These last few months have obviously changed everyone’s lives in a significant way. From what I can tell people are either doing substantially better or substantially worse. I’m luckily counting myself part of the former group! I’m doing so well I’m even posting to my blog! Regular readers know how rare this has become lately. This has been such an interesting time that I thought I’d just put together some of my main takeaways from being at home for almost 4 months now.
- Working from home is everything I dreamed it would be. I’ve never worked from home before this. I’ve always wanted to. I’m a huge fan of the Basecamp guys and I’ve always thought it’d be more productive and enjoyable to work remote. Now I’ve had my chance to finally test it out, and it’s….better than I ever imagined!! I’m more productive, happier, spending less time on distractions and small talk, I’m communicating better with my co-workers, and I’m getting more family time. This will likely have to be an entirely separate post some day, but wow.
- eero is worth the money. When I first set up at home I was having a lot of VPN issues. I splurged early on for the eero wifi system, and it paid off. I haven’t had a single speed or connection issue on any call or anything, It’s actually been more stable than our office internet.
- Kettlebells are scary & awesome. Like everyone else I was shut out of my gym and desperately trying to find some home gym equipment. Everything was of course sold out initially so I was doing push ups like everyone else. Then I came across this build-your-own kettlebell, and this hilariously awesome Russian instructional book. If you’re concerned you might be a sissy and need some Russian discipline in your life, this is the way.
- Watches are useful after all. I haven’t worn a watch in years. It’s such a statement and there’s no chance I’d ever spend the kind of money others do on something like this. I ended up buying a Casio for two reasons, and so far it’s worked out. The first reason is that I have been able to keep my phone far away from me when I’m not working. the watch has a vibrating alarm, so I can sleep with my phone in my home office, instead of next to my bed, and in the morning I can spend some family time while keeping an eye on the time without having the phone around. The other reason is that I want to be reminded that time is passing and I should not be wasting it, especially during this time where there are few barriers between work and home. I’m trying to cultivate a greater awareness of this, and having a digital watch counting down the seconds is a useful reminder.
- I’m an introvert apparently. I’ve never bothered self-diagnosing whether I was an introvert or extrovert. I enjoy hanging out with people a lot so I always assumed I was extroverted. This experience has shown me though that I can be absolutely happy without regular social events. I’m currently pretty happy to just spend time with my family, and I’m in no rush to socialize again and re-enter the real world.
- How you start your day is everything. Being stuck at home all day and night for months with two kids and a puppy has made it difficult to find quiet time. I used to be able to escape the house and head to a nearby chapel each morning at 6:30am to get anchored to start the day. That’s no longer an option, so now I’m waking up at 5am for an hour of prayer, followed by an hour of exercise, followed by 45 minutes of family time before work starts. I love this new routine, and it took me a month of quarantine before I admitted waking up at 5am was the only way I was going to get to do everything I wanted. Honestly, the day I started this everything went from weird and depressing to awesome for me.
- Babies are awesome. We had a baby in January! If you’re going to be locked in a house for 4 months it helps if you have a super happy, super low maintenance baby around to hold and play with whenever you need to reset. I’m so grateful that I’m able to be home more, even though I’m working long hours, and see more of the first year of this little dude’s life. It really helps keep perspective during this time. So the gist is: I recommend babies.
- My wife is a saint. Even from behind my closed office door I can hear my wife out there homeschooling, patiently dealing with the kids, trying to keep the chaos from entering my small work space, nursing the baby multiple times a night, cleaning the house and cooking our meals. We all pay lip service regularly, but actually observing what it’s like at home all day every day was really eye opening. Early on during lock down I lost my temper multiple times with our 6 year old, I just wasn’t prepared to be around the family 24/7. It’s a different level of intensity. To think that the hassles we’re dealing with at the office are even remotely comparable is a joke.
- We are not in control. God is in control. While we were all out empire building, improving our social status, sweating our next investments, and making our plans of world domination, reality snuck in and gave us all a gut punch. How laughable is it that we have these egos and thought we were in control? This has been an excellent reminder that I hope we all never forget. We are not in control by any stretch of the imagination. All our worldly possessions, dreams, and desires are pretty useless when we’re on lock down indefinitely. On the flip-side it becomes so obvious to anyone paying attention at times like this that all we can cling to is God. Everything else is uncertain.
So there you have it. My takeaways thus far from the COVID19 pandemic. As you might have noticed, I’ve really only had a positive experience throughout this ordeal. Of course the situation itself is horrible, but the aspect which I can control has been awesome. I’m curious what you readers have taken away from the experience so far. Let us know in the comments!
