My oldest child moved in to his college dorm room this week for his freshman year – a huge step for him, and a big change for our family. Even if you haven’t experienced that change as a parent of your own child, you may have memories of your own first day of living in a college dorm, or beginning a big milestone experience of another kind.
As my wife and I helped him unpack and set up his room, we met his roommates from elsewhere in the country – and students also from elsewhere in the world – which prompted me to think of the hundreds of thousands of college students who are going through their version of the same transition at the same moment, and the millions of lives affected as a result. (If you haven’t read our piece on workplace empathy in the new academic year, now’s a great time to read it.)
As if on cue with the new academic year here in New England, where I live, the seasons are beginning to change. Hot Summer weather has started to give way to cooler temperatures. T-shirts are increasingly covered with jackets, or even sweaters. Perhaps not quite what Bob Dylan meant, but “the times they are a-changin’.“
The beginning of the academic year affects a myriad of people in different ways, whether you’re a parent or caretaker, a teacher, or involved in education in one of a million other ways. It’s such a widespread structure, that if you follow its rhythms, it’s easy to assume that people around you have the same rhythm to their year – but of course, this isn’t necessarily the case.
We all have rhythms to our year, both in our work life and in our personal life – our busy times, our slow(er) times, our steady times, our everything-is-changing times – but each person’s rhythms, even within the same workplace, are unique. If we don’t pay attention to our own rhythms, it’s easy to over-commit and either burnout with exhaustion or drop balls when we’re juggling too much. And if we’re not aware of others’ rhythms, or if we assume that the people we work with share the same rhythms as us, we quickly get into conflict or unmet expectations that can break apart otherwise-strong working relationships.
Bringing some awareness to your own – and others’ – rhythms and cycles can help us to find perspective and understanding of our own lives and the emotions we’re feeling, and support others more effectively.
This Week’s Tip:
Map out the rhythms of your year, and share them with a few colleagues – then ask them to share theirs with you. You could plot this out on a calendar, or a digital whiteboard of some form, or even just a simple document, and it could be in written form, or perhaps even some visual art – whatever works for you! Of course things change from year to year, but you probably have a good sense of when certain projects are more important, or what you need to have your attention on at different times of the year – including personal factors such as when your kids are at home. Once you’ve shared it with colleagues, ask them how closely their own rhythms of the year match yours. If they’re willing, suggest that they map out their own calendar of rhythms and then share it with you and others who might benefit from having the conversation.
Try these out this week, and let us know how it goes! We’d love to hear from you.
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