Tips and Reflections - Week three

So a third week is almost finished, the world is both unusual and familiar at the same time and the personality split is more pronounced!

Tips

Find ways to help. Do it for purely selfish reasons if you don’t feel the altruistic drive because that would give you a feeling of positive action. Something within your control that you can drive in whichever way you want. 

Alternatively, 3 weeks staying home and not knowing when or if you can step out of the house, what world will be waiting for you when you do is enough to drive the strongest of us up the wall (metaphorically and literally) 

The unique nature of this pendemic is that in every corner, in every country, civil society is coming into its own. Whether governments acknowledges that or not, they’re unable to meet the basic needs of a significant section of the community and they’re relying on volunteers and civil societies to fill the gap. 

From dropping shopping, to maintaining spread sheets and answering phones, from sawing masks and medical gowns to cooking meals, there is something for everyone. 

We’re surrounded with negativity and dwelling in feelings of incompleteness will just add to the mental strain we’re all facing. So take action and find how you can help. Facebook and local council sites is a good starting point! 

Reflections 

Shared experiences, for me, this week has been themed around shared experiences bring the best of art, music, dance and performing to the masses. 

Experiences that have previously been the privilege of the few has been shared by millions with free performances streamed live all over the world. 

There is something so powerful when you realise that you’re joining 2 million people watching a repeat of the nutcracker by Bolshoi or 3.9m listening to a live performance by Andrea Bocelli. 

The simple things, often overlooked and underrated till today. Forgotten experiences that filled us with joy when we were young, seem to come back and fill us with joy today. I remember the first time I had the seed to seedling experience we all tried at school. The astonishment when seeing a dried pulse sprouting leaves and growing into a full plant. 

This week, by sheer confidence, I ended up with a repeat with an apple seed. Surprising and fragile as anything, the green shoots grew over a few days at such a speed.

 There was something that touched a deeper feeling seeing the growth, the fragility and the change that small seed played over the past couple of days. Maybe, a hopeful glimpse of a future where I tell others where that apple tree came from. 

Hope or wishful thinking, death and redirection 

Happy Easter, Stay safe 

Tips and Reflections - Week two

So a slightly delayed entry which I can blame on the days merging into each other and working over the weekend which meant I didn't get the chance to actually sit and write on my wall. 

Better late than never, here are week 2 tips and Reflections 

Tips

Space out your shopping and exercise and if possible, combine the two. Over the weekend, I switched into the further grocery store (about 4km/2.3m) from home and took the opportunity to walk there with hubby for the weekly shop. Good workout, about an hour chatting uninterrupted by mobile phones or news - not too bad for the time! 

The coffee breaks are more important now than ever before. I never appreciated how much of my normal day I spent walking between meetings, to the printer and of course to grab my coffee refill. All of which has disappeared now leaving my with 3-4 hours stretches of time where I hardly move. 

So this week, I started having walking coffee break with hubby in our tiny living room. He got dizzy at some point with my constant pacing so possibly find a way to cover a greater distance throughout the house! 

Use the fact that you're at home to break up your working day with cooking and other house work. Sounds silly (or stating the obvious) but in my 17 years living in my own place including 11 years of marriage, my brain is programmed to cooking late in the evening and sorting out the house on the weekend. 

You'll actually be more productive doing so (takes less than my commuting time) and the change in pace helps rejuvenate your brain. I'm getting my best ideas cooking these days! 

Last but not least, do make the effort to schedule that virtual coffee (ideally using video messenger and actually having a coffee at the same time). I actually forgot about the channel 5 minutes into my catch up with a friend last Saturday, his baby was walking all over the place and grabbing on to everything while we were chatting and sipping our drinks. Could have been any cafe and we went on for hours. 

Reflections 

With the change in tone and signalling from UKG around the length by which these restrictions will last,  the mood is getting darker. Walking outside with the sun shining and trees in full bloom, there a real sense of disconnect which is hard to manage. 

