In these days of slowing down the lockdown we were living in I wondered what I had learned, what I was taking with me as an experience of these 2 months.
Interpersonal contacts vs. digital communication
Interpersonal closeness to people, not mediated by technology, is a necessity for us mammals accustomed to lead a daily social life based on immediate physical contact. This period I understood that digital communication alone cannot replace this need, which has always been satisfied by human beings.
On the contrary, however, I could also fully become aware that online communication and the ease of its access are factors with an extraordinary impact on work and relational life. Digital acts in the direction of giving us a greater availability of the resource from which we suffer the most: the time. It is a saving that also has an effect on our daily well-being, reducing stress due to a lifestyle in which travels take up too much of our time.For the future, we must enhance the care of interpersonal relationships through physical proximity, but at the same time digital is the most effective way to better manage the complexity of professional life.
Balance and priority setting between well-being and work
In these weeks of lockdown personal wellbeing and professional needs have become more clearly intertwined than the usual organization of our days. The effort of adaptation has been very significant as we found ourselves living an unforeseen and previously unplanned condition. Just think about the difficulty of many families divided between the work organization of the parents and the online school commitments of their children. In an increasingly digital future it will be necessary to find a balance between private life and work, between everyday stress and well-being.
Work in presence and work online
In my work with athletes and professionals from other professional fields it was necessary to adapt to this new solution – at a distance – especially in understanding and making them understand that working together was not “something, waiting to start again in the usual way” but it was the best way to train mentally and to prepare for performance in a way that was certainly different but no less effective. The mental attitude of doing something “waiting to” was widespread and it took some time before accepting a different way of thinking. Currently the people I work with are convinced that this period has allowed them to become aware of aspects of their performances and the importance of developing certain skills that they would never have achieved, as they would have been too involved in the running of the season.
