Learnings from life in 2020

I usually do not share anything about myself at a personal level on LinkedIn or other social platforms but for the first time I have gathered the courage to share how I have felt about this year especially due to COVID, as this year has been very difficult for all of us. Yes, today I am sharing what I went through and how I feel about it now. I actually feel proud of myself; did I kill the suspense too soon? But I did learn a lot in this year and it has definitely changed me as a person. Thought of sharing these learnings since we are all in this together.

I have generally as a person always been very positive and passionate about anything I do in life, and these are two of the three things that have always kept me going. The third one is my trust in God always.

Being a working mum really made it very hard when the lockdown happened. Had never imagined that things will be changing so fast in 2020 and would need adjustments.

I had always studied and learnt about crises management, but never thought we all will be going through such a major crisis in our lives. One fine day, we got a notice from the school that due to COVID school will start the spring break 2 weeks before the announced dates as COVID cases have increased and we would like the kids to be at home for their safety and when the school will reopen we will be doing remote online learning for the remaining term days. Followed by this announcement, I was also informed to start working from home as we were in a lockdown situation.

Trying to figure out how online learning will work for the kids and being able to support them with their queries as well as juggling between work meetings, deadlines and launches was very overwhelming. And then managing all the house chores from cooking, cleaning, laundry and groceries was totally burning me out. We avoided ordering food in the initial days due to the fear of getting COVID, everyone was avoiding human contact and hence we had to prepare food at home only. I had zero breaks and my work hours were not defined. I felt like I never left the office and that there was a lot of quantity face time with the kids but was it really quality time? Was I even getting enough time for myself to just relax? The answer was no.

There was a lot of fear and stress as lifestyle had completely changed in a matter of no time. All our plans for the spring break to visit my parents back home were cancelled. Being at home all the time was really draining both mentally and physically. Seeing the global economic slowdown, small businesses shut down, layoffs and salary cuts was not making it easy at all. There were days when I would not even get time to have lunch. It was nerve wrecking. I had to figure this out and find a better way to manage this.

Here is what I did which made a lot of difference. I knew things will not go back to the way they were any soon and we have to start living this new life. And I wanted to live it in a better way. I started jotting down all I had to do and made a list of daily routine stuff and broke them into categories. Things for the kids, things for work and things for the house. These were the three main areas. Then I started highlighting areas that I felt I was doing every day and had to be done every day. But then there were things that could be done every alternate day and some of the tasks could be more weekly tasks. This made the list less tedious than before. I also started blocking my calendar for meal times to ensure I have a routine and do not end up with having no lunch or breakfast. I also put reminders on my calendar for when my office hours start and when they should end. And started asking myself when my reminder would pop-up in the evening: If I stop this task now and start tomorrow will it have consequences, if not I would shut down and if the answer was yes I would still work on it. But this way I did help myself on getting a closure for the day. This helped a lot in managing chores.

I also kept two hours dedicated for family time and made sure that quality family time like before continues. I jotted down ideas and things, we would like to do as a family like, have a game night where we would play board games or even play on the play station together or make lego. We also cooked together and made pizzas, and there were also days where we just watched a movie together. I tried having as much conversation with the kids as I could, since they were also going through this tough situation where they were not doing a lot of the activities they did before and not being able to see their friends or play with them psychically. I made sure they were having some online meetings with their friends to keep the social animal alive in them.

Things did start getting better and organized but soon I realized, I missed out on a very important category – “myself” and that is the fourth category. This realization did come late but it’s never too late. I made sure I do not ignore myself, and jotted down things I should do for myself. Despite this late realization, I always made sure I dress up at home for myself and do my makeup which I enjoy doing. I always kept my camera open for meetings so I am presentable the same way I would be for work. I did try doing some activities at home which I felt I never got time to do earlier since I was always on the go. I learnt to play some tunes on the piano, did some mindful yoga, listened to music and of course watched lots of TV shows. I also made it a routine to call my parents everyday and do a video call with them as well as call my siblings and friends to stay in touch with them.

I also started dedicating some time on the weekends to reorganize my house. To declutter and minimize my possessions this year so I can start 2021 with lesser material objects and only keep the ones I use. This is something I have always wanted to do but never got the time for it since we would always enjoy going out on weekends and then got busy with work and the normal routine on the weekdays. This lockdown gave me the opportunity to do this and I started donating a lot of useful things that were in excess and were in very good condition to different people I knew who needed them, as well as some NGOs and charitable societies.

Time went on and things did start getting better, we started going back to work on alternate days. Kids also started going back to school in a similar fashion but of course with social distancing setting the new life norms. Yes, the world is not the same like it was before but this lockdown did teach us a lot of things. It gave us the courage to do things on our own and not be dependent on others for it. To not give up and always look for solutions to problems, there is always a solution to everything. Today I feel so proud of being able to do and learn so many things on my own and I had to do them because there was no other way. Also the close connection with family and being there for each other in this tough time did make us much closer to each other. We will definitely not get the liberty of being with each other all the time and spend time together again like the way we got during the lockdown. But the most important thing is, let us not forget all these learnings and get busy with the new normal again.

In short, we need to know our priorities in life and plan our lives accordingly. Always have a goal whether it be personal or professional. And be driven towards achieving your goals passionately. Do things that you like doing and don’t save them for later. Try to learn new skills, they will always make you feel good. Staying happy is very important, so look for happiness and not money and success all the time. Never forget how important family and friends are and how much joy and happiness we get from them.  They are the ones who are always there with us and for us in all times. They need to be valued. No matter how hard life gets, it will always start getting better after sometime. These times are what make us stronger and value life, health, well-being and happiness more than anything. There is always a light at the end of the tunnel so let us always stay positive and live our lives to the fullest.