Working from home and staying sane – the Coronavirus Edition

The ongoing novel corona virus / Covid-19 pandemic has far-reaching consequences for everyone’s behaviour; although quarantines haven’t yet been implemented in many countries, there is at least a grass-roots movement towards “social distancing”, which means not attending events with groups of people, avoiding public spaces and crowds, and working from home where possible (on top of practising good hygiene, of course!). For many of you, this will be the first time you are at home, with or without things to do, while neither sick nor unemployed, and you may find this change in circumstances hard to deal with.

I’ve been freelancing as a translator since 2008, so I’ve been working from home for 11.5 years now. And while the stress of being self-employed does not compare to the potential anxiety over a global pandemic that will cause many deaths, including those of people you know and love, I have nevertheless developed some skills and techniques for keeping myself sane and productive while being alone and stressed. I’m going to share what I know here.

I am not a medical expert, I know nothing about public health or pandemic responses beyond what others have written and published in places I hang out (e.g. Approaching the pandemic with a systems-thinking lens), I am not a prepper and cannot advise on how to cope if you needed to self-isolate / quarantine for even a week (but see Half-Assed Disabled Prepper Tips for a Coronavirus Quarantine). I am assuming here that a) you are reasonably well; b) you have access to food; c) you have access to at least some money; d) you are in circumstances where you can have some time to yourself if you want it.

 

Whenever one of us makes the jump from employment (regular salary, benefits like holiday and sick pay, working in an office, dealing with colleagues and office politics, reporting to a boss) to self-employment / freelancing (irregular earnings, no security, working alone, reporting to customers), we both congratulate and commiserate: the first little while can seem heady, like being on holiday forever, or miserable, like sick leave or unemployment or any number of things that keep us home and worried. What do we do all day? How do we fill all that endless time that would be taken up with our normal routines, like commuting and coffee and chats by the water cooler and meetings we both want to get out of and find comforting on slow days? When the usual external pressure goes away, how do we find our inner discipline to do what we need to do?

Because I have A Lot of Thoughts on self-management, I’m going to break this down into a series of articles. My overall outline looks like this, and links to each article will be added as I write them:

 

1. Productivity: Pomodoro technique, virtual co-working, “Done” lists, goal setting
2. Staying well: morning routine, meditation, gamifying tasks, exercise, food, sleep and rest, mental wellness, leisure
3. Staying connected: social media, friends & family, media
4. What not to do: binging, anxiety, mood, feelings

 

Places to stay connected with me:

• on Twitter, I am sharing public health info and updates, as well as longer-term systems thinking;
• I have a Facebook post where I am linking the most useful web sites I find;
• if you’re a friend and have my contact details, I’m very available on chat, Skype, etc.;

I can always be reached by email: skorpionuk at gmail.