning what we once took for granted like meeting friends for dinner, going to the gym, or even shaking hands with someone we just met. Many of us are grieving the loss of stable income and aren’t sure when we’ll be able to find jobs again.

We’re also grieving the loss of the futures we had in mind for ourselves - whether it’s postponing a wedding or graduation, changes to who is allowed in the delivery room when giving birth, the move we were supposed to make, or the new job we were supposed to start. We had plans and dreams that suddenly seemed to have vanished or have drastically changed on us.

Nothing feels certain - other than the fact that we’re experiencing grief.

As we deal with our own grief, it’s important to remember that in many ways this is a collective grief. Every single one of us is affected by this pandemic in our own way.

This is particularly important to remember when it comes to work.

How To Support Your Grieving Team
Carolyn Birsky
What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition

How are you holding up, friend?

I hope you’ve been finding ways to have fun and appreciate the good things in life amidst all of this uncertainty. To help you feel inspired and hopefully discover some new things to keep you occupied in quarantine, I’ve pulled together a list of things I’ve been loving lately.

Each item on the list is something I’ve personally been using for inspiration, stress management, or just for fun.

What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition
Carolyn Birsky
The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

Over the past week, several friends and clients have mentioned the difficulty they’re having adjusting to working from home. Maybe you’re feeling that way too?

As someone who has spent a few years working from home and on distributed teams, I thought it might be helpful to share my best do’s and don’ts of working from home to help make your adjustment easier.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well.

The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff

How To Take Care Of Yourself Post-Layoff

If you’ve been reading the news or your LinkedIn feed, you’ve likely seen the layoffs happening across the tech industry. Maybe you yourself have been impacted. Whether this is your first layoff or you’ve been a part of one before, the experience can be quite disheartening.

You go from having a full work day to hours on hours of open time. You had a group of colleagues you worked with daily and suddenly you’re no longer interacting with those folks on a regular basis. There are moments when your new found freedom feels amazing - and others when it’s absolutely brutal.

So how do you support yourself through it?

Below are some ways in which I’ve been taking care of myself throughout my own layoff journey. Hope you find them helpful too!

Start, Stop, Continue, + Support

Start, Stop, Continue, + Support

In business, there is an exercise called Stop, Start, Continue. The purpose of the exercise is to enable teams to give feedback, clarify priorities, and create agreed upon next steps. By putting all of these ideas out in the open, it’s easier to get everyone on the same page about what action needs to be taken. It’s often used at the end of project sprints or the end of a quarter to help teams self-evaluate and improve upon processes for the next project or quarter ahead.

It can also be a helpful exercise for your own self-reflection.

How To Support Your Grieving Team

How To Support Your Grieving Team

We’re all experiencing grief right now. It might look and feel a bit different from what normally comes to mind when we think of “grief”, but ultimately that’s what it is.

We’re grieving the loss of life - both the actual loss of life of those who have died of COVID-19, as well as the sudden loss of our “normal” lives. It feels like overnight the world we knew changed and we’re mourning what we once took for granted like meeting friends for dinner, going to the gym, or even shaking hands with someone we just met. Many of us are grieving the loss of stable income and aren’t sure when we’ll be able to find jobs again.

We’re also grieving the loss of the futures we had in mind for ourselves - whether it’s postponing a wedding or graduation, changes to who is allowed in the delivery room when giving birth, the move we were supposed to make, or the new job we were supposed to start. We had plans and dreams that suddenly seemed to have vanished or have drastically changed on us.

Nothing feels certain - other than the fact that we’re experiencing grief.

As we deal with our own grief, it’s important to remember that in many ways this is a collective grief. Every single one of us is affected by this pandemic in our own way.

This is particularly important to remember when it comes to work.

What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition

What I'm Loving Lately: Quarantine Edition

How are you holding up, friend?

I hope you’ve been finding ways to have fun and appreciate the good things in life amidst all of this uncertainty. To help you feel inspired and hopefully discover some new things to keep you occupied in quarantine, I’ve pulled together a list of things I’ve been loving lately.

Each item on the list is something I’ve personally been using for inspiration, stress management, or just for fun.

The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

The Do's And Don'ts Of Working From Home

Over the past week, several friends and clients have mentioned the difficulty they’re having adjusting to working from home. Maybe you’re feeling that way too?

As someone who has spent a few years working from home and on distributed teams, I thought it might be helpful to share my best do’s and don’ts of working from home to help make your adjustment easier.

Here’s what I’ve found to work well.

Taking Care Of Yourself In The Midst Of Uncertainty

Taking Care Of Yourself In The Midst Of Uncertainty

To say that things feel uncertain right now is an understatement.

We’re in the midst of a pandemic and trying to understand how we continue with our lives while staying home, what this all means for our economy, how we support one another, and how to parse through lots of mixed messages in the media. With many companies instituting work from home policies, universities moving classes to a virtual format, and restaurants closing, everyone is trying to adjust to a new “normal”.

We don’t know what will happen next and how long things will feel out of sorts, which is leading to lots of stress - the sort of stress that leads to people hoarding toilet paper and hand sanitizer.

It’s totally normal and natural to feel out of control right now given the level of uncertainty we all face. At the same time, there is also a lot in our control too.

Setting Boundaries At Work

Setting Boundaries At Work

Today I want to talk about something that I’ve noticed a lot of people struggling with lately: boundary setting at work.

With emails, texts, and tools like Slack, we’re in constant communication with our coworkers. This can be a huge benefit when you’re trying to meet deadlines or have a team working from various locations. In these moments, technology is amazing!

At the same time, it can be hard to disconnect after hours or even focus during the day with lots of different apps constantly pinging you. If we’re not careful, this constant connection can inadvertently lead to a culture of working too many hours, pressure to respond immediately to messages, and a feeling of overwhelm.

7 Ways To Practice More Gratitude

7 Ways To Practice More Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving friends!

It's that time of year where all of a sudden the air is abuzz with talk of "giving thanks" and "practicing gratitude". We are reminded to be more mindful of the things we are blessed with in our lives, even when it feels like things are tough and stressful.

And I'm going to add my voice to the topic. Because while #gratitude is trendy, it's actually really, really important. AND it's something that we could all be better at incorporating into our lives all year round instead of just around the holidays. 

But why exactly is gratitude important? And how do we go about bringing more of it into our lives on a daily basis?

Why We Sometimes Resist Change (Even When We're Miserable)

Why We Sometimes Resist Change (Even When We're Miserable)

Change. It's an inevitable part of human life. Every single day we wake up is different from the day before, regardless of how monotonous our lives might feel at times. 

If you look back at our history, change is a constant. We physically evolved into the species that we are today, country lines were redrawn countless times, people migrated all over the earth. Over time, inventions were created that forever changed the way we consume food and information, as well our ability to communicate with people on a global scale. Even in the last 5 years our lives have changed drastically with the rise of social media and usage of the internet across the world.

We are so used to change and its inevitability that you'd think we would accept it's presence in our lives, right? And yet, there are times where we are so caught up in our own lives that change seems terrifying and we resist it. Hard.