By Romée Jager
Do you feel overwhelmed and overloaded before the day has started? You are not alone! It is 7:30 AM, and I started working half an hour ago. Even though it is only the beginning of my working day, I already feel way behind. I am staring at my screen and scrolling through my emails, marking them as unread again and giving them a color code.
I feel overwhelmed. I don’t know where to start. My solution? Making myself a second cup of coffee. While the smell of freshly roasted coffee beans reaches my nostrils, I think about how to structure my tasks for the day.
I wonder why we ‘’only’’ have 24 hours in a day, and I start wondering whether I will make it in time for my dinner appointment, as I will probably have to work late again. I feel like my mind is going in a downward spiral, and suddenly I remember something that Angie Weinberger once told me: ‘’it is not that we need more hours in a day; instead, we should prioritize better’’.
It would be great if somebody could invent the time machine and double the time we have in a day. But let’s face it, as the time machine has not been invented (yet), we need to find ways to boost our productivity by getting more done in the time we have.
Peak, Through, Recovery
If you enter ‘’Improving Productivity’’ on Google, more than 226 million results pop up, including many articles providing productivity hacks. We have already provided you with Angie’s seven productivity hacks.
However, it is fundamental to consider your biorhythm when implementing those tips. Knowing your chronotype is key.
Instead of just scrolling through our emails and randomly doing some of our tasks, we should carefully reconsider when we do certain tasks in order to increase our productivity. According to Daniel Pink, international best-selling author of six provocative books about business and human behavior, significant changes in performance can be seen depending on the time of day we choose to do certain types of tasks. Therefore, instead of just accomplishing them randomly, we should carefully plan and structure our day. Our day is divided into three periods of productivity that Pink calls: Peak, Through, and Recovery.
Identify Your Productivity Periods
As you plan your day, you need to consider your different periods of productivity. Do you recognize any of the mentioned productivity periods? When do you have the most energy during the day? During which part of the day are you the most focused? These are all questions that you should start asking yourself.
Research shows that everybody has their own subjective understanding of chronological time. Edward T. Hall identified that time is a concept greatly influenced by culture. He distinguishes two main types of time perceptions. In some cultures, the people have a polychronic time perception, which ‘allows’ them to do several things simultaneously, whereas, in monochronic cultures, people prefer to do one task at a time.
It is critical to understand your preferences. For example, try identifying the different productivity levels you have during the day and plan your tasks accordingly. Personally, my peak time is during the morning until just before lunch; therefore, this is the best time for me to do some highly focused work. As I am mono-focused, this is the time for me to turn off my Skype/Zoom/Slack notifications and get some work done.
After lunch, my productivity drops, and I see myself scrolling through my emails again. As I already had three cups of coffee, I really can’t solve that ‘low’ with yet another cup. Instead, this is the time for me to start on the administrative tasks and routine activities. During my ‘’Through’’ period, I feel that the ‘’Recovery’’ is coming, and I move to more creative and insightful tasks again.
How to Get Started
Maintaining a Have-Done Diary could help recognize how you use your daily time and understand when you are better focused. When you have identified your different productivity periods, the next step is to plan your tasks accordingly. After a while, you can see your productivity skyrocketing and your pile of work getting thinner. Try these two methods to improve your productivity.
Consequently, after you go through the steps of the Have-Done Diary and Productivity Level Periods Analysis, you can peacefully shut down your work computer and feel satisfied. You can even plan your tasks for tomorrow already. You can now be at ease and attend dinner parties with your loved ones. You might even sing along with the radio while driving home because you got things done! So you come home, and your mind is where it needs to be, present in the moment.
If you want to learn more about timing and our hidden patterns, we recommend you this book ‘’When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing’’ by Daniel Pink.
Do you find it challenging to identify your productivity periods? Or do you feel that you need to reset yourself again? Then our RockMeRetreat from 17 to 23 November 2022 is for you!
During the RockMeRetreat, we will work on boosting your productivity. Hopefully, once you come back from this week, you will feel refreshed and inspired again and ready to tackle whatever challenges arise. Does this sound interesting to you?
Sign up here to be invited! Angie will be happy to set up a meeting with you to discuss your participation.
About the Author
Romée Jager is the Intercultural Consultant at Global People Transitions. She loves traveling and is passionate about exploring new cultures. Romée has an MA in Intercultural Management and considers herself an interculturalist. She has been working in a Dutch governmental youth panel for over seven years, where her aim was to give the youth a voice in the Dutch political system. She believes in continuous learning and is passionate about doing research. She wrote her master thesis about Defensive Nationalism, is currently a research assistant, and is interested in furthering her research by pursuing a Ph.D. in social sciences.
