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Episode 70

Let's Be Alone Together

Meg shares advice for working from home amidst the COVID-19 outbreak along with mental health tips to keep you sane. Plus, special guest Erik Westra joins us to talk about managing IRL events to keep the public safe and healthy.

You are in control of your own working situation and how everyday looks for you. Create an environment of success for yourself.


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Transcript

Meg: Well, hello, hello, hello. It’s your host Meg “wash your dang hands” Lewis and this is a special COVID-19 episode of Overtime where I’ll give you the tips you need to create your best work in this very uncertain time. In this episode, OMGWFH! We’re all working from home so let’s be alone together. I’ll give you some tips on how to successfully be alone and working. I’ll also take a little peek inside the mental health industry to see what the heck they’re recommending we do, and good boy and event producer Eric Westra stops by to give us some tips on how to restructure IRL events to keep the public safe and healthy.

Now, if you’re on the internet as much as I am, throughout the last few days and weeks, a lot of people are launching their tips or articles or websites for working from home because a lot of us are either self-quarantined or our workplaces are telling us to work from home. So, I’ve been working from home most of my career. I do have spaces that I go to off and on, I have coffee shops I like to go to, but I’m a freelancer. So, I work remotely. I work wherever I want to.

So, I have my own takes. But as we know on Twitter, if you’re on Twitter, Ben Lehnert first started out with a website called OMGWFH.com, which is amazing – thanks, Ben – which is his guide to working from home that works for him. And then, Danielle Evans, designer/illustrator/fine artist, created a Twitter thread on more of the emotional aspect of working from home and how she’s worked about that successfully. And then 99U released another piece about working from home and what their tips are. So, there’s a wealth of resources out there for if you’re looking for tips from working from home.

And I don’t want to add any more noise to this area. So, try to figure out what other people’s perspectives are and what my perspective is and how my story might be a little bit different. And I think that the main thing that I’ve learned from working from home is that it’s okay if you’re reading a lot of these other people’s guides, it’s okay if you’re listening to what I have to say and realizing that your day, your feelings about it, and the way that you work is different from the way that everybody’s suggesting you work, you know. So, whenever we’re giving tips, it’s okay if you assess them and listen and take it in, and ultimately realize that you work differently, and your style of working is different from what you’re reading. I think it’s very important that we’re all sharing our own tips and our own experiences so that everyone can ingest all of that information and take it in and listen to all sides and then come out with a well-rounded view. And the main thing that I’ve learned in creating that kind of a work style and a schedule for myself and working from home and other places, is that it’s okay that my day doesn’t necessarily look like everyone else’s. I think I second guess how much I work all the time because sometimes I find myself working 16-hour days, sometimes I take a random full weekday off and just have fun, some days I work until 7pm, go have a really nice dinner, and then come back and work for a few hours. And I think as long as you’re working however makes you feel comfortable and energized and good about what you’re doing, as long as you’re doing that, and you’re healthy, your body is healthy, your relationships are healthy, there’s really nothing to be second guessing. You can work in any style that works for you and that’s okay.

And I think It’s important, if you are trying to stay home and not go out in public, that you kind of try to maintain the same relationships that you would have in the real world in the public world. So, some things that I like to do is I have some regular Facetime sessions with friends where we drink wine, like I’ll pour a glass of wine, she pours a glass of wine and we just hang out, we catch up and we talk. And that’s really a friendship, relationship-keeping tip that I’ve learned from having long distance friendships, is to still hang out with them as much as I did whenever I lived in the same city as them. And in the same way, we’re just doing it through FaceTime and through video chats. And I think that helps. So, as we know, a lot of people are talking about remote co-working and Jesse Gardner, for example, has been doing a remote co-working thing on Twitter, where he posts a link and then allows anybody to hop in a Zoom Room and remote co-work with him. And I think that’s so great. And there’s definitely ways for you to take the existing communities that you have, whether it’s coworkers, or if you’re a freelancer like me, getting together with other freelancer friends and just trying to socialize throughout your day, so that you feel a little bit less lonely, because I find whenever I do feel lonely, or I’m working from home too much without exposure to other people, I’ve just, I’m on social media more because I’m craving social interaction. And I think that’s okay, too. But I know that social media is an emotional space right now with all this news, so it can be safer to stay off of it.

