Learning how to stay at home

TJM Blog Post #2 of 2020.

Last month (March) I gave you ASAP book reviews about the books I read last year. ASAP = As Short As Possible.

If you're a big reader, I hope you gained insight from 1 of the 20 novels I reviewed.
If you're not, you'll be happy to know this post is not about books. 

Like many Americans, I have just wrapped up Week 6 of working from home, due to the official stay-at-home order in Illinois. I've spent this time in Missouri with my family— 2 parents, 4 kids (all college or post-grad age) and 2 dogs. I know everyone's self-isolation environment looks a bit different from the next, & I'll say I'm certainly very grateful for mine.

During this time, I have learned more than I expected about myself, my friends & family, and my coworkers. In honor of week 6, here are 6 lessons I'm taking with me.

Now... before I get into my stream-of-consciousness writing... I'd like you to pause.
Take a deep breath.
Close your eyes & think of 1 person you know who is an essential worker right now. 

Recognize your gratitude for them. Exhale. And promise yourself you'll thank them today.
For me, it's my mom & sister who are nurses, my roommate who markets for a food pantry, & my coworker's husband who is 3D printing PPE.

This is only a meager moment of appreciation for these people & more, but my heart is with you, & I'll do my part to stay home & spread kindness, not germs :)

Alright. That was my little moment. 
Now, I know you're all consuming too much COVID content right now, so I'll keep this post straightforward. I have only 2 goals...
    #1: sum up in 6 points what I've learned so far during my 6 weeks of "stay-at-home"
    #2: get you thinking about what this experience means for you

Hopefully I will accomplish at least 1 of them.

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My Stay-At-Home Lessons... so far

1. Establish my physical environment & mental boundaries

Professional:

• My desk is in my bedroom, right next to my bed. Before I start working, I get up to make my bed, change clothes (even if that means wearing sweatpants & no bra) & eat breakfast. I do a little yoga or take a short walk to get my blood moving.
• After week 1, I set up a monitor because I realized how much I missed that from my office, & how much it helped my sanity & productivity.
• My team knows I will always check email & instant messages, and I try to stay away from my cell phone notifications when I need to focus on work. But at certain points, I need to be away from work, and that's good for all of us to have those boundaries.

Social: 

• I realize "when this over, we'll get together again" will not be the same "normal" that it was last summer. It makes me hopeful to tell my college friends I want to fly & visit them or discussing with Chicago friends where we'll go to brunch & how we'll celebrate a friend's birthday. Each week this continues, I need to remind myself that it's normal & healthy to want to get together with friends & family, but there are ways of doing that virtually & physically that are still safe & that are helpful to people who are more susceptible than me. 

2. Find new ways to exercise

Professional:

• On an average weekday in Chicago, I walk a minimum of 20 blocks or 1 mile. On the weekends, I'm usually even more active. Even if I'm drinking, eating brunch, or lounging at home, I end up seeing traipsing around the city to hang with friends. If I'm less social, at the minimum I'll still need to carry groceries, get up to do laundry, go to the gym or beach, and simply walk around my neighborhood.
• In this 1.5 months of living at my parent's house, it's been essential for me to stay active, including home workouts with my sister, yoga in my room, morning walks, & doing squats during conference calls.

Social:

• My good friend Emmi started a fitness accountability group, and I joined last week. It has been SO motivational. At first I thought "I won't actually commit to that," but I am so glad I did. We have a very kind, passionate & encouraging group of 17 (& growing) women who exchange daily updates about our progress. "Check-in" means we tell the group what we hope to accomplish that day in regard to health & fitness. Example: Today I'd like to run 2 miles, do some yoga, & drink a lot of water. "Check-out" means we share what we actually did. Example: I actually did a 30 min yoga class & drank enough water, & I also ate ice cream ;)
• Emmi calculates points each day to ultimately reveal that week's winner every Saturday. No matter where we land with points, this group is awesome, and it's a fantastic motivator I didn't know I was missing.
• In relation specifically to my home in Chicago, I've finally— sadly— come to terms with the fact that beach volleyball is not going to happen this summer. Welp, my friends better be ready to go on social distancing walks and bike rides, play tennis, and even just walk to the park to tie up a hammock & lay in the sun doing nothing. That's little bit of exercise, too.

3. Harness the power of calendars

Professional:

• Preparing for the workday & scrolling over a calendar with 5+ hours of meetings is an instant bummer. Those days, I thank God I get a little extra sleep from lack-of-CTA-commuting. I enjoy some midday exercise I wouldn't usually get at the office. I have a cup of tea with my dad & eat lunch with my mom. After work, I watch a TV episode with my siblings or play a game. And all of this is aided by seeing my calendar as a helpful tool instead of a stress-inducer

Social:

• My best-best friends from college live all over the US, all over the world. We already struggle to keep in touch regularly. We should probably do group phone calls or virtual happy hours every month or so. We don't as much as we'd like to, but at least now we can enjoy our extra down time to spend time together and laugh over drinks, even if they're through a screen. (special shoutout Trumeez & Brissie roommates :))
• Like most of us, I have friends & family members who I don't talk to every week or even every couple months, but I love them dearly & it's important to me to keep them in my life. Popping a reminder on my calendar to call & text certain people has been immensely helpful. It's a habit I had before quarantine and will continue after.

