WFH- Getting adjusted to a new normal

COVID19 has changed us in more ways than one. And for those of us used to going to an office, attending meetings and getting our daily work done, it has significantly altered everything. For parents among us, this has also meant getting used to having kids in the house while you take calls and getting work done while also homeschooling the kid(s). In the past month, I have made a lot of adjustments to my work day to stay productive while also keeping my sanity and ensuring my family is getting the attention when it needs it.

The experience over last month has been surprising in many ways. If I were to run a scorecard, it would score better than average. Here is all the not-so-good and good stuff about this past month.

The Not-So-Good stuff

• Sitting in meetings all day is hard. At work, the very act of walking between conference rooms and buildings added some dynamism that is sorely lacking at home. It is also mentally challenging processing so much information in a given day since there is just so much.
• At Facebook, we have shifted as many meetings to being async as possible which is great, but as a PM, my work runs on meetings. So even with meeting reduction, there is just too many of them.
• Getting things done in person, face-to-face is so much better and productive versus trying to get it done over even the best of video conferencing tools.
• Shifting back and forth between work mode and family mode is a hard context switch that I am still trying to get used to. A long commute ensured that I had adequate time to shift between my two personas. Now I don't have that luxury which makes it that much harder.
• I am overworking. Not having to get to my car and then home means that the lines between work hours and non-work hours has blurred. With shelter in place, many days and more so during weekends, I find myself working just out of boredom. This contributes to the blurriness of the work-life balance lines contributing to a vicious cycle.
• I miss my woodshop at work. I know I am fortunate to even have one- but it was my occasional break when I desperately needed one. Now I miss it and the awesome woodworkers who patiently taught me stuff.

And now the good stuff

There is a lot of good that has come out of the past month. I say this having taken a lot of time to process how my life has changed and the kind of adjustments I have been forced to make.

• I am sleeping better. As someone who has always tried to squeeze as much as possible out of a given 24 hours, I am sleeping more. Sometimes because there is just nothing to do. From an average of 6 hours a night, I now average 7:30 hrs of good sleep. And I think a future me is thanking this month for it.
• I am eating better. Before shelter in place, running between meetings at work, I grabbed lunch that was closest to me and at a time when I had a few minutes. Even with some incredible options, I often ended up eating the least interesting food at the fastest possible time. Now I am much more thoughtful about what I eat and when I eat. And every meal is on my dining table with my family which is hard to put a value on.
• I am working out, daily. Between sitting in the car and having a packed day at work, I rarely worked out and whatever little I did came in spurts. Now I spend 15 minutes in the morning and 15-20 minutes in the evening doing focused workouts - my sessions vary between yoga, endurance and mobility. And I feel great overall.
• I am doing a better job as a parent and a husband. My wife and I sit and talk instead of trying to catch each other over WhatsApp and short phone calls. I am also able to take nice walks with my son every evening which is priceless.
• I am doing things I have not had time to do in a while - I am sketching, woodworking (at home with what little tools I have), blogging (gosh, been a while) and much more.
• I am much more focused at work. Here is my secret superpower - my walks. This may be my biggest win of the past month. I have always enjoyed walking - either for 1:1 meetings or listening to podcasts/audiobooks. And now I take atleast one, preferably two meetings in the morning and two in the afternoon while I walk. The advantage is that I don't multitask when I walk. I have a nice pair of bluetooth headphones on and the phone in my pocket. I am 100% focused on the conversation, paying attention to every word. This is incredibly powerful at a time when it is challenging to focus at and on work.
• And yes, I am stopping to smell the roses, every single day.

Overall I feel in some ways that my quality of life has improved in this short period of time. I know this will be over sooner or later. I will go back to work, and my son to his school. I will jump between meetings and grab quick lunches. I will workout less and sit long hours in traffic. But until then, in this uncertain and unprecedented times, there are some wins and some small things to be thankful for.

Two wooden spoons that I learnt to hand carve in the past month.

Footnote: The COVID19 pandemic continues to devastate families and communities around the world, having caused more than a 100,000 deaths (as of 10-Apr) and many hundreds of billions of dollars in lost business. The job losses in the US alone are more than 16 million and counting. In that sense, I want to acknowledge that this post is a first-world of first-world problems. It impacts me and many like me, but given how this virus has significantly affected so many hundreds of millions across the world, I am indeed fortunate and am thankful to the health workers, the daily wage employees in the grocery stores, the package delivery folks, and every one who continues to keeps things going amidst the daily threats to their health and family. I am also thankful to have an employer that can afford to have me work from home in these difficult times.

If you have gotten so far, consider donating to a food bank or a homeless shelter near you. They need our support more than ever before.