But hey, listen, we have to keep working, or else the economy will just completely collapse and so, do whatever you can to try and keep up with a normal working life. I found myself second guessing and not posting things on social media that I would normally post because it just seems insensitive. But I think as long as you’re being healthy and respectful to others and making sure that you’re not making the world a dissatisfying place for other people, and you’re not ruining people’s lives and hurting them, I think it’s totally okay to keep working and to keep going. It’s going to help us stay less anxious, and it’s going to help the world keep turning because we need that.

And on the note of mental health and feeling good and setting yourself up for success in this questionable time, I think it’s very helpful to find a balance of being informed and doing what you can to help others, all while working and keeping your own financial situation in check and looking as healthy as possible. And I think, you know, we see a lot of these videos of people raiding stores and taking all the toilet paper, and I’ve read into a lot of that and why that happens with people and the reason why we stockpile ingredients, we collect things, and we take from other people basically, and start looting is because a lot of times in these situations, people feel very out of control. Like you truly do not have control of COVID-19, it’s not in your control whether or not it comes to your city, it’s totally out of your control, and so what people do is they look for control. And people can be in control of how prepared they are for something like this. And so, they make silly decisions and go overboard on preparedness, because that is something that they’re in control of.

So, I can control how much toilet paper I own, so I’m going to go to the store and grab all the toilet paper. And so, I think it’s important that you are aware of that and realize what you are in control of. You are in control of your own life, your own career, your own working situation, you’re in control of how everyday looks for you. So, create an environment of success for yourself in order to create that control. And as soon as we spiral out of control, that’s where things get really dangerous for us for our mental health. And so, be aware of where you spiral out of control, and try to curb that because I think as long as you’re informed, that’s all that matters and you’re making the right decisions to keep the public healthy. That’s great.

Now, one of my clients is a company called Alma. And they are a resource, a service to create better practices for mental health professionals. So, whether that’s insurance services that they provide or space that they allow mental health employees and workers and freelancers and self-employed people in the mental health space to work, I find them to be a wonderful resource personally, because they have given a lot of information on COVID-19, regarding therapists and how they approach talking about that with their clients. And there’s something really comforting about peeping into the therapy industry and seeing, like, what are they saying inside of the therapy industry about this? It’s actually kind of like when I was a kid, and I would travel on airplanes, I was so scared of planes. And I was so nervous when I was a kid and teen and even in my 20s, I was so scared to fly. And I developed this coping mechanism of finding the person that visually looked the most like a well-seasoned traveler, which usually was some kind of businessman wearing a suit with a briefcase, of course. And so, I would find the nearest businessman and look at that businessman’s face and say, “If that guy’s scared, then I’ll be scared.” And so, anytime there was turbulence, I would look at his face, and if he didn’t look bothered, or he kept sleeping, or just read this paper, then I would know that I was safe. And that is totally not logical, okay? Of course not. And it’s buried in sexism, so sorry, but this is how my brain thought at the time.

And so, there’s something about looking inside the therapy industry that kind of feels the same way. It’s like, “Okay, what am I seeing in here, and if they’re freaked out, then I need to be freaked out.” And so, I started looking through on social media, they even have a Medium article where they outline some tips for people that are working in the therapy industry and tips for them to give their clients in order to help them. And so, these tips, I think are extremely valuable for keeping your mental health in check during this COVID-19 chaos. And the first thing that they recommend is to help tell people to watch their news sources, right? So of course, we know the most reputable news sources for this right now are the CDC and the WHO, okay? That is fair and fine go to them to get your information because you’re just going to get the facts and try to, and this is advice that I’m taking to heart, try to stay off of social media news sources like Twitter, because they’re layered in emotion. People are emotionally reacting to the news and to what’s happening. And when you’re an empath, like me, or you just respond to emotional reactions like a human, you’re going to start reading that and you’re going to start feeling those emotions and you’re going to start absorbing the way that people are emotionally talking about these topics, and that gets really dangerous for me, and I start feeling really bad. I start spiraling out of control and getting really anxious about everything.

