By Vania Pokraeva
Working from home in the last 2 years has created a unique situation of interacting a lot with the same group of people, the direct colleagues you are working with daily. Although there are the occasional and sometimes regular meetings with other colleagues from different departments or countries, the biggest amount of time is spent with the same group of people.
Think about it, and you will probably realize that might be the case with you as well.
Not going to the office for months at a time meant not having the pleasant chat over a coffee or having a casual lunch with colleagues with whom you don’t really interact with that often simply because you don’t cross pads in your line of work. You used to hear all these stories what people did in their free time: discuss the latest movie premiere or who did hike or run a marathon; what people experienced during a holiday or a business trip. These stories subconsciously were giving colour and spice to your perception of things, helped you without even realizing to look at some things differently and maybe approach a difficult topic from a different perspective.
All that ‘colourful’ interaction was suddenly taken away. On top of that, the social life outside work was also evolving around the family bubble and close friends.
‘Tunnel’ vision
If someone wanted to develop a so-called ‘tunnel’ vision these are the ideal circumstances to achieve that… just kidding, I doubt if someone would want to develop that on purpose.
But the fact of the matter is, that in time we start to use similar language, we handle work challenges with the same line of thought and approach discussions playing the same roles we always have. We even start to use similar language to a point that if someone outside your ‘work bubble’ unexpectedly joins your work discussion, they can barely follow your point.
Broaden your horizon
The realization that someone might be in that state of having a ‘tunnel’ vision rarely happens without an abrupt push from the outside world, whether that is a sort of ‘collision’ or enforced circumstances – e.g. introducing a new colleague, who talks about these great ideas and gives you food for thought; sudden travel to another country or maybe even watching a movie handling a confrontational topic. Seeking this is a lifetime commitment from some people as they like to broaden their horizons by continuously seeking a challenge.
Whatever it is, I consider it a sign that something must be changed, because you suddenly have the feeling that you can approach things differently or you can solve that ‘one’ problem much faster and more creative.
In my case, I was recently ‘airlifted’ in a way from my day-to-day work and dropped somewhere else (I had to travel suddenly) and this worked as a catalyst for getting creative ideas, meeting different people, having conversations about topics I had forgotten to talk about and which I used to find exciting.
Everything around me was colorful and bright and full of promises and creative solutions for the future. This does not necessarily mean that everyone gets once in a while in a state of ‘tunnel’ vision, I just encourage you to change the scenery, the people you interact with and even the places you visit. This might work like magic for your brain which will soak up every new information like a toddler discovering the wonders of the world.
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