Snow day or duvet day?

The beast from the east!

Were you affected by the snow last week?

If you have children, were they home from school? Did it disrupt your work or your business?

Did you take/have a snow day?

Unexpected snow day

Despite it already being March, we had more snow than I’ve seen in a number of years.

The school was closed, meetings were cancelled or changed to phone calls.

Even though I’ve enjoyed snow days in the past, this time I wasn’t happy…

I was panicking about driving on our cobbled street in the snow and ice.
I didn’t want to walk anywhere either and wasn’t keen on my children being out.
I was stressed about the pipes to the washing machine being frozen (even before I confirmed that they were).
I was worrying about the mounting recycling rubbish, that couldn’t be collected.
I was agitated about the grit that I’d put on our front steps, being tracked into the house.

When I knew my meetings were being cancelled/postponed, I had planned to make good use of the time by doing some reviewing/planning, by doing some admin (updating directories and the like), and reading through some documents I hadn’t been getting round to for some time.

Not in the right space

But when last Friday came around, I wasn’t in the right space emotionally/mentally to do that.

I’d spent a lot of time on the Thursday and first thing Friday on social media – reading snow updates, about school and road closures etc (and reading Happy Birthday messages :) ) – and I felt unable to put that to one side and focus.

So, I gave in to it.

I spent the day online responding to messages and interacting on social media, networking and joining in the conversations online on Twitter and Facebook.

I’m not sure if for me it was a snow day or if I had more of a ‘duvet day’ or a mental health day (I certainly didn’t make a snowman or go sledging…)

A duvet day

According to Wikipedia:

A duvet day is a formal allowance of time off given by some employers, most commonly in the United Kingdom and United States. It differs from holiday allowance in that no prior notice is needed. Employees receive an allocation of days where if they do not want to go to work for any reason they can use a duvet day.

Being self-employed, I think I needed to allocate myself a duvet day!

The snow that broke the camel’s back…

(or something like that!)

My anxiety about the ‘snow’ got worse – and then I realised it wasn’t really about the snow…

We’re in a period of intense activity and upheaval at the moment: Just before taking a week off to go skiing (a holiday that always makes me anxious), we agreed the sale of our house and had an offer accepted on a house we want to buy. My children seem to have mountains of homework including over the holidays. Some exciting potential business opportunities have not panned out. The snow was probably just the last straw…

Luckily for me I was able to share my worries about the above (and driving, the pipes, the recycling, the state of the carpet…) with my husband and with good friends and I booked in a session with my coach for this week.

By Sunday the snow was melting…

I was making use of a friend’s washing machine, I’d vacuumed the carpet, my (step) grandson arrived into the world safely…

…and I was feeling in a much better place and able to do the reviewing/planning work that I felt unable to do two days earlier.

So why share this?

I felt it would be good to share, not only as a form of catharsis, but also because there are a couple of points that may be useful:

1. Sometimes, no matter how good we are at planning, something takes us by surprise and makes us re-evaluate our plans for that day. Or perhaps we have an activity planned that we are not (for whatever reason) able to perform at our best and we need to change tack and either take time out or do an activity that better fits our state.
2. Everybody gets bad days sometimes. Our lives and businesses are not always as perfect as they appear on our public profile! The key is being able to recognise and recover from those days – bringing me to the next point…
3. Surround yourself with supporters (energy angels), people you can talk to – and remember to talk to them!
4. Lastly, get yourself a coach! (all the best people have one! :) )

Have you had a snow day or duvet day?

What about you? Have you had days like this? What helps you?

Please let me know your thoughts by adding your comments below…

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Best wishes!

Sian

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