Compartmentalization and COVID-19

Compartmentalization - "the division of something into sections or categories”

In 2014 I lost the business that I had been growing, nurturing, developing, and identifying with for the past 23 years. At the time I was 42. The vast majority of my life had been spent creating an identity that was closely tied to this business. It was older than my children, it was longer lived than my marriage at the time, it was who I was. Then it was gone. It wasn’t gone without a trace however, it was gone like a car crash. There was still a fire to put out, occupants to pull from the wreck, property damage to deal with, and a new car was going to be needed. 

In 2020 we are all dealing with a car crash. 2020 is not the journey we set out to have this past New Year’s Eve. It is interesting to watch the people and business owners around me deal with the dumpster fire that is 2020 with reactions that mirror so closely the experience that I began to have in 2014. COVID-19 has treated me no differently. Our business has been disrupted, our “normal” turned on its head. I have left the house only one time in the past 7 days. A tank of fuel is now lasting weeks, not days. I crave the question “Can I bring you a drink or an appetizer to start?”. I have no idea if we are going to make it to May, let alone June or November. When the hell is November anyway? That seems like a decade away. How am I going to sustain this stress? How am I going to lead my flock when I’m still brushing diamonds of glass off my sleeve wondering how they got there? What about me? I’m traumatized too. The good news is that I’ve been there done this, got the T-shirt. Like an experienced parachutist that giggles at the fear on the face of the first timer exiting the airplane door, I know we are going to be fine. The parachute will open, and we will land safely. Why? Because there is a plan, there are tools, and there are experienced people who can show the way. 

When I was first faced with the prospect of starting all over again at the age of 42, first faced with the need to absorb “everything you have done meant nothing”, it seemed overwhelming. I had no control. I seriously considered stepping off the merry-go-round. The bank required weekly phone calls around the concept of “how are you going to pay us”. My mortgage wasn’t going to get “deferred”. (Believe me, I asked) My family still needed food, secondary education, and dental. My car still ran out of gas and needed to be filled. I had no income, and nothing but debt. I was alone with my problems. Friends were friendly, but it was not their role to fill my tank or pay my debts. The government still wanted their old taxes. There was no discussion about paying 75% of my costs or providing me with a $2,000 per month income to cover some of the basics. Today 100% of the debt is paid, my mortgage is current, my kids have graduated their university programs and the new business employs at least as many as the old one did, and is far more profitable. How did we get from there to here? Compartmentalization. 

I was once told in response to a difficult question; “That is tomorrow's problem.” It was then that I realized I had social permission to not have to deal with everything at once. I realized that no one actually has the right to expect you to deal with everything at the same time. I perceived an outside pressure to have all the answers, and have them right now. How are you going meet payroll? What about the VISA payment? There is a mortgage payment due on the first too. How are you going to pay for that capital expansion you know is needed? When are you going to spend time on your marriage? Your kids miss you, they are growing up without you, what are you going to do about that? I could write an entire book of questions like that, so could you. How do humans even get from morning to night with all the things they have to deal with? The obvious answer is obviously correct: one moment at a time. How do you eat an elephant? The famous parable is rooted in truth. One bite at a time. But I have 15 fucking elephants to deal with!  So pick a strategy, one bite per, or finish one, then onto the next. Time, as a mere 3 dimensional human, is linear. Work with what you have. 

The technique that I mastered over the past 5 years has been one of separation or compartmentalization. I create literal and metaphysical boxes for my challenges. I absolutely bounce from box to box over the course of a day, but for the really hard ones, I set a time slot in my calendar and I think about them then. Please re-read this - I consciously THINK about the hard things during a set time frame. This does two very important things for me. 

1. I give myself permission to not be anxious and concerned about ‘ignoring” a thing. I am not ignoring it, I have set a specific appointment with myself (and others if applicable) to deal with the issue at hand.

The value I have found in this approach is that it gives me lightness and freedom to have other thoughts. I retain my ability to be creative. My stress and anxiety over a given issue is put into a box, a compartment, that has physical space (my calendar) and an energetic outlet (the appointed time). The energy that the stressful issue will absorb by thinking about it all of the time is given an outlet, and that same energy can be converted to another task or concern or into creativity. This allows me to have a herd of elephants in the room, with each of them allotted the energy needed to deal with them, but on my linear human timescale. 

