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

give yourself permission

Give Yourself Permission

Give Yourself Permission

I've seen the phrase "Give yourself permission" a lot recently. From podcasts to social media posts, it's like it was a message I needed to hear. Give yourself permission. The synchronicity of it has not been lost on me and it's made me think about how much of our lives revolve around seekingpermission, rather than granting it to ourselves.

It started when we were kids: permission slips sent home so we could go on field trips, asking our teachers if we could use the restroom during class, asking if we could sit with someone at lunch. While these examples may seem small, they add up over time.

We've gotten so used to seeking permission from others that now, as adults, we often forget how to ask ourselves permission to do things.