As it seems that we are nearing the time for our society to start opening up a bit more, I wonder what things we will miss from this down time.
Sure, some of you are excited. You finally get to go back to work. That is a good thing. Some of you have never stopped working, so things may not have changed all that much in that regard. No matter what, we are at the point where people need to all get back to work and see some sense of normalcy return. Each situation is different, but as a whole, we need it.
In any event, we have all had to make some changes. Even if you have continued to work, you have far fewer options for things to do, once work was over. It was mostly, go home or….go home.
So what did you do during these past few weeks?
Here are a few things I worked on (though I am one who never quit working, though everything I did moved online, so as long as I got my work done, there was no set hours. I ended up having quite a bit of “extra” time each day, in addition to the extra work):
- I worked on my prayer life. Now, it is my custom to pray morning and night, and several times during the day, but I was able to really focus on the quality of my prayers. These past few weeks have been important in that regard.
- I read more books. Yes, I read all the time. Yes, I tend to have several books going at once. Still, with extra time, I was able to go through more than normal.
- Find good You Tube sources. We post lots of YT stuff here, and I was able to find some things that not only interested me, but would also be useful to link here. Mostly, though, I found some good resources for some various topics.
- Spent time with family. I have always tried to spend as much time with my family as possible, but the past few weeks have been great for that. My wife and I spend an hour or so, drinking coffee and talking each morning. It is nice. I have done stuff with my kids. The time is there, so I figured I should go ahead and use it.
- Relax. Just today, before I wrote this, I decided I was going to put everything up and watch a movie. So I did.
Those are a few of the things I did. Some of those won’t change, regardless of how much we open society back up. I will probably not have so much time for relaxing, but the others I will continue, if not in the same volume.
The one thing I will miss, though, is the time with family. Now honestly, it will be be awhile before my job has me back on location. I will be working from home for the next few months. Eventually, though, I will go back to the physical location, be on the clock, and not have as much time with the wife and kids. That I will miss.
What about you?
I am still working from home for a while more thanks to our feckless governor declaring that we must all *stay at home for another month today. However, I have read more and gotten more done around the house in terms of home improvements than in the past few years, so there’s a silver lining of sorts to the situation.
*Stay-at-home is a joke as people are leaving their homes for any possible reason at this point, making the dubious epidemiological justification for the declaration all the more pointless.
Work never ended and was already mostly remote, plus got sick with something wuflu-like (but likely not, based on recent testing), so 5 weeks so far of in-house quarantine from kids and wife mixed with intense work 7 days a week for lack of much else to do. When things lift I’ll be happy to see everyone including family go out more; my kids maybe get back to physical school since the teachers really suck at online teaching and my kids are falling behind; my wife’s worries about sickness abate a bit; getting back to working out in the sun while working less; and most of all the reopening of more local breweries so I can work in an “office” environment that feels and smells more like… home.
I’ll miss a 10 second commute vs 40 minutes, and using that saved time to sleep longer.
I hear that one.
I’m actually working more while at home because we are trying to pivot to adjust to huge changes in business. So no great projects or secondary commitments.
But I’ll miss the not having to commute, hanging out with that dog and being able to cook lunch.
One revelation, we truly need great leadership to survive the next decade without huge conflicts.
I have likewise had “more” work than normal, but the lack of commute, combined with being able to work at my own pace, rather than on a time schedule still gives me more time to do my own thing.