All hands

Sometimes you have days or weeks where you just need to drop everything and go into survival mode for a short-period of time. This happened last week where we had to make do without our usual child care arrangements. We had to go into an all hands on deck mode taking care of our 1 year old in between any of our work that absolutely had to be done.

These times are really challenging, but in the end they can also be beneficial in a way. First of all, the sense of accomplishment and relief of getting through something difficult and knowing that you've done it is not always easy to find in your working life. It fits more with the natural up and down cycles of work and to me at least, gives some deep level of satisfaction.

These times also help you to prioritize your work ruthlessly. When you absolutely have no choice but to finish work at a certain time because your child will be handed over to your care then, there are no excuses. You have to either buckle down, focus and work hard to get something done or you need to drop it for the time being. There's no time to let tasks hang around with half measures or schedule pointless meetings - just the core essentials of what you really need to get done.

Finally, you get a better appreciation of your existing routines. When you are in a good phase of your work life and are happily grinding away during the week, it's something that you miss if you are taken out of that rhythm for a week. But if that does happen, it's a sign that you are on the right track. Things are bound to come up where you need all hands on deck for a bit, the important thing is that you want to get back to your routine as soon as you can. If not, then you should think about changing something.