An antidote to stress

A week ago, we christened our daughter. We had just left for the church with not much extra time to spare when I realized that we had forgotten an important detail – The christening gown… After the child, this is perhaps the second most important thing for the ceremony, so forgetting it at home is quite the achievement. In a case like this, you better make sure that you left too early because doing an unplanned detour back home to pick something up costs a lot of time that you do not have. At least that is the obvious solution; never leave at the last minute but instead wait a while at the destination. That will give you the margin you need. But i think there is another way that is even more important, at least for me.

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistAugust 15, 2024stress, preparation, habits, efficiencyComment

Dreams and stress

I just exited a streak of around ~100 work hours in nine days. It has been quite high stress level in general and intense periods of focus. It is fascinating how the body enters a high alert state and how I have been able to function in a state of sleep depravation with sometimes down to 4 hours per night. But today, when I finally lowered my guard and rest mode activates, I was unable to stay awake at all. The mental realisation that the crunch is over for now, takes a bit of time to process into a physical realisation. It is a damn nice feeling though when it happens.

DiaryRikard ÖqvistMarch 29, 2024stress, burnout, work, healthComment

Lifesaving habits

It’s been a couple of weeks now with late work-nights. A temporary reduction in sleep hours is usually no problem, but it is annoyingly easy to get stuck in a loop where you are active later in the evening or night, which both makes it harder to fall asleep and reduces the quality of the hours you get. Consequentially, it will be increasingly harder to get up in the morning and/or you will lose focus during the day, which will reduce productivity. And then you will need to work even longer hours to compensate, which only adds yet more gravel in the delicate machinery. It is a dark spiral. How do you break it?

Diary, HabitsRikard ÖqvistOctober 30, 2023health, habits, stress, dogs, musicComment

Prioritize and Execute

Life as a consultant can often feel overwhelming, and I have certainly felt just like that for a couple of months now. However, when things feel rough, I think about the books I’ve read by Jocko Willinck, where he lays out the concept of Prioritize and Execute. He tells stories from his war deployment where one of his teammates falls and is badly injured, while they come under assault and must deploy their machine gun instantly. At the same time, a thousand other things happen and there is only time to do a couple of them… I think you see where this is going. There is no way on earth that consultancy work can come even close to that pressure (even though it can feel like it). And still, Jocko and his team survived using the only method available. Rank-order the list of tasks that needs to be done and start to tick them off in order of importance. What else can you do?

Engineering, ParentingRikard ÖqvistMarch 28, 2022consulting, work, family, stress, focusComment

When the universe smiles at you

There’s a Swedish saying “En olycka kommer sällan ensam” (When it rains, it pours). If that is true, the opposite must also be true, but I don’t know any similar saying by heart. So, I prefer to think of it as if the universe is smiling at you. Because it sometimes feels as if the whole universe conspires to help you. When I have had those positive experiences, the typical scenario is that I am extremely stressed out about something, and then suddenly the problem just solves itself without attention. Yes, sometimes the best solution to a problem can simply be to just ignore it. Last week I experienced one of the most enjoyable smiles so far.

PhilosophyRikard ÖqvistOctober 18, 2021luck, flow, productivity, stress, pressure, consulting, planningComment

A well defined problem

Have you ever felt the urge to mow your lawn? That’s precisely what happened to me this weekend. The month of May 2021 has been one of the most intense ever, work-wise. I have been developing a university course in Building physics with eleven lectures in the course of four weeks. On top of that I have my regular work as an acoustician. I do love my work, both of them, but there is a problem. They are both extremely cognitively demanding. I am always on the edge, slightly – or even a lot – outside of my comfort zone. That’s why I felt the urge to spend my time on a well defined problem. Like moving the lawn.

Engineering, HabitsRikard ÖqvistMay 31, 2021work, relaxation, meditation, stress, focus, productivityComment

New year's resolution 2021: Double up

We all have different personality profiles with corresponding strengths and weaknesses, and I have learned the hard way that one of my biggest weaknesses is my ability to gather and pack my stuff on a short notice. For example, a couple of years ago I was going to do a university lecture and record it for later YouTube publication. As you can imagine, it involves a lot of technology with microphones, cables, sound cards, cameras etc… My lecture was scheduled to start around 10:00 in the morning, and since we lived close to campus back then, I thought it would be fine to gather up my stuff in the morning just before I leave. My wife got home before me that day, and when she entered our little office the whole place was a complete mess. Cables and stuff were lying everywhere, and it is probably what a home burglary looks like. However, my wife knows me well so she could easily figure out what had happened.

Habits, TravelRikard ÖqvistJanuary 2, 2021habits, travelling, productivity, lifehack, packing, simplify, stress, planning, focus, new years resolutionComment

It’s the small issues that will get you

Yesterday, I was microwaving my son´s lunch and forgot to put the protective cover on, which resulted in me painting the inside of our microwave with baby food. Later in the evening, I was preparing dinner for the boy again while telling my wife about the ordeal and how silly I was to forget the cover and what a mess I had made that I had to clean up. While we are talking, we hear the familiar sound of hot food exploding inside a microwave. I open the oven lid and witness the inside covered in food once again. The protective cover was lying right in front of me all the time, as I was telling the story of its importance. Isn´t it interesting how strange our mind works sometimes?

HabitsRikard ÖqvistJuly 11, 2020simplify, cleaning, stress, rest, vacation, focus, prioritiesComment