Pandemic reflections

Day 19 (and why this took so long)

I have thought about this for weeks now. Writing about the experience, the challenge and the focus required to shift into this new mindset, but I have been unable to focus and dedicate the time to writing a few paragraphs. See the issue here? I believe we finally came out of the craziness of “what’s next” and entered into the “ok, let’s move forward” so hence this post.

I never thought I would be writing this. I have been thinking of working from home occasionally over the last year. Now that I have been doing it for the last (almost) 3 weeks, there is a lot to say and reflect on.

Prior to closing the school, I started working from home, meeting remotely (using Google Meet) and a laptop. A lot of work was done to prepare for this, discussions and considerations (as much as possible in light of the ever-changing landscape).

We closed the school on March 11th (a few days prior to scheduled spring break) and that allowed many people to just begin thinking about what the next weeks would be like.

Following the direction of the government of NYC and the department of education, we are following the same rules and remaining closed until April 20th (earliest). That means that many people will be working remotely for more than a month.

Technology provides so much in the way of access to resources that in 2020, this is not too hard of a process. Most have robust internet, portable computers and resources already cloud-based so working remotely is not too hard to do.

What I expect we will see more of in the next two weeks will be people asking about solutions (monitors, keyboards, mice) to make their home workspace more comfortable. Personally I have moved to 4 or 5 areas of the house (sometimes throughout the day) but it is all very tough to deal with knowing that many of the “comforts” of office life are tough to replicate in a home.

My two boys (high school) have been working for close to a week with “remote learning” and video conferences. They have to work on their schedules, their time and their focus more (which I believe is a good thing).

I have read countless articles about the best ways to do it all — but nothing is really in a place to consider this for a month plus plan. It can be done, but it will be very different. Making workspaces, personal spaces, breaking up time and focus all play into this and need to be considered.

As we continue on this adventure more details will come to light and I’d be happy to share.