Due to corona virus, most of us are staying home and working from home. I have seen many articles and post written where they are recommending 1) you to adhere to similar daily schedule you had before lock down, 2) wake up in the morning, 3) get ready and make your separate office space to make you feel like you are working in office. Many people are also falling prey to working extra. They are starting their day with work and ending theri day with work. When not working also, they are keeping themselves busy with chores they used to do before lockdown albeit virtually. No one wants to disrupt their schedules any more than whats already disrupted by the lockdown. So people are trying hard to keep the schedule we had before lock-down. Is it really needed? May be not.
I am here to give you a different perspective and I will do so by telling you by how I am spending time during lock down. Not saying that any of the perspective is good or bad, it just your choice.
Lets first set some context on why I am appreciating this forced lock down so much. I have been working in the industry since last 15 years without any sabbatical. Right after my engineering in 2004, I joined a start up and since then never looked back; grew exponentially. But this meant , spending more time during the weekdays on my job. This was not by force but because I liked it. Weekends have always been for me and I have been disciplined enough to not give away my weekends to my job especially after I got married in 2010. In 2014, I decided to do my MBA. It being a 1 year accelerated MBA at Hult International Business School, I spent even more time during weekdays & weekends studying than the time I had spent at work while working. After MBA, I joined Amazon, which meant no time on weekdays. I have been very disciplined in creating a work /life balance but still there is hardly ever any day at Amazon when you will have any free time. In 2017, our daughter was born, means no time during the day or during the night on week days and week ends :) So as you see, I been nonstop at work, studies and then back at work for last 15 years with no big breaks. So as you can see I was break deprived and sleep deprived. This lockdown has given me some sense of a break from daily activities that I have been doing from last 15 years.
The lock-down became a bit more lonely and challenging for me as my family is stuck in India. So here I am home alone and living a bachelor life taking care of work and house. I have always hated living alone. This is also the first time I am away from my wife and my daughter the longest. Instead of falling trap to loneliness and to negative thoughts of missing family, I thought I better make the most of the time so that I make my family feel happy.
I am here to give you a different perspective and I will do so by telling you by how I am spending time during lock down. Not saying that any of the perspective is good or bad, it just your choice.
Lets first set some context on why I am appreciating this forced lock down so much. I have been working in the industry since last 15 years without any sabbatical. Right after my engineering in 2004, I joined a start up and since then never looked back; grew exponentially. But this meant , spending more time during the weekdays on my job. This was not by force but because I liked it. Weekends have always been for me and I have been disciplined enough to not give away my weekends to my job especially after I got married in 2010. In 2014, I decided to do my MBA. It being a 1 year accelerated MBA at Hult International Business School, I spent even more time during weekdays & weekends studying than the time I had spent at work while working. After MBA, I joined Amazon, which meant no time on weekdays. I have been very disciplined in creating a work /life balance but still there is hardly ever any day at Amazon when you will have any free time. In 2017, our daughter was born, means no time during the day or during the night on week days and week ends :) So as you see, I been nonstop at work, studies and then back at work for last 15 years with no big breaks. So as you can see I was break deprived and sleep deprived. This lockdown has given me some sense of a break from daily activities that I have been doing from last 15 years.
The lock-down became a bit more lonely and challenging for me as my family is stuck in India. So here I am home alone and living a bachelor life taking care of work and house. I have always hated living alone. This is also the first time I am away from my wife and my daughter the longest. Instead of falling trap to loneliness and to negative thoughts of missing family, I thought I better make the most of the time so that I make my family feel happy.
Now that you know how dearly I am taking this lockdown and the reasons for it, lets now talk about how I am utilizing the lockdown.
Basically, first 2 weeks of lock down , all I did was sleep , sleep and sleep other then the time I was awake working. I will sleep right after my work for an hr and then sleep in the night again and will only wake up at 8:00 am. After, I started to feel satisfied with my sleep, I started adding some while away time - TV time, FB /Twitter time and Tik Tok watching time. I don't really like to to watch a lot of TV and without family here I hate watching movies or serials alone. But I like watching news, it has been my favorite pass time since childhood. So I started catching up on news on TV and Twitter. I started getting a bit active on FB to reengage with my friends. I was introduced to Tik Tok very recently and I liked the laughter it bought. I started watching it for 2 weeks only to delete it later as it was becoming an addiction. Without having left with much options for food, I also started cooking my favorite dishes. I learnt full time cooking when my wife was pregnant and since then It has been my favorite stress buster. So by now I have spent 4 weeks in lock-down basically whiling away time over tasty food made my me and doing nothing except for hrs when I work.
