Staying Efficient, Preventing Burnout

 


A brief diversion here from the series I have undertaken about Vidarbha sarees. 


Recently someone asked me to write about how to increase efficiency in day to day life in the USA.
I checked with her offline to know a little bit more about her. Turns out she is an engineer, married, has a teenager at home and is currently working long hours from home and feeling a burn out.
 Her questions were simple. How many hours do you spend in the kitchen daily ? How to manage cooking, cleaning responsibilities? How to mentor a teenager ? Do I recommend hired help ?

First and foremost I like to clarify that I am no professional counselor or a spiritual guru. I am just an ordinary woman like most of you who know me. 
What I have is just my personal experiences living in the USA for last 31 years, balancing a home and a career and raising two kids who are now adults . 
What I can relate with is the stress that a woman like me faces on a day to day basis. And stress can get really bad sometimes. 

I will share with you my recent brush with stress. It was just 2 months back, in October. Everything was going on as usual, or so I thought. Until one day things happened differently. 

It was midweek, post lunch shift. I saw a young woman 20 or 21 years old who was accompanied by her mom. She had a lot of complex issues dating several years back into her childhood. I was seeing her that day because her regular physician was on vacation. She took up a lot of time to sort out things. I needed to place orders for IV hydration and pain medication. As per protocol I went and personally informed the nurse on duty about these orders. He took note and told me he was alone that day and had 2-3 patients ahead of this one so it would take him some time to give her these medications. I said fine and went about catching up with remaining patients on my schedule.

Once I was done with the last patient I closed my office and went home by 4 pm.
For some reason around 6:30 pm I checked my work phone for an unrelated reason and saw a message from the nurse saying the pain medication I had ordered was out of stock. He wanted me to tell him what else to do! 
I called back but it was too late. The clinic was closed. The nurse had reached out to a colleague and they had transferred the patient to ER for the IV pain medication because she was in a lot of pain. 

I had faulted ! I had left the office without checking on the patient or giving my personal number to the nurse to call me if he needed something. More frighteningly, I had completely forgotten about this patient. In the past if I forgot while leaving the office I would soon remember while driving . This time that did not happen. If not for the accidental access to the work phone I would not have remembered until the next day ! This had never happened in my last 24 years at the job !!

Next day I went over to my colleague’s office and apologized profusely for the lapse and for the inconvenience to him to make decisions in my absence. He was forgiving . But I was thoroughly disturbed by the incident. How could I do this ? 

Just as I was trying to process this one incident from the previous day  I landed into another soup that day. I lost my temper on the phone with a patient’s relative who was making, what I thought, were unreasonable demands and accusations. 

These were red flags !! This was not me. The profession I’m in carries certain liabilities besides having a strict code of conduct. I realized that I was vulnerable for making mistakes and I couldn’t risk it. I had the insight that I needed a break before I break down . In fact I did break down as I narrated the incidents to my chief. She was very understanding. She asked if everything was ok with my family etc.

That’s the thing that baffled me. Everything was ok. It had been nearly a year since I had lost my father. His first death anniversary would be in a few weeks. A few weeks prior was the anniversary of my brother’s passing. These remain sensitive moments but I thought I was coping alright. Everything was ok with rest of the family. There have been a few extra responsibilities on my shoulder in India since my father’s passing. I was also called to work extra shifts each week for the past few weeks before this episode. May be that had taken a toll. I don’t know. But I did recognize the signs of the burn out. 

And I took action. I spoke to the right authorities and cut down my work to half schedule for the remainder 2 weeks before I was to leave for India. My mental balance was a priority. Had I not done that I was going to crash hard and quite likely risk someone else’s life as well due to negligence.

I am fine now. 

Why I am sharing the incident ? Because it can happen to anyone. It is important that you RECOGNIZE when you face a BURN OUT.

It is essential to have a SUPPORT SYSTEM around you when it happens. Family, friends, medical professionals, your spiritual leanings. Everything becomes important. GET the HELP

And do what is necessary during these times to GET BACK TO HEALTH so you can function strong again. Being in denial about such vulnerabilities does no good. 

Regarding increasing efficiency, KEEP LIFE SIMPLE And PRIORITIES straight. Don’t overthink.

When I was raising young kids, they were the priority. I cut back work hours so I was with them when they were out of school. This may not be possible for single parents or people with more financial hardships or some who are self employed. I can understand. I was fortunate to be able to do it.
Regarding how to mentor kids, I don’t think I ever needed to consciously mentor them for their academic assignments. Regarding work ethics and other values we just communicated casually along the years. The real mentoring happens without words. They imbibe what they see. So just being careful in our conduct does most of the work in this respect.

I wasn’t a party person at all. I didn’t throw big parties at the slightest excuse. Yet I tried to attend important events in the lives of people that mattered . Close friends and family. Their milestone birthdays, anniversaries, kids’ graduations, weddings. I kept up those commitments diligently. 

Mundane things like cooking, cleaning had to be done. But since I was the only person juggling these, I kept it simple. Every day meals were simple, not elaborate with plateful of items at each meal . I would cook on the weekends and then less during the week. 
I have this habit of cleaning the dishes, pots and pans on the spot as they are done using. I don’t leave them waiting in the sink. 

Unlike India we don’t have daily maid service. Initially I used to clean the entire home by myself. But after a few years it became impossible to keep up, especially the bathrooms. So I would call hired help when needed to do the thorough cleaning. In the interim my husband would help vacuum the floor and I would mop every few days. We don’t get dust like in India. So every day mopping and dusting is not necessary. 

As I had mentioned in my earlier posts, laundry chores never came to my share 😃. My husband took charge of these and would do it once a week on the weekends. 

Some days were harder than others at work. We just took it easy after coming home on those days. Ironically it always relaxed me to work in the kitchen. 

I have always been an early riser. Come rain or shine, I’m up at 4 am. Between 4 am to 6 am I accomplish a lot on any day, doing my yoga and meditation, catching up with messages from India, responding to emails etc. Driving to work about 6 am or earlier, I listen in on stotrams. Gives me the grounding I need for rest of the day. I’m the first one to enter the building, usually more than an hour before my first patient. And once I’m there I make use of every single minute at work to STAY ON TOP OF THINGS , even in my lunch hour and in between patients. I am also the first person to leave the office and when I do, my work is all cleaned up for the day. No charts remaining to be closed. No prescriptions unsigned. No messages unresponded . No reports unseen and untackled. 

When I am at work I shut out thoughts about home.
When I leave the office for the most part I leave the work thoughts behind. 

After coming home I change from work clothes and get right into the kitchen to fix the night’s dinner. I have no interest in TV so it feels like I have plenty of free time in the evening. I eat my dinner by 5:30 pm. Rest of the family tends to eat later after their TV news, shows and what not. I wrap up the kitchen , catch up with rest of the family’s day happenings and get ready for a little reading of a spiritual text before going to bed. By 9:30 pm I’m in deep slumber. Always tried to PUT AWAY WORRIES WHEN GOING TO SLEEP.

As Tukaram Maharaj ( Sant Tukaram) says so eloquently: Chalo vaatey aamhi tuzaachi aadhaar
Chaalavise bhaar savey maazaa
चालो वाटे आम्ही तुझाची आधार
चालविसी भार सवे माझा
Do your day’s work and leave the rest on God. It has worked well for me so far and I don’t see why it will not in the future. 

That’s my story in a nutshell. If it helps anyone, that would be nice. If not, that’s fine too. They may find better guidance from someone more qualified. 

Saree is a cotton ilkal in orange with black chikki paras border and the classic red and white bands on the pallu.



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