Virtual Whisperer 7 — Appreciating Simplicity
When we work from home, the trappings of visiting the office no longer really matter. As we head into sheltering in place for the 8th week, the lives of most of us have become simpler, but for those working from home and schooling young children, it is anything but. It’s essential when working from home to set boundaries around the way the day and week must look. Here are some things that our team has learned over the years about working virtually and keeping life simple. It’s also what COVID-19 has taught us through this grand social experiment none of us planned:
Set routines for your day. I’ve written about Mondays being my internal day for weekly exec team meetings, one-on-ones, financial review, and anything that keeps the business running for the week ahead. On Tuesday through Thursday, I focus on revenue and clients. Fridays I keep open for catch-up, client action, or the stray appointment that is essential and couldn’t happen earlier in the week. I also never set back to back calls: We need breathers in between calls to follow up, take a bio break, or just simply get up from the chair.
Stretch. Speaking of getting up, make time in your day to get off video and move around and stretch. When we worked virtually, early on, we could only use phone — there was no video, and this was well before free Skype. With a handheld phone, we could walk around our homes or into the back yard while talking and keep our bodies moving. In contrast, video can lead to literally sitting all day. So, give your body a break at regular intervals. Keep moving as often as you can.
Ask for help. Single parents and parents working at home with school-age kids have even more stress these days. Ask in-laws to Facetime and help with schoolwork, or join forces with other parents and share the load.
Say “no.” If the school is throwing too much at you, then simply say “enough.” Learning is supposed to be fun, and your kid can get more education working in the garden in your back yard weeding, tilling, planting, identifying bugs — good ones and bad ones — than sitting in front of a screen all day.
Ditto for cooking dinner. I have cooked since I was seven years old, and I helped my mom before that. Give kids a recipe, measuring cups, teaspoons, and mixing bowls and see what they learn about food groups, preparing a balanced meal, metrics, and all the rest. School comes in many forms, and it doesn’t always mean writing essays or filling in multiple-choice boxes.
We used to limit after-school activities so that we could sit down to dinner as a family every night. The boys could pick two activities and that was it. No schedule fit for a president and needing a Chief of Staff. Give your kids a break, and if the schoolwork is too much, then simply say “no” more often. You won’t fall behind, neither will they, and they will learn the art of saying “no.”Pick what you’ll do each day. Choose the one or two “boulders” that are most important and focus on those first. It’s easy to get distracted by Zoom calls, Slack chats, emails, and the need to phone clients who prefer phone. No one can do everything in a day, so be sure to prioritize. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s the importance of letting go of the small stuff.
Leave white space in your day. I always say that life doesn’t happen in 9-to-5 boxes, and it’s really that way now. Some people want or need to get work done after the kids are in bed. Some need to take a few hours off to handle schooling. Some need to tend to sick or aging parents. Something inevitably comes up that’s unexpected, and if you have white space in your day, you’ve got time to respond. Otherwise you’re facing another stressor instead of something you can handle.
Make your bed! Haha — I wrote in Virtual Whisperer 1 to be sure to get dressed, shave or create whatever is your “put-together look.” That goes for where you work as well. I was on video the other day with a consultant in a professional services firm and her bed was unmade in the background. TMI for me! Either put on a fake background or make sure you keep where you work tidy and neat. I don’t mind cluttered bookshelves or someone’s home office filled with things that tell me about them — their stories — but sitting in a room with an unmade bed isn’t the right vibe. There is simple and then there is……
COVID-19 has reminded us that we only need a couple of pairs of shoes, we don’t need a wardrobe requiring so much dry cleaning, and we can color our own hair and clean our own homes. It has reminded us that a simple walk will give us a breather, and so will a virtual cocktail. We can meet our colleagues for a coffee hour by Zoom — long commutes aren’t required. I wrote in my book Magic in the Mundane about “canceling commutes” — little did I know how prescient that would be. Drive less, dry clean less, own less, and we are still fine. It’s simpler.
Working virtually is really about having offices without borders. It is not about balance, it is about integrity and integration, and in these past seven weeks, we have been letting people be their best with each other, their families, and their clients. It didn’t start out feeling so simple, but it is turning out to teach us the art of “less is more.”