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You might be facing a unique set of challenges right now. Acclimatizing to a new locale, new cultural norms and social practices, ever-changing pandemic rules, children with identity issues, an injury, or an elderly relative, who just fell down a third time and needed to be hospitalized.
These challenges bring with them additional levels of stress and dealing with them every day inevitably results in mental exhaustion, especially if you cannot be there in person and have to support through WhatsApp calls.
You might also downplay your own mental, emotional, and physical exhaustion or worse, ignore them altogether. That’s because as new members of the workplace or community, you don’t want to be seen as the “constant victim”. You might end up overworking and taking on too many responsibilities to show your “worth” and you’re not looking after yourself enough.
This can result in weight fluctuations, feeling drained or listless, and being unable to get out of bed. If any or all of those descriptions apply to you or to a family member, then this discussion would help you understand better what is going on.
The Expat Experience
The “Expat Experience (XX)” involves working longer hours, adjusting to the rules and culture of the host country, trying to build a new circle of friends, and retaining some semblance of social life. You notice that things that were commonplace in your home country, perhaps easier access to medication or specific types of food, are way harder in the new country and add to the stress that is already near peak levels due to the recent move.
Stress is something we all have to manage but for you, stress is experienced more frequently and from a broader range of sources. It starts with the “small” things – handing over your previous work, clearing your office space out for the move, and saying goodbye to people you love or grew accustomed to.
For you, it only gets more complicated from there. There is a new language and an entire culture built around it that needs to be understood, people to interact with, transport networks to figure out, and more. Remember, all this is happening in conjunction with everyday obligations like cooking and cleaning, spending time with family, calling your relatives or parents in your home country.
You can see why the statistics skew in favor of you facing more burnouts, and the negative impact on personal and professional life that they bring.
Culture Shock
Early on during an assignment, a large portion of you suffers from “culture shock” or cultural adjustment. The impact of these often manifests as symptoms similar to mild depression – feelings of isolation and helplessness, oversleeping and lethargy (or even the opposite: insomnia and lethargy), mood swings, and unexplained body aches. Homesickness adds to the symptoms, which combined with the fact that you might be new to your role makes things even tougher. It could also be that you don’t have a job or occupation just yet and feel that an important part of your identity is suddenly missing.
In this high-stress, emotional scenario, you often turn to the wrong things for management: substance abuse in the form of drugs or alcohol.
I usually prescribe these seven easy-to-implement steps for helping your body with cultural adjustment.
- Implement a Daily Mission Walk. The focus here is not on high-impact training, but rather on consistency. Go for a short walk and make it a staple of your daily routine. Motivate yourself by small missions such as taking the dog for a walk, recycling the glass bottles, getting bread or flowers, buying groceries without the car, dropping a few items off at the local Brockenhaus (or Salvation Army).
- Plan a Digital Detox. This one is not easy, as you end up losing contact with your family and friends back home, but it is well established that overuse of social media and technology has a high impact on stress levels. A weekend of digital detox will help you regain focus and have some time to think and reflect. I usually try to stay away from social media for 24 hours over the weekend. During the RockMeRetreat we are practicing to stay away from media for several days.
- Practice PMR or a similar Relaxation Method. Work through Progressive Muscle Relaxation (PMR) every day after lunch or before you go to sleep. Start with videos you can find on YouTube or buy CDs and audios from Medical Doctors such as Dr. Beth Salcedo (English) or Dr. Stephan Frucht (German).
- Start Meditating 5 Minutes a Day. Practicing active meditation is also a good idea. I created this video to get you started. There are many more detailed videos on how to do this out there. I’m teaching active meditation at the RockMeRetreat.
- Combine your first coffee with a morning meditation. You can also start your day with a short morning meditation such as this one. I try to combine my first coffee with a short meditation.
- Start a Journal. Journalling is a great method to deal with your mind and emotions. If it feels like a lot of work, try a bullet journal first.
- Join one of our Group Programs. Having a support group to help through any kind of transition is useful. With the current BANI world out there I would advise that you always build a support network fast and have a person you can trust and speak to about your challenges regularly.
Reverse Culture Shock
The hope that you would only experience culture shock once when you start an assignment is dashed by the revelation that by the end of that assignment, particularly if it was several years long, the same people experience a similar shock on returning home.
