I don’t know about you, but my community was knocked down by Helene and then kicked around by Milton. My family was lucky — we had minimal damage, meaning we didn’t flood and didn’t have trees come through our house. Yet the gratitude I felt after Helene has been replaced by exhaustion. I feel worn out.
I know I am not alone. I see it in the faces of my staff and hear it in the edginess of everyday interactions with the check-out clerk, the vet technician, etc. Even the piles of debris, quickly and carefully created after Helene, are now just mounds blocking neighbors’ views of one another for the indefinite future.
These past four weeks have been hard. In facing the weeks since the hurricanes, what wisdom can we bring to our workplaces, to our communities, to our families? Where is the room for the messiness wrought by natural disaster, in an era that demands ever higher productivity, super-engaged parenting, and high EQ friendships? Before we can even hope to answer these questions, we need some radical acceptance.
Like many, my tendency is to just push through…to pump my arms through the finish line…to grin and bear it and hold out for the prize. This tenacity is fantastic in many situations but has served me poorly in this post-storm reality. The fact is, there is no pushing through to the other side. It will take 6 months for the trash and debris piles to be fully picked up. It will take years for our cities and communities to recover. The low-grade anxiety, sadness, anger (perhaps stages of grief) in the air is the slow realization of just this fact.
Accepting this reality can give us an opportunity to build better paths forward…to ask better questions. What does thriving look like in this current situation? What does a compassionate leader look like in the present moment? How do we meet our goals while granting each other space for dealing with this new situation? How will I know when it is time to adjust our approach to work? These are great questions to explore with our leadership teams.
For Live Tampa Bay, we are bringing more intention to our work by slowing down, making space, and having grace for others and ourselves. In the process, I’ve found the following three practices to be helpful:
Slow down: Many of us are goal oriented and over-committed. Many people close their eyes each night to mental “to-do lists,” and when there is a spare moment, they see what else they can do to cross a task off the list. Now, however, is the time to slow down. But how? We are hurtling toward the end of 2024 and have so much left to close out and to set up before 2025.
I have started to push back many of the meetings that crop up on my calendar until after January 1, 2025. I have made peace with the fact that now is not the time for expanding the number of partners, but showing up for the partners and staff in which I am currently invested. I have asked my staff to do this as well. With the remaining time, I am asking my staff to simplify their focus to their top priorities daily. As Cal Newport and many other productivity pundits point out, many people over-commit, confuse business with productivity, and move too quickly from task-to-task. Taking time to think through next steps and focus on the task at hand, so it is seen through to completion is satisfying and rewarding…and, even in the best of times, prevents burnout.
Make space: After a natural disaster, you need space for supporting family, showing up for your community, and making space for your own response to the disaster. If you are only working on 2-3 priorities each day and limiting the number of random meetings on your calendar, then you will have flexibility with your productive time. This may look like working 10am – 6pm because you slept terribly the night before because you didn’t have AC. Or it could look like 8am – noon if you accomplish your priorities, which will allow you to show up to the Insurance Village to get help with submitting your claim.
Try bracketing productivity time with 15 minutes in advance to prepare and 15-minutes of follow up. This allows for organizing thoughts and properly closing out important tasks, and it’s something that many highly effective leaders do in their day-to-day life according to Forbes. However, after an event that leaves a community destroyed, this practice is especially useful for anyone who needs to stay organized and productive.
Also try limiting email and text checking to twice daily if you can. You will be amazed at how much you can accomplish and how much easier it gets when you shut off email and texts and focus on 2-3 priorities. Of course, we must check and respond to e-mail, but limiting it to 2 or 3 intentional email/text checking periods will help you stay focused on that which is most important.
Show gratitude and have grace: Now is the time to try to close out your professional and personal days with a quick text, call, or email of gratitude. While this is always a good habit, the stress of the aftermath of natural disasters really bring this practice to the front of mind. We can be aware of all the other tasks that a person could be doing after a hurricane–instead of responding to your question about that RFP or getting back to you regarding a training. Expressing gratitude for the everyday ways in which others show support and aid fosters connection and overall mental wellbeing.
Have grace for others and for yourself. To find grace we must leave space and time to be fully present, which is why slowing down is so important. It leaves time and space for true connection and support. Right now, this is precisely what our friends, family, and employees need. An insincere, “How’s it going?” or a rushed, “How are you?” can leave people feeling alienated and lonely in their discombobulation. Now, I am a private person and not someone who enjoys talking at length about my feelings with colleagues, but a sincere acknowledgement of the impact of these storms, and an earnest offer of support goes a long way.
Share resources: And if you need space, time, and grace matched with some organizational support, here is a good list of resources. If your organization was impacted by the hurricanes, here are some resources that you can tap into today:
If your organization needs recovery assistance, here are some resources:
- Florida Disaster Division of Emergency Management
- Florida Nonprofit Alliance Disaster Resource Page
- Link to Governor DeSantis’s Executive Order
- Volunteer Florida (includes information about cleanups, legal aid, homeowners’ assistance, and individual services referrals)
- Volunteer Connect (list your volunteer needs)
- Disaster Resiliency and Recovery Resources: A Guide for Rural Communities (FEMA)
- Tools to Recover (FEMA)
- Florida Chamber Safety Council Hurricane Resources
- County Emergency Management website list
- Community Foundation of Tampa Bay
Our thoughts are with those who have been directly impacted as they recover and rebuild from these historic storms.
Yours in service,
Jennifer Webb