But if I stick to reputable news sources, like, I’m paying attention to the, you know, the WHO and figuring out what they’re advising, it makes me feel more in control of my own emotions, which I really like. But it’s also very important and Alma says to understand your fear and what triggers your own anxiety. So, for me, I know that staying off of Twitter and reading people’s emotional tweets about all this is helpful for me, because if I do, I’ll just find myself burying deeper and deeper into tweets and reading the comments and replies. No, that’s not good for me at all! So just understand what makes you really scared and what makes you really anxious about all this and be mindful of that and try to set yourself up for success by not looking at those sources, and not allowing yourself to fall into those spiral patterns. I know that’s easy to say, and we all can’t do that very easily, but that’s what Alma is advising.

Alma has a wonderful quote from one of their mental health professionals in their network called Dr. Sacha Zilkha. And they say quote, “The key is to master how we’re feeling when taking in the news and to notice what we do with the information afterwards. So, if you’re feeling okay and wanting to take some preventative steps, that’s a good sign.” If you’re noticing yourself needing to read more and more and not being able to pull away, it may be time to take a break, unplug, and focus back on the present moment. And I love that piece of information, so that is what I am personally focusing on right now. But also keep in mind that if you do need mental health help, and you need some support and just want to talk through some stuff, teletherapy is totally a thing that exists. Alma highly encourages that all therapists implement a teletherapy practice, or at least option, and you know, as we know, a lot of teletherapy tools exist, like Talkspace, for example, that allow us to at least get out our feelings and have somebody respond to them that is a qualified professional, which is great.

But Alma lastly recommends that you also stick to your usual routines as much as you can, while keeping the rest of your community healthy and safe. So if that means getting out of your house for a little bit and going out and getting some fresh air, going running errands and being healthy and thoughtful about you know, washing your hands, don’t touch your face, all of that, so that you’re not getting other people sick, you’re not, you know, getting what other people are giving you. It’s okay to stick to your usual routine as much as possible and all my recommends that.

Okay, so these last couple of weeks have been a little hard to predict in the world of travel, and especially knowing when you should cancel public events and gatherings and I know, so many event organizers feel trapped for various reasons and don’t really know what to do and I’m just confused about what the heck we’re all supposed to do right now. So, I’ve brought in an event producer and friend, Erik Westra to chat about some options we have in this current climate. Hi, Erik.

Erik: Hi, Meg, how are you?

Meg: I’m doing okay. I hope that business is going okay for you.

Erik: It is not, but that’s okay. We’re going to figure out how to make it work. You kind of have a triple whammy with me: I have an immunodeficiency, I’m an event planner, and I have Generalized Anxiety Disorder, so this is tough times for me.

Meg: Perfect trifecta for a bad time right now.

Erik: That’s true. But that also makes me someone who really likes to try to figure out, and, you know, solve a problem here.

Meg: Okay, so tell the listeners a little bit about this space that you normally work in, like what kind of events do you normally produce?

Erik: I usually produce events for clients anywhere between thirty people up to like, you know, a thousand people. So, I’m not working on things like the, you know, giant Adobe and Microsoft conferences that are like 30,000 people. That’s sort of a whole different beast than what I can really speak to, but in the last couple of weeks, almost every single thing that I work on has been canceled or postponed. And I know that I’m not the only one and the industry is hurting and for good reason. I mean, it’s not good, but the reasonings are, you know, general public health. So, it’s hard to be too, you know, mad about it. Like we’re all doing it for the right reason.

Meg: Absolutely. So we can empathize a little bit from an event organizers perspective, why is this situation a challenge for people who are producing and having their own events?

