The Questions That Will Get Me Through the Pandemic
In quarantine, one day smears into the next. To fight that unmoored feeling, psychologists recommend establishing a routine. The former astronaut Scott Kelly says that such a regimen helped him get through his time on the International Space Station, watching multiple sunrises a day as he orbited Earth. For the past 40 years, the historian Robert Caro has written at home, but maintained a daily structure to combat his instinct to procrastinate. “I do everything I can to make myself remember this is a job,” he told NPR's Steve Inskeep. “I keep a schedule. People laugh at me for wearing, you know, a coat and tie to work.” Routine provides order and goals, giving our days meaning and fighting off depression.
When the pandemic hit, I was already neck deep in a routine, an experiment that had grown out of a promise I had made.
[Read: We need to stop trying to replicate the life we had]
Last year, I interviewed the executive coach Marshall Goldsmith, the author of What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, for my book on the presidency, The Hardest Job in the World. Goldsmith argues that success can be a barrier to future achievement. When people get promoted, they think their new position mostly requires them to do more of what got them called up to the big leagues. That’s a mistake. Each new role requires new skills, adaptation, and flexibility. Executives who recognize this thrive; those who don’t, struggle.
Presidents face this same challenge. After the significant achievement of winning an American presidential election, they think they can just adapt their campaigning skills to the White House. That's a mistake. It's a
