Gunnar Optics

The pandemic has totally disrupted my work / life balance. I balance my day everyday work and personal life on a visual budget. My visual budget is based on an equation:

P + F / E = S

P=Pain
F=Fatigue
E=Energy
S=Sight Capability

My experience with vision is dynamic. At the extreme ends of the spectrum. When I am rested and not in pain and I have lots of energy its amazing what I can do I am extremely high functioning. At the other end of the spectrum when I’m in pain. Most work days I am at the end of the day in extreme pain, a 7. During the work week I get more and more tired, for some odd reason Thursdays tend to be the worst. Probably the anticipation of the weekend and rest. My function is much more in alignment with my visual acuity, I’m blind.

Work life balance during the pandemic is out of the window. From 7am to 10pm daily I’m on screens. Phone, work computer and television, especially when we are locked down. My eyes get exhausted and the amount of visual data I can deal with decreases. At the end of a work day which is now closer to 14 hours rather than 8 I barely have the capability to watch the news on TV. In fact most of the time I sit far away and just listen as I’m too tired to watch.

Recently I upgraded my phone to the tune of 1500$ to improve the screen quality to reduce and manage visual fatigue with the device.

For TV watching and computer work I use 55” televisions.

The one thing that has allowed me to function during the Pandemic is my Gunnar glasses. Without these glasses I wouldn’t be able to do the work I do. I’m a Chief IT Architect at a bank.

My typical day outside of the pandemic is 2 to 4 hours a day max on a computer screen and the rst of the time spent in meetings or getting to and from meeting rooms. During my commute I was away from screens, and once at home I rarely watched television.

In contrast to during the pandemic as I mentioned above I’m on the screens most of my waking day. I can tell you that when I get exhausted visually it impacts my persecution of my ability to contribute to work and my life. Leaving my feeling like a failure or inadequate to do my thing.

Rest and recovery are then necessary for me to get my high functioning self back and recovery my perception of being a contributing person. Its not that I don’t value myself when I’m exhausted and effectively totally blind. Its just my cadence of work and activity is impacted. For me the impact of high functioning sight and low functioning sight is velocity and agility in how I live my life.

The impact is huge.

The Gunnar glasses are amazing as they’ve helped me in the last year of lock down maintain and previously unattainable stretch of high functioning capability. But I can tell you now that I’m getting tired. Making mistakes, getting frustrated and missing details that I normally wouldn’t. Its time for a rest to get my equation back in balance.