Reestablishing Practices While Working from Home - a Reflection
[This reflection is from Yuko Kachinsky, Director of Student Data, Student Data and Registrar, The University of St. Thomas. She is a current participant in the MOR Leaders Program, and sent this reflection to her cohort on April 17, 2020. Yuko may be reached at [email protected].]
Our backyard that just started turning green was again covered with snow on Easter in Minnesota.
After the first MOR session, with help from Peggy at our follow up coaching session, I set my goals and action items. One of my action items is shifting to intentional response to urgent matters. In order to apply that in my practice, I stopped taking phone calls when I am having a one-on-one. Even though I am not meeting my direct reports in person during the COVID-19 pandemic, there are plenty of distractions on my computer screen. I close my email and TEAMS on my computer so that I do not receive pop up notifications. By doing so, I noticed I was fully attentive during conversations.
However, working from home brought another means of interruption – my daughter. My daughter started distance learning on April 7. She knew not to bother me when I was on a Zoom meeting. When I was not, she would come for help or ask me schoolwork related questions throughout the day. I responded to all the questions immediately. After a week, I finally realized “oh, wait. I need to pause to assess true urgency.” I’ve tried it when she came to me for a help. I told her that I was in the middle of something and asked if she needed my help right now. She responded she could wait. I made sure to tell her how long it would take for me to finish so she knew what to expect.
Another time, my daughter came to me with a question, I paused and asked if she could wait. She told me that she neeed an immediate guidance since her Zoom session for school was about to start. I paused – is this an opportunity to delegate? I asked if dad was available and if he could help. She responded that she would ask dad. I overheard that he said he could help. Ha!
Snow slowly melted this week with April sunshine’s help. MOR coaches, MOR cohort members and St. Thomas cohort teammates, you are my April sunshine. You help me clear the snow so I can see the green grass. Grass is not fully green yet in my yard, but I will see fully-grown grass someday soon.
Warm regards,
Yuko
P.S. Enjoy the pictures from Easter (left) and April 17 (right)