Pandemic Rules
By now you’re probably experiencing what I’m calling “captivity fatigue.” From my conversations with people both in Los Angeles and elsewhere I believe we’re over the first part of this lockdown, the first part characterized by both disbelief and novelty. For those who are close to the epicenter (yo, New Yorkers!) and for others with vulnerable constitutions or loved ones, this part was particularly frightening. For those a little further removed, there was a great sense of energy that came along with the newness of the situation. Hunkering down, making homemade soup, googling DIY hand sanitizer recipes, all of these things were undertaken to “flatten the curve.” We felt like we were doing something. So here we are, almost eight weeks into our lockdown, wearing masks outside (if you venture out at all), getting used to the “new normal.” Swear to god, if you actually took a shot for every time some asshat (like me!) said “new normal,” you’d be drunk all day. I think for many it’s the open-ended nature of this that’s so worrisome. We don’t know how long it’ll last, and there are many competing reports on when it might end.
The last day I was physically at my job was March 16. I’m sure it was about the same for many of you, unless of course you’re essential. If you are, my deep thanks to you for keeping the world turning. If you’re a doctor or nurse, please go rest; the rest of this blog can wait. Also, thank you. I’m still working my job, and somehow—SOMEHOW—I’m busier than I would be if I was at school. I’m hearing similar reports from everyone. Boundaries are out the window. You can’t flake out of something because you’d rather hang out at home. Surprise! You are at home, and you still have to show up at the birthday party, work meeting, happy hour, powerpoint party, what-have-you. I feel like I need to be available to everyone, all the time. I know in my brain that this is not a thing I need to be, but it sometimes feels like it. The loss of boundaries is one of the biggest non-medical issues in this whole thing.
So, let’s talk boundaries for a minute. Boundaries are not just the lines on maps that separate one state or country from another, but for most of my life that’s all they were to me. I brought up the idea of physical boundaries back in my first blog about working from home: making compartments and giving each space its own purpose. But the emotional boundaries are much, much harder, and it turns out, are the major problem for most people. Let’s take the people at home with their significant other. In my house, my S.O. and I are both working and both busy. We have enough space to work in separate rooms, and in the evening, we make it a point to eat dinner together. There is some modicum of schedule and routine here. We each have classes to teach, assignments to grade, and meetings to attend. We stay out of each other’s hair for most of the day, and that seems to work for us. Our boundaries are good. But what if that’s not what’s happening in your relationship? How can you assert boundaries if there weren’t any to begin with? Or if your ability to have them is being eroded by constant togetherness? Spoiler alert: I have no answers. To any of this. Keep reading only if you want to commiserate on the questions.
And how about those of you who have kids you need to homeschool. Welcome to a new level of challenges you never asked for! Sure, you can make yourself a functional home office, but how can you maintain the boundary between your work self and your parent self? (And now your “teacher self!”) By sending your children to school instead of homeschooling, you decided to make someone else their teacher. You did not sign up to be the teacher, but now you are that. But you’re also a data analyst or a nurse or a sales rep or even a teacher for other people’s children. How are you supposed to look after your kids’ learning and do your normal 9 to 5? What if you have kids too young for school, or you have children with special needs? Try having boundaries then. Near impossible. This is unfair and it’s difficult and you’ll probably have to do it for far longer than you initially thought. The goal, honestly, is survival. Get through this, and we’ll worry about learning outcomes later.
I’m sure there are many working parents who crave any time alone. Which brings me to my next group of folks, who are on the other end of the spectrum: those living alone. This is a unique challenge. No handshakes, fist bumps, high-fives? No hugs? This is a hard way to live for many people. Maybe it didn’t seem like a big deal for the first month, but now? Living without touch can be agony. No wonder people are slipping into depression and anxiety. What about all the folks who find themselves in a living situation that was supposed to be temporary, but is now worryingly stretching out for months. What about those in actively harmful situations? We’ve all heard the terrifying statistics about the rise in domestic violence. This virus has consequences that reach far beyond business shutdowns and ventilator demand.
So…what do we do? We take it one day at a time, and if that’s too much, one hour at a time. We just have to get through it. This won’t last forever, but parts of it will stretch on for uncomfortably long months. I just found out that my school will be (mostly) online for the fall. Looks like my “impromptu” dining room office is now more of a permanent fixture than I planned. To be honest, I’m relieved to know the deal for the fall, but I also really miss my students and my colleagues. I miss running into people in the hallway and making plans to meet up. I miss having lunch at a restaurant.
