CASEY E. BERGER, PH.D.
  • Home
  • CV and Pubs
  • Social Justice
    • Antiracism
    • Feminism
    • Queer rights
    • Building an Inclusive Classroom
  • Learning + Teaching
    • Teaching Philosophy and Pedagogy
    • Teaching Experience
  • Building Balance

Building Balance

Welcome to Building Balance! I’m an early-career physics professor and advocate for work-life balance and mental health. I learned the hard way in graduate school that if I didn’t create my own boundaries and find balance in my life, the world would take advantage of that. Now, I pass those lessons on to other knowledge workers who feel besieged by our era of constant connectivity and proscriptive passion.

You can sign up for regular updates by subscribing to my newsletter. I try to post monthly with a tip, a resource, or a book review, and my newsletter will notify you when those are published. 
Want to support my work on Building Balance?
​Buy me a coffee!
Picture
I also offer workshops on work-life balance for knowledge workers.

Workshops

Journaling for intentionality

8/2/2021

2 Comments

 
Every so often, I realize I've left behind a habit that was really helping me. Often, this is caused by some sort of external change. Something that causes a massive temporary upheaval, forcing me to rearrange my life. I may think I will return to all my habits once the dust has settled, but often things get dropped, and sometimes I'm lucky enough to -- eventually -- notice.

This particular habit was listening to a podcast regularly. The podcast is called The Mindful Kind, and it's a lovely, quick listen. Every episode is only around 10 minutes long, and the host, Rachael Kable, discusses mindfulness in the context of daily life. For me, it served as a regular reminder to pause and breathe, to find little ways to engage more fully in my own life. ​I'm in the middle of a few big job and life transitions right now, which are exciting and scary at the same time. I started listening to this podcast again every morning, just to take a few minutes to keep my brain in this mindset of living in a more intentional way, so I don't get caught up in the chaos of all this change. As part of this intentionality, I'm journaling more often. 

This is more than just 8 weird tricks to boost your productivity. This is about connecting with yourself and thoughtfully building the life you want. In order to do that, you have to be prepared to ask yourself questions and listen for the answers.
Journaling is a form of mindfulness, and it doesn't have to take any particular form, be any particular length, or produce words that you would ever want to share with other people. I have struggled to establish a steady meditation practice, even using apps like Calm and Headspace, but the kind of mindfulness Rachael talks about is more all-encompassing. It's not (just) about sitting down for a structured 30 minutes to meditate, but more about how to incorporate mindfulness into everything you do, one small step at a time.

So I've begun to pause a few times a day and just jot down what I'm feeling, what's stressing me out, what I'm excited about, whatever is on my mind in that moment. If I can't quite pin down what's going on, which is often because there is just so much competing for my attention that I can't figure out which one is most important, then it really helps to ask myself a few questions.

Journaling, like meditating, has always been a tough habit for me to form. It's easy for me to use a planner or to write something that has a clear purpose in my day job, but regularly checking in with my own feelings in written format felt too daunting. So for this month, I thought it would be helpful to share some prompts I've used to make this process a little easier. I recommend taking some time periodically during your day to look at these prompts, pick whichever one sounds most interesting to you, and just jot down a few thoughts. It doesn't have to be clear or complete. It just has to be enough for you.
These three sets of prompts are focused around three scenarios: starting your day with intention, managing overwhelm thoughtfully, and closing out the work day with reflection.

Click on the images to get downloadable PDFs. I hope these help you when you're feeling like you need to pause and collect yourself. It only takes a minute to respond to one of these prompts, but it can change your whole day for the better.
2 Comments
jo la
2/17/2022 12:02:49 pm

thank you for these pdfs - I am trying to start a journal practice and they will be good inspiration.

I want to add - some of these kind of stress me out!! Predicting stressors for the day would not be good for my morning. The one about being overwhelmed was really overwhelming for me, too. I am sure it would be very helpful for someone else experiencing crisis, though!

Thanks again :)

Reply
Raymond Schmidt MD link
11/14/2022 10:38:43 pm

Street movie kitchen newspaper community bring. Home eat seem such. Hand growth life space air.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Casey Berger

    Archives

    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021

    Categories

    All
    Books
    Boundaries
    Deadlines
    Goal Setting
    Prioritization
    Rest
    Reviewing
    Strategies
    Time Management
    Tools
    Values
    Work And Life

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • CV and Pubs
  • Social Justice
    • Antiracism
    • Feminism
    • Queer rights
    • Building an Inclusive Classroom
  • Learning + Teaching
    • Teaching Philosophy and Pedagogy
    • Teaching Experience
  • Building Balance