Erik: I think there’s a few different challenges depending on what level and what type of thing you’re working on. For instance, I work on a couple of events for grant-funded, not-for-profit organizations, and the number one issue I think that faces events of this size and the determination whether or not to cancel or try to come up with something else is financial in the sense that, you know, the event industry is pretty long tail, you’re planning pretty well ahead of time for booking your venue and booking your hotel block and things like that. And there are cancellation fees for having to break those things. And in some cases, if you’re a much larger organization, it’s a little bit easier to eat, you know, a $100,000 cancellation fee than it is for a small grant funded organization. So, I think that what I’m seeing is that for people who just aren’t in a position to be able to cancel it financially, is everybody’s being real scrappy, to try to come up with a way to move forward and to try to have some type of an event to be able to continue in some capacity.

Meg: Yeah, so if an event does have an event coming up in the next couple of months and they want to salvage it and want to keep it going at some level, what do you recommend for those events?

Erik: So, if you have determined that you need to move forward with your event, for whatever reason that is, I absolutely recommend either taking it entirely online or having some type of hybrid online, virtual, and in-person event because, you know, in a lot of ways, it’s not fair to the people who, you know, like I said, I have sort of an immune deficiency and I, you know, it’s difficult for me to come up with a reason to have somebody even close to me go to an event where there’s lots of people. So, I think coming up with a way to do things like that, whether it’s even just setting up a bunch of Zoom meeting rooms, or something like that, to be able to offer that for someone who is not able to go or whose community or family, they’re in a position where they can’t attend or don’t feel like they should attend. And not penalizing those people for not being able to because it’s really, you know, not their fault.

There’s so many different fees and cancellation [fees], it is really screwing up a lot of different things for a lot of different people on every level of it from attendee to organizer to venue to hotel, restaurants, like everything, you know. As you know, they shut down South by Southwest like a week ahead of time, and had to lay off a ton of people and the city of Austin lost, you know, many, many, many millions of dollars of revenue, but it’s nobody’s fault. It has to happen.

I’ve seen a few really interesting things that are starting to pop up. Just a lot of people are starting to publish guidelines or tips, things like that. The World Health Organization actually just published a nine-page document on putting on events in the era of COVID-19 sort of thing. And it goes from everything to if you’re going to move forward with your event, be sure to start by establishing contact with your local or national public health authorities so that they know that it’s happening. Be sure to review etiquette and expectations at the beginning of any conference for people who are going to be there in person, you know, hand washing stations everywhere that isn’t just bathrooms, hand sanitizer, I guess if you can find it as there is a shortage, and then even consider things like crowd density and the layout of your event.

You know, in some cases, if your event was going to be a very busy event in a smaller space, and it was going to be very cozy, that might have been great for the vibe of your conference, but it’s not so great for public health and germ transference. So, what if there’s something that you could, you know, if you’re in a nicer area, move a conference or some type of speaker outside so people can have that space, you know, social distancing, not just by not showing up, but just keeping your distance from people and still be able to take part of it.

One other thing that I really liked was, somebody had suggested pre-recording speakers, their talks, and then playing them while the speaker is in, like, a Slack room or some sort of chat room, so that they can talk and answer questions to the people watching and listening as the talk is happening, or directly after.

Meg: Oh, yeah, that’s fascinating.

Erik: Yeah. So, if you have a single-track conference, and that’s the way your conference moves forward, I think that that’s a really great solution. Obviously, there’s lots to figure out about ticket price and how these different things are working.

Meg: Yeah, I think, and I’m sure that’s a wonderful part of your brain and makes you a great event producer, is that you probably like to solve these problems in some capacity. So, I think you’re used to having everything thrown at you so I’m sure you have a more even keeled personality when it comes to solving these problems.

Erik: Yeah, I mean, being an event producer is basically just being a problem solver, like from start to finish. So, this is just another very, very large problem. You know, it’s probably not the first time something that this will happen. It’s going to be difficult for people to weather this storm, it’s definitely a lot harder for independents like myself, who, you know, like I now don’t have any business in the next six months, whereas people who maybe are an event producer for the company that they work for, maybe there’s a little bit more leeway there. But I think for me, with my downtime now, it’s just going to be working on trying to figure out possible ways to handle things because, you know, right now, people are canceling events in the next couple of months. But there are events planned through the entire rest of the year, and we don’t really know what’s going to happen with those. So, I’m just going to put my head down and try to figure out multiple viable options for everything, from being an entirely virtual conference, to being a half and a half, maybe being, you know, some combination of a conference that’s going to be able to bring people together, maybe just not in person, just because it’s irresponsible to do that.