Let’s do a couple of things, my friends. Let’s let go of perfection. Let’s be ok with ok. Let’s let good enough be good enough. Let’s take space when we can and create boundaries when it’s possible. Let’s take walks and make food, and maybe try out a new recipe if we’re feeling adventurous (I made pretzels this week). Let’s cut each other’s hair or try to cut our own. Let’s give ourselves pedicures and spa days. Let’s forgive ourselves our meltdowns. Let’s go easy on our kids and our spouses. Let’s take time outs when we can. Let’s grieve the loss of what we’re missing and allow others to feel grief. Let’s journal and learn to be silent now and then. Let’s let our friends vent to us and hold space without trying to solve their problems. Let’s vent to friends when we need to. Let’s avoid beating ourselves up for not learning a new language or loving 100% of our enforced family time. Let’s not judge the way others are doing their lockdown. The rules are different right now, even if there are people in your life who expect you to play by pre-pandemic rules. Let’s keep it simple.
Pandemic rules:
Stay alive/keep your family alive.
Do the best you can in any given moment.
Remember this isn’t forever.
Space: the Final Frontier or This is MY Dance Space; This is YOUR Dance Space
There are many ways to work at home, but I’ve found that one of the best ways to achieve a happy work/life balance is this: compartmentalization. This is a challenge both physical and mental. This blog will focus on the physical aspect of compartmentalization. To put it succinctly, we want to create different spaces for the different parts of life. Regular, normal living did this for us by having us go somewhere else to do our job. But as you know, regular, normal living is on hold for the moment. So, in the absence of getting out the door and working in our regular offices or libraries or coffeeshops, we have to figure out ways to create a separated space or the illusion of it.
Now, if you have a huge home and extra rooms just sitting empty, like wow. Just wow. Look at you. Good job. Go choose one of those rooms and make that your work space. Done! For the rest of us, there are options, but we just have to be a little more imaginative. Let me share with you what’s happening in my home. I and my partner live in an apartment with a large living room/dining room area bookended by a bedroom on each end. One of the bedrooms is our room, and the other serves as a guestroom/office. The desk in the latter is big enough for both of us to sit at and work, but with both of us using Zoom (both professionally and socially), it’s not an ideal set up. In order to give myself a proper workspace, I commandeered the dining room “area” and set up a folding table in it. This is where I work from and where I Zoom from, mostly because the background is a bookcase, and I think it makes me look like a smarty-pants talking head. I’ve set this table up with all the things my desk at work has: a cup of pens, pads to write stuff down on, my computer, a charger for my phone, and my headphones for Zooming. When I’m sitting at this table, I’m working.
When it’s time to eat lunch, I take my salad ten feet to the left so I can sit on the couch and eat it at the coffee table (we don’t have a proper eating table, so this is where we eat our meals). I move the ten feet in order to create a new habit and teach my brain that the folding table in the dining area is for working, not for eating, not for playing sudoku on my phone, and not for reading news updates. I know when I sit down on the couch that I’m off the clock, and I know when I sit at the table, that I’m about to address that pesky to do list. When my partner goes into the office and sits down at the desk in there, he is likely thinking the same thing.
Now, I have the luxury of having this space that I can make my own. This “desk” will remain here until I don’t need it anymore. It’s not in anyone’s way, and my partner can walk by in his pajamas when I’m teaching my class because the camera is facing the other way. But what if your only workspace is the kitchen table? Or a lap desk that goes wherever you can find space for yourself? What if you have an open floorplan? Or what if you have family members (or roommates) who can’t or won’t respect your space? That’s more the mental challenge of compartmentalization, and we’ll cover that in the next blog.
Small spaces
If you live in a small space, compartmentalization is still possible. Even if you have to reuse the same space for working and eating. Let’s say, you use your kitchen table or breakfast nook for both working and eating. How can we change the space enough so that our brains know when to work and when to unwind? Maybe a table cloth is all you need. A tablecloth makes it a dinner table. No tablecloth means it’s your desk. It might seem silly, but we’re trying to achieve a mental shift from this (work) space to that (eating) space. As my partner so eloquently put it, “it’s like your apartment is a transformer.”
It will also help if you can clear the work stuff away when transforming your work table back into a kitchen table. And when I say “clear the work away” please know that I deeply understand how difficult it is to find a spot for everything in a small house or apartment. And I also know how time-consuming it can be to both create and then deconstruct your workspace every single day. My first year in grad school I shared a studio apartment with my then-partner. I had no desk of my own, no designated work space. I did most of my work at the library, you know, back when we went out and did things like that. When I was writing my dissertation—this time in a one-bedroom, my housemate strongly suggested that I conceal my work every evening so as not to leave “a mess” at the table. It was (and is) a giant pain-in-the-ass to put everything away to clear the decks for regular life to take place. I get that. It also might be a sanity-saver.
Bedroom office
If at all possible, avoid using your bedroom as a work space. Sleep experts seem to agree with this idea, especially if you suffer from insomnia. I like to think of this more in terms of energy, and of course in terms of compartmentalization. I want my bedroom to feel like a sanctuary, an oasis. a place for rest. If I work in there, it loses some of that oasis energy. It becomes a place where I worry about what needs to be done, where I have stress over job stuff. I don’t want to mix up that energy, but sometimes you have to.