Also dubbed “re-entry shock”, the scenario is pretty similar to the original culture shock. After 5 or more years, the friend’s group, support networks, and even the workplace have all evolved and changed, while your memories and knowledge stopped at the point where they moved away. You find yourself in a similar boat as when you arrived in the host country all those years ago.
Reverse culture shock has not received the attention it deserves until now, but Vanessa Paisley’s “5-V Repatriation Model” is a great starting point to learn more about it.
When You Need Help From a Therapist
Coaching is not always the best solution, especially if symptoms have been persisting for a long time or were previously undiagnosed, perhaps even in the home country. Should I identify that your symptoms are beyond what we deem “normal cultural adjustment” I will advise you to seek out professional help.
The symptoms of depression are complex and vary, but have devastating long-term impacts on a person.
If you are experiencing changes in sleep patterns, appetite, weight and mood swings, or any combination of symptoms listed on the link, please reach out immediately.
It is not easy to admit, whether to loved ones or even ourselves when things are tough. If you are feeling symptoms of culture shock, the first and by far the most important step is to honestly identify and acknowledge that you are not well.
Without that acknowledgment, the treatment and healing can not begin. Also, asking for help can be shameful. Start with asking us for help by emailing romee@globalpeopletransitions.com for a first 25-Minute Call with me.
We would also once again like to invite you to join our preparatory free workshops in advance of the RockMeRetreat and for anyone who would like to get to know our work with Expats, Expat Partners, Global Nomads, and Scientists better.
By Sara Micacchioni
Yachi Namamoto is Japanese, an expatriate residing in Hawaii, and a quiet intelligent individual. Though he initially is shy with strangers, he likes a lot to play host for his friends. In conversations, he will demonstrate techniques of jujitsu, in which he holds a high-ranking belt. He will also talk about the incidents that he experienced in his travels throughout Asia and America. Brought up in a middle-class, though relatively traditional home, Yachi Namamoto finished high school and taught ikebana, the art of flower arrangement. In high school, he became a member of a splinter faction of the Zengakuren, the militant student movement in Japan. He participated actively in numerous demonstrations and student revolts too.
How would you describe Yachi Namamoto? Do you think he identifies more as a Japanese or a Hawaii resident? Maybe he applied to and obtained his Green Card and he’s now a US citizen. Perhaps, sometimes he introduces himself as an expatriate and ikebana teacher, and other times as a middle-class man who is into politics.
Like Yachi Namamoto, we all hold multiple intersecting identities which define who we are and how we understand and experience the world. When we think of these identities individually, they are just a snapshot. In fact, depending on the context in which we find ourselves, the importance, salience and awareness of certain identities change. This means that the perception we and the others have of our identities not only varies during the course of our lives, but it may change throughout the same day. At the same time, other identities might as well fade away in time as a result of growing older and having different responsibilities in life. For example, “student identity” may be a rather central one during university time, but it then gradually fades away in favour of other features such as “career identity” once graduates move onto different stages of their lives.
And if you were to conceptualize your own understanding of who you are, what are the most important identities that come to your mind?
How might others think of your identities? Is this answer similar or different than the first one?
Like Gardenswarts and Rowe (2003) point out, there are many aspects of identity, such as age, gender, sexual orientation, physical ability, ethnicity, race, parental and marital status, religion, union affiliation, department or unit group, etc. The list is actually much longer.
The way our multiple identities overlap is a fundamental symbol of our existence and functioning aspect of our individual personality, placed at the core of the scheme proposed by the two authors.
The Kaleidoscope of Identities
Imagine a kaleidoscope with several different colorful pieces. Think about those pieces as your relevant identities. There are also three mirrors, and depending on the lens through which you observe the reflection, different patterns are generated. With a turn of the lens, one can see things from a different perspective and understand better what all the identities at play are.
Very often, we are too focused on our national identity, which we often use to describe ourselves in an international context where, given the abundance of nationalities, our national identity becomes more relevant. In fact, even if we rarely think of ourselves in these terms, we are a patchwork of multiple identities. We act according to certain internalized roles, rules, norms and functions which are typical of certain subcultures.
Who we are is not individually determined by the single subcultures to which we belong. Rather, psychologically and socially, we are the result of the overlap of all these subcultures taken together and each person’s identity is shaped by this multiplicity of traits. As we said earlier, they are generally all equally relevant at the same time, though they always co-exist. They can also confer privilege and power or can be marked by oppression and marginalization.
Try to recall a situation in which you might have had a wrong impression about someone and think of what made you change your mind.