Meg: Right. I feel bad there are so many people that are losing work with all this going on, so many people are affected by these events that are getting canceled. Do you have any tips for how we can support everyone involved in an event that ends up getting canceled? And I’m just worried that a lot of these event companies are just going to end up having to go bankrupt because they lose so much money.

Erik: Yeah, I mean, that’s definitely true. I think that that’s also why you see some of these things canceling further out than you imagined they would, is because a lot of times, your venue is going to have a tiered cancellation program. And I am seeing that in some cases, some event spaces or hotels or things like that are actually considering this as part of a force majeure or, you know, out of your contract because it’s sort of like an act of God, you know, but in some cases, insurance or event insurance is not, you know, doesn’t cover pandemic. So, we haven’t really had to think about this too much in our lifetimes.

And so yeah, I would say first off is sort of keeping in mind that this is affecting a lot of people, event producers included, event companies included, but this is going to affect so many people in so many different ways. And in some cases, it’s easy to try to get angry that this event that you were practicing for a talk for or you were excited to attend is not going to happen, and just to kind of keep in mind that this is not somebody trying to do something out of laziness or out to get you or you know, something like that. This is something that we are all trying to do, as they say, flatten that curve of people, you know, contracting COVID-19, and we just need to pull together in general with this. I think a lot of independent event producers are people who are very resourceful and know how to do a lot of different things. I’m a photographer as well, so I am going to try to put much more energy into that aspect of things because I can stand eight feet away from somebody and still take the picture.

But I think just asking people if there’s any way that you can help or be there for them or being willing to test maybe some of these things for people, some of these virtual options. In total American fashion, there’s like three startups already about trying to figure out how to do virtual conferences, and a few of them, I don’t know, they look fairly promising. A couple of them are starting by waiving their fees for people whose event had to be canceled or postponed or moved to an online thing. I think one of them’s called Run the World, there’s one called Hop In, again, there’s Zoom. But there’s just a lot of things there. But I would say, to boil down your question to one simple answer is, instead of, maybe if you are a client who is working with an event producer on there, is to be open to these ideas of trying to do this in some capacity. Because even though it’s harder than just straight up canceling it in some ways, that might be the right call.

Meg: Alright. Well, thank you, Erik:. I wish we were talking under more exciting circumstances, but this has been very helpful and I’m sure everybody’s getting a lot out of it. So, if event organizers need your help restructuring their own events or need some advice from you, how can they find you on the internet?

Erik: Yeah, I’m happy to talk to anybody just to discuss possible ways that we can get around this and things that have worked for people and not worked for people. Whether or not it’s something that you’re looking to hire somebody or not, I just think we all need to chat about options. So, you can find me at Westraco.com, I’m Eric Westra on Instagram, those are the places, and I’m really happy to talk about it. And if you, also if you know of something, or your company is trying something, I would love to hear about it, because like I said, I’m trying to try and put together as much possible information and options for people, because I have events coming up that I really don’t want to have cancelled.

Meg: Alright, thank you, Erik:!

Erik: Yeah, thanks!

Meg: Well, what do you know? That’s it for this episode of Dribbble Overtime. If you want to continue the conversation on the internet, use #DribbbleOvertime. And you know where to find me on the internet right? My handle is @DarnGooood with four “O’s.” Not 25, like I just said. And you know what? The hotline for Overtime is still in full swing, so call 1-833-DEZIGNZ. That’s 1-833-DEZIGNZ, and leave an audio recording of your most embarrassing design question. And you know what? Your recording plus my answer might be featured on this podcast. The number is 1833-DEZIGNZ. No question is too embarrassing. And you know what? If you feel like giving me a little treat, hop right into Apple Podcasts and give us a review. We’d love it! Okay, bye bye. Hear me next week!