If you have to work in the same room where you sleep, think about smaller ways you can compartmentalize the space. One of the best and easiest ways? Make the bed. Pull up the covers, tuck in the sheets, arrange the pillows. If you have a chair, sit in the chair and work rather than sitting on the bed. If you don’t have a little table to rest your laptop on, you can improvise a lap desk. When I was growing up, my father had a wooden board he used as a makeshift lap desk. What, no lovely wooden boards kicking around your place? Repurpose a cookie sheet. You’ll have a nice flat surface you can rest a book or a laptop on. (Beware of sliding laptops!) If you’re working from a chair, but resting your laptop or tablet on the bed, use something to provide a lift so you’re not looking down at your screen all the time. A box or a stack of books will do the trick.
Think about lighting. If your bedroom gets natural light, use it. Open up the curtains or blinds and get all of that good daytime light energy. If the weather is good, open up the window a bit and let the air flow. When work is finished for the day, leave the window open for a bit and let the room rest. When you go back into that room to sleep, do something to symbolically turn it back into your bedroom. Dim the lights, burn some incense, meditate, or play some soothing music.
Open floor plan
I honestly love the idea of an open floor plan. Offices with open floor plans look so cool and modern. And oh, the FLOW and that loft-type energy in a home or apartment with such a plan. But they suck if you have a bunch of people working at home. I know a mom whose two college-age daughters are home in her open plan apartment. I teleconferenced with her today, and she’d be relegated to a tiny windowless room with the hot water heater because both daughters had online classes at different ends of the house.
Whenever possible, I employ headphones. Not just earbuds, but my big, noise-canceling headphones. It’s hard for me to work with music on (my musicologist brain tries to analyze stuff all the time!) so I opt for white noise—thunderstorms are my favorite. The headphones block out other people’s sounds, but are a visual cue to anyone around me that I’m not here to chat, I’m here to work. If I have to talk on the phone or Zoom, I make sure everyone around me knows that I need x amount of time to do this task. Talking about expectations with the people you live with is a big part of navigating this shift. We’ll cover that next time.
The whole purpose of creating the illusion of a work space is so that—at the end of the day—we can leave the work space. Even if you have to fool yourself into thinking that your work room is a different place than your bedroom, it might just make you that much more productive. Think about the ways and places you work best, and try to recreate what makes them work for you. My little dining room work space works for me, and to be honest, I might actually be sad to see it go when this is all over.
Next time: “Hell is Other People”
The 10 Commandments (AKA Helpful Hints) for Working at Home
Working from home poses lots of challenges, and for many of us, it's a complicated adjustment we've all been asked to make in a short amount of time. I thought I’d help out by sharing some strategies I've used over the years, as a stay-at-home writer and researcher. Full disclosure: my main gig is as a college professor, but I've spent lots of time working at home and devising work schedules for myself because no structure existed otherwise. I've also been teaching online for quite a few years, so I know something about working remotely.
Here are *my* ten commandments for working at home:
1. I maintain a somewhat usual waking and sleeping times - it's tempting to stay up late when there's no early meeting, but trust me, it's a slippery slope to nowhere good.
2. I get dressed before I "go to work." I get out of PJs and into clothes. I don't dress up in official work clothes or put makeup on, but I get dressed, wash my face, brush my hair, and brush my teeth.
3. I "eat the frog." This is Mark Twain's expression for doing the hardest thing in the morning (after that first cup of coffee maybe?) when your mind is the freshest.
4. I follow a plan or list. At the end of each night, when I'm super tired, I do one last thing: strategize for the next day. When I get to my desk in the morning, I know what I have to do and where to begin.
5. I make some time to be away from my phone. It's hard not to get drawn into something when your phone is in constant view. News alerts are particularly distracting. I can choose a couple of hours to be on airplane mode. At the very least, I can practice social distancing from my phone, so I don't jump on it every time it lights up.
6. I take lunch. I give myself 45 minutes to an hour to eat and give myself a mental break from work. This usually requires me to move to a space that isn't my work area. (More on spatial concerns in the next installment.)
7. I do less mentally taxing stuff in the afternoon, when my brain energy is starting to flag.
8. I take a walk in the afternoon to clear my head.
9. I leave the television off until the evening.
10. After dinner, I give myself the night off. If I still feel like working (or I have to), I can press on, but often times I just decompress and strategize for the next day.
Bonus #11: the weekend is still the weekend. Just because you're home every day, that doesn't mean you're in your home office every day. Keeping a schedule where you have some down time is really important.
Next time: "Space: The Final Frontier" or "This is My Dance Space and This is Your Dance Space."