The situation is also bearing down on people's faith and believes. Even the most faithful and having their faith tested at an unprecedented level. We are faced with our fragility and mortality to an extent not seen in the past 60 years and at a scale never seen before. The question on life, God, purpose have never been bigger and traditional answers are coming up short.

At the same time, we're still living through the comradery phase with humanity and good deeds, patience and kindness are top of everyone's approach. The worry is always how long will this last, with tolerance wearing thinner as the lockdown stays on for longer and the real economic hardship becomes more pronounced. 

Looking beyond the UK, the scenes from India to Lebanon are heart-breaking. The same policy of isolation is introduced but the support infrastructure is non-existent. The question there is the surety of dying from hunger vs the possibility of getting Covid 19 and maybe dying. I don't believe anyone has a real answer to this question. 

Week 2 has been a more sombre one. We still listen to our music, explore new quirks to working from home and connecting remote however, the longer days haven't felt brighter and the darkness on the horizon feels a bit closer.

Stay safe 

Tips and Reflections -Week One

Whether  this series ends up being 1 post or 12, no one knows. However, the drive that pushed cavemen to draw on walls seem to simmer within all of us. Here's my wall! 

WFT tips:

Having a desk set up is key

Yes, you can start your day early with no commuting but make sure you ease into the day - for me that's reading my kindle for some time before getting into the "office" 

Invest in good lights around your work space. Smart lights that can replicate nature light are a good investment 

Take your usual coffee break, lunch break. Good time to hang with others in the household or to go outside and stretch your legs 

Clock off as if you have your commute ahead of you, don't be tempted to stay on till 9 because that's when you normally arrive home

Background noise might be the BBC news although I would suggest easy listening. We're being bombarded by the news non-stop between colleagues, email updates from work, starting and ending most meetings and even in some cases working on the emergency planning for your company or your client. We can easily get overwhelmed 

Adopt new routines, my husband and I spent one evening listening to cheesy 70 music (having started with staying alive, followed by Rasputin the night fever before closing with take a chance on me) 

Last but not least, embrace how working from home and connecting with colleagues and teams remotely is helping us build a new relationship with those we work with and clients we continue to support. 

Suddenly, you get to see a different side as we interact from our home environment with children, dogs, partners and families now blending into our workplace. The meetings are lighter, the comradery is implicit and awareness of the wellbeing of those on the other side is top of mind at every point. 

Reflections

In the UK, the debate rages on a what social distancing actually means and the prospects of maintaining such an extreme measure for up to a year! 

There isn't an easy answer, here's my 2 cents worth of thoughts:

It all depends on the speed by which a number of items come on line:

1- more capacity at the NHS with beds and ventilators--today's announcement that private hospitals will be servicing the NHS at cost is first step

2- a mass testing process, apparently that's a few weeks away which would allow better evaluation of who actually has had COVID-19. The thinking is that many people have had it and didn't realise they were ill. This will help assessing peak sickness levels and managing them to align with NHS capacity

3- a vaccine which is 12-18 months away

There isn't a right or a wrong way, there is simple math to try and ensure the system isn't overwhelmed and doctors aren't forced to triage patients deciding who gets a ventilator and who doesn't

We as humans will need to learn a new reality that will transform how we operate even if the measures end in 1, 2, 3 or 12 months. If 10 years of civil war in Syria taught us anything it taught us that we are super adaptive and new habits will form delivering this new norm.

The aim now is to maintain the bones of the society and the economy so that we can bounce back from this.

Meanwhile, technology is finally proving its worth as a social tool. I'm talking to my parents through Facebook portal, to my colleagues through Teams and clients with Skype and zoom. I've learnt more about them as humans as we merged our work space into our family homes and people are kinder and more understanding for the totality that is us than ever before.

And in the words of my favourite quote: " “You say we’re on the brink of destruction and you’re right. But it’s only on the brink that people find the will to change. Only at the precipice do we evolve….”