About Sara
Sara Micacchioni is currently working as Academic Intern at Global People Transitions, where she is responsible for research and quality assurance projects. At the beginning of 2020, she graduated from an international English-taught master degree in Intercultural Management at the University of Burgundy, France. In the past, she also carried out several short-term and long-term voluntary work projects in Europe and South America.
Sara lived, studied, and worked in seven European countries and speaks four foreign languages. She considers herself an interculturalist with a real passion for globetrotting. In her mission to travel the world, she has now ticked off 30 countries globally.
Resources
Adler, P. (November 2002). ‘Beyond Cultural Identity: Reflections on Multiculturalism’. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from https://www.mediate.com/articles/adler3.cfm#comments
Gardenswartz, L & Rowe, A. (2003). Diverse Teams at Work: Capitalizing on the Power of Diversity, Society For Human Resource Management.
Ngo, C. (2014). ‘Kaleidoscope of identities’. Tedx UOregon. University of Oregon. Retrieved May 6, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uRGqgNuJDIk
Blogs
Guest Blog by Danny
Every day, there are people seeking opportunities to work abroad thanks to the internet that has increased information exchange, making it a lot easier for people to find jobs to apply for. While it goes well for most of them, some people still struggle with fitting in and properly adjusting to a new work environment.
Other than a chance to grow financially, anyone considering to work overseas must have other goals of advancing in different areas. But before you make that move, what are the top things you need to consider:
Anticipate culture shock
Most people do thorough research about a new environment before they move, but unlike moving from a city to another, changing nations, and perhaps continents, is not easy. Culture shock is the emotional, mental and physical disorientation someone experiences due to the sudden exposure to a totally new environment. Unfortunately, there is no test, even the Basic Skills Test that tests your cognitive ability for maximum productivity in the workplace, that can adequately prepare you for this kind of situation.
At first, the difference you realize while in the new environment may only be in the eating and dressing habits, but with time, concepts like time zones, economic structures, language barrier, organizational cultures, bureaucratic systems, among others, will catch you by surprise. Driving might even be difficult for you, with different rules to apply. You will probably experience what is called “culture shock”. Culture shock is the emotional, mental and physical disorientation someone experiences due to sudden exposure to a totally new environment. It includes changes in lifestyle habits, attitudes, food changes, language barrier, among others. It often refers to an emotional state similar to a depression where you do not want to meet the local population any longer and where you wish to retreat to your home.
Therefore, it always helps to anticipate a certain level of disorientation for the move to overseas.
Understand the work permit terms
A lot of people end up frustrated in a foreign place after termination of employment, having to find illegal ways of sticking around, simply due to failure to understand the terms of the visa.
Now, depending on which type of work permit you have, the terms are different. Some dictate that you return to your home country after being fired or losing a job, while some give you a chance to work for a limited number of years, upon which you must return to your nation. In most cases, the employer takes care of acquiring a work permit for their international hires, but that does not take off the duty you have of going through the paperwork to understand the conditions. Further, different countries stipulate different guidelines under which someone would receive a work permit, depending on the amount of work you do.
Getting credit can be very difficult
Do not just assume that once you move abroad things will be well for you, particularly financially. Once you are in a foreign country, it can be tough to get things done on credit and loans. Instead, consider getting a credit card with an international bank before you leave your nation, which is a lot easier to transfer the card over having to rally for people to vouch for you before you can acquire a credit card.
Banking can also get complicated
Working overseas might be the clean slate you needed to get your life on the right track both financially and careerwise, but when it comes to banking, you may need to come prepared, because anything could happen. The first step you must ensure you follow before the big move is to have reserve money in the bank, preferably in an international bank. While you may find it cheaper to travel on local currency with a weekly paycheck to keep your wallet busy, you will need some backup plan should anything go wrong, for example, a stall in your payment.
Have an international health cover
Among the worst things that could happen to you in a foreign land is to fall sick, when you do not have the comfort of family or a little understanding of the medical systems. Make it a priority to get an international medical cover that will take some of the pressure and worry away.
Change is not easy, leave alone a big change like this. While it is okay to get excited about your new job, take time to deliberate through some of the things enlisted here to help you transition effortlessly.
The Global Career Workbook
If you want to move abroad for work and do not know where to start check out Angie Weinberger’s “Global Career Workbook” here.
About the Blogger: Danny Kariuki
https://www.linkedin.com/in/danny-kariuki-31733374/
Danny Kariuki is a top-rated freelance writer on Upwork. He helps clients reach greater heights through top-notch content development strategies.