2. My subconscious works out more nuanced solutions or ideas for me in the in-between time. 

Of course putting “Call Dave” on the calendar may give me a physical time for the given act, but the issue doesn’t go away just because I put it into a box. Some people would call that “ignoring it”. I hate ignoring problems. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t fucking work. I’m so pissed off that it doesn’t work. I would LOVE it if you could ignore a problem and I would go away. I would so prefer to sit and watch Netflix and ignore all my problems. Curiously I have found that when one does that, the problems simply gain power. They morph and become more powerful problems, perhaps in a different form, but that energy is not converted into happiness, it is converted into future pain. So I have to deal with my problems. Dammit. 

The great blessing our brains have bestowed upon us is the subconscious. It is a powerful force, which in this context, can help with compartmentalization. I have found that if I “park” a problem for a set period of time, I will have more complete and complex thoughts available when I open that box up. The “Call Dave” example means that 30 minutes before the call time, I begin prep. 

The way I practically utilize compartmentalization is as follows:

1. Realization. Identify that the issue will not be “naturally” solved, or solved with a simple collaborative phone call or meeting. The realization and acknowledgement that an issue needs to have its own box is the first step. This applies to regular issues like “Do payroll” or other tasks that are recurring, and always need their own allotted time.
2. Set a time to deal with it. Having a calendar of any form is critical to making this work. Find a time slot far enough in the future to match the issues energy. Small things might only get 15 minutes, and that might be later today. Very big things might need 90 minutes (more on that in a moment) and 5 days out. 
3. Set a time to prepare for it. This is NOT the same as dealing with”it”. This is the time when you open the box, and bring yourself back up to speed. If you take only one thing from this concept, take this one. You can only compartmentalize by NOT consciously thinking about a thing during the non-appointed time. This means you need some amount of time to get current, to remember all the fine points of the issue at hand, to remember “where did we leave off last.” This time should ideally be right in front of the “deal with it” time, but sometimes it is earlier in the day, or in cases of significant prep or task completion, perhaps the day before, but never 48 hours before the “deal with it” time. That would then be a separate compartment. 
4. Close the box. Once you have expended the allotted time you are now at a new place. You have eaten a bite. What happens next? This is now “tomorrow's problem”. Did you complete the issue? If not, you have two options. 
5. 1. Set a new time. If this issue requires a 2nd time and you know when that time should be, go ahead and set it, and set the prep time. 
   2. Set a new trigger. If the issue cannot practically be solved (example: we don’t have the information from the government on how the 75% rent contribution will actually work) Set up a trigger that will cause you to set a new time and prep time to deal with the issue. (News release issued on the “how” part of the 75% promised rent relief). There is often a future trigger/event/response that is needed to take the next bite. Figure out what that is, put that as a label on the lid of the box, and close it up. 

Why 90 minutes or less? I have found that I can do almost anything for 90 minutes. My wife is laughing hysterically right now. I said “almost” ok. I digress however. Setting a 4 hour block of time is overwhelming. It is very hard to engage the energy to deal with any serious issue for 2 or 4 hours. It is psychosomatically challenging to know that you have a 4 hour problem to deal with. That alone will create its own stress. I have found that by planning 90 minute maximum chunks of elephant time, I can actually not stress (think) about the issue until the appointed prep time. On rare occasions those 90 minutes have stretched to 4 hours, but usually that is because the fire is almost out, and with just a bit more focus we can get the embers cold. 

Giving yourself a compartment is critical also. "Me Time" is a very important part of making the whole thing work. I have found that mornings work for me, others I know prefer 2:00 in the afternoon, some are night owls and they energize at midnight. Whatever your preferred block of time, set it. Protect it. Fit in that workout, that movie you want to see, or that cup of tea over Zoom with friends. Create a compartment labelled "Me" and protect that time regularly. 

This does not work the first time you try it. Like any new brain pathway, this requires practice. COVID-19 is giving us all the perfect storm of stress, new problems, and way way too much time to think about it all. What a great time to learn compartmentalization. Like learning how to golf, you will suck at it at first. You will set that first appointment, and your brain will go “Great! Let’s keep stressing about the fact we have put our problem off into the future.” Think about something else. Tell your brain to fuck off, and let’s play with the kids and give them all our focus right now. Fuck off, I’m talking to my wife about something she loves and I am actually listening, not just pretending to. Fuck off. I am reading an article about how to get better at golf, because I really suck at golf. Fuck off. I am going to think about how to market to new potential customers who are also stuck at home right now.

Teach your brain how to pivot, to think about something with its full amazing power, while holding the other concerns, that are real, in your subconscious. Teach your brain how to actually multi-task by just doing one thing at a time. You can switch back and forth, even very quickly, but you are going to be at your best doing one thing at at time. You will survive this car crash, but only by pulling yourself out of the wreck first and then dealing with each issue, one per appointed time.