Talking about work, I have ensured that I don't fall pray to working extra and working inefficient. There is definitely more work that it was before look-down because of program I am leading and because remote working has its own challenges. But I have found my ways to be more efficient. I wake up now by 7:30 to 8:00 am and have a relaxed start to my morning by having my reading, talking to my family and by having breakfast over news. I plan my day a night in advance and start working at 9 :00 am and make sure I have read my emails and set up meetings by 10. I ensure my day has enough gap with meetings so that I can get "me time" within day to work, to take "walk breaks" and even nap breaks. I make sure I end my work by 5:00 pm. Sometimes, I end my work early and work in the night to just to give myself non-work related "me time" in the eve. I have found myself to be more efficient and producing more results :)
Due to the way , I spent my first 4 weeks during lock-down, I feel more energized and relaxed so I have now refocused myself way from whiling away my time to doing things I always wanted to do like writing blogs, learning piano and reading books. I have written and published 2 blogs, 2 are on their way and 25 are in the draft stage. I am finishing my first book for this month and have learned 3-4 tunes on piano. I have started going back to my exercise routine too.
Another thing that I love doing is to give back to my community and network especially my Hult International Business school community. During COVID 19 times, there are many students who are facing uncertainty and I have made it a point to talk to many of them to mentor then on resume and job search. I am also talking to prospective candidates who want to join Hult but unsure if the time is right. I have also started helping job seekers who have lost job due to COVID 19. I like helping people and lock down has given me some extra time and energy to contribute to my community.
In a nut shell, this undisciplined and unplanned approach has helped my body, mind and soul heal, relax and get back to its mojo. We make our body and mind work so much, we get so occupied in life at work and home that we never give break to body/mind. We make our body and mind victim to tight schedule at work and at home.
Sometimes, it okay to loosen your discipline, its okay to not plan your day, its okay to not do things or do it as and when you like it to be. This gives your body and mind a much needed break and refreshes and energizes your soul. It is at this state that you start to do more and start to create wonders.
Talking about work, I have ensured that I don't fall pray to working extra and working inefficient. There is definitely more work that it was before look-down because of program I am leading and because remote working has its own challenges. But I have found my ways to be more efficient. I wake up now by 7:30 to 8:00 am and have a relaxed start to my morning by having my reading, talking to my family and by having breakfast over news. I plan my day a night in advance and start working at 9 :00 am and make sure I have read my emails and set up meetings by 10. I ensure my day has enough gap with meetings so that I can get "me time" within day to work, to take "walk breaks" and even nap breaks. I make sure I end my work by 5:00 pm. Sometimes, I end my work early and work in the night to just to give myself non-work related "me time" in the eve. I have found myself to be more efficient and producing more results :)
Due to the way , I spent my first 4 weeks during lock-down, I feel more energized and relaxed so I have now refocused myself way from whiling away my time to doing things I always wanted to do like writing blogs, learning piano and reading books. I have written and published 2 blogs, 2 are on their way and 25 are in the draft stage. I am finishing my first book for this month and have learned 3-4 tunes on piano. I have started going back to my exercise routine too.
Another thing that I love doing is to give back to my community and network especially my Hult International Business school community. During COVID 19 times, there are many students who are facing uncertainty and I have made it a point to talk to many of them to mentor then on resume and job search. I am also talking to prospective candidates who want to join Hult but unsure if the time is right. I have also started helping job seekers who have lost job due to COVID 19. I like helping people and lock down has given me some extra time and energy to contribute to my community.
In a nut shell, this undisciplined and unplanned approach has helped my body, mind and soul heal, relax and get back to its mojo. We make our body and mind work so much, we get so occupied in life at work and home that we never give break to body/mind. We make our body and mind victim to tight schedule at work and at home.
Sometimes, it okay to loosen your discipline, its okay to not plan your day, its okay to not do things or do it as and when you like it to be. This gives your body and mind a much needed break and refreshes and energizes your soul. It is at this state that you start to do more and start to create wonders.
I pray to God that we all stay safe and healthy but I must agree that this lockdown has brought freshness in many sense. Freshness in routine, pursuing hobbies, fulfilling long pending to do list and so on.
ReplyDeleteThe gist of the matter is that we can make use of this time in far better way than complaining...
Well said. All we can do is use the time to do what we always wanted to do but could not
ReplyDelete