4. Expand my knowledge, or maybe do absolutely nothing

This one is all-encompassing— a crossover of professional & social:

• Regarding learning new skills or accomplishing long-forgotten goals, I can see both sides. The value of slowing down during this time is something that's been on my mind since day 1. Luckily, I can enjoy this time with my family, get time back in my day from not commuting, and even do a little laundry between meetings if I need to. That, by itself, is more than enough. Taking care of myself & focusing on basic needs & responsibilities is more than enough.

• On the other hand, my personality is well-suited for taking advantage of this down time. If you're like me, you probably have a page-long list of things you want to try or complete while you're home. I'm working on narrowing down, but here is my obnoxiously-long list so far:
• Get more consistent at yoga so I can do it on my own w/out a video
• Write 1 blog post per month ✓
• Sign up a for a local phone bank to check on senior citizens ✓
• Be an available resource for my university's alumni or even incoming freshmen to network & share advice ✓
• Memorize every word to "We Didn't Start the Fire" by Billy Joel
• Make a schedule for writing a book (just the schedule... haven't gotten very far yet ;))
• Take a class on SkillShare, like design or photography
• Take a free Ivy League course or other kind of professional certification
• Donate to organizations I really care about ✓
• Update my resume & portfolio site 
• Lie in bed and watch all 8 hours of "Unorthodox" and the "Self Made" in 2 days ✓
• Read for fun, because when else do I get to do that with no one to see & no place to be ✓
• Clean out my closet & donating clothes ✓ 
• Eat a lot of ice cream ✓

5. Communicate openly & amicably

Professional: 

• I really love my coworkers. My job is pretty cool, but the best part is being on a team with funny, talented, intelligent & caring people. I'll be honest in saying I've had some struggles with everyone being home simultaneously, including VPN speed, adjusting deadlines if needed, and some days just making sure everyone can open up the files  they need to review on a conference call.
• As much I feel comfortable with my coworkers, every work day is not perfect. I consistently remind myself to be straightforward & open with how I can help my team, what I need from them, and how I'm understanding each day's workload and project status. On top of that, my appreciation continually grows for the relationships I have that allow us to have personal conversations. I'm grateful for the ability to say "How are you" and actually listen to the answer.

Social:

• Everybody needs to be loved, checked on, and appreciated. This is true all the time. We know this. But sometimes we forget. Now is the time to remember again.
• Some days we need to feel productive & check off goals. Some days, we need to drink wine, watch a movie, close our eyes in the sunshine. Now is the time to encourage each other in whatever we need to do to take care of ourselves.

6. Observe & reflect; re-evaluate my opinions

Professional: 

• In our business, when someone's having a bad day, a common expression is "we're not curing cancer" or "no one's going to die." While I appreciate people who save lives and I'd love to find a cancer cure, that is not the field I chose. I love the career path I'm on right now, and I'm happy to take a deep breath when I'm stressed about 1 project, knowing that my mistakes are not medically catastrophic but also that I'm proud of our work & our determination to make the best possible output for our clients.
• To make great ads, we of course need to keep up with the times. The word unprecedented might be overused right now, but it couldn't be more fitting for the advertising industry. We have an unprecedented opportunity to shift how we talk to shoppers. We can continue to do our job, which is to deliver a specific message to hopefully reach specific audiences, compelling them to do something, try something, buy something. Hopefully, some of those messages make people feel secure during an unstable time in our lives.

Social:

• My political opinions are not always aligned with the views my friends and family members have. I appreciate when we have discussions that open my eyes to other perspectives and help me determine what I actually believe about important issues like climate change, socioeconomics, education and healthcare. I have a lot of people surrounding me who consistently teach me valuable things.
• The year 2020 has snowballed into non-stop talk about COVID-19. I can take a break from the noise sometimes, but ultimately I need to stay informed and decide my own opinions about what is ethical and medically safe. I need to understand the implications. I need to imagine how the world, my own city, my workplace and circle of friends/family will change post-pandemic.

Thank you for visiting my blog today. If you have a few minutes, I'd encourage you to read one of these inspiring articles from the "Forge" section of Medium.com. A friend shared them on LinkedIn, and afterward I felt a little bit overwhelmed, a little more grateful, and a whole lot motivated to make a difference in what's going on in this world. 

• What You Can Actually Do to Help Right Now by Kate Morgan
• Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting* by Julio Vincent Gambuto

Be Excellent,

xoxo

Jo Jo

TJM. Originally posted April 2020. My views & opinions do not necessarily reflect those of my company and affiliated organizations.