Making the Best of a Tough Situation

For all of us, this is a very difficult situation. Financially, it is going to be very, very difficult. Personally, however, this coronavirus quarantine has the potential to be a great time. There is potential that you can look back at this time as a time when you reprioritized your life, got closer to your family, and even got your business life in order. Here are some things I am trying to work on, personally and professionally, during this time:

Professionally

• Catching up on those “important but not urgent” tasks. I’m a procrastinator. I’ve been meaning to work on that for a long time (that’s a joke).
• Doing some serious business planning. I have plenty of time to sit and think these days, and I am trying to come up with ways to really help my customers and employees. It may result in a new business model or some new projects. It may result in my cutting out some of the things I do now. Who knows? We’ll see. You should try it.
• Learning some new technology. There are some new technologies (for me, related to managing events and newsletters) which I want to review (and then really learn one or two).
• Checking in with clients and friends. Not asking for money or doing sales…just checking up on people to say hello.

Personally

• House projects (painting rooms that need it, building flower boxes, getting started on the garden).
• Playing games with the kids. It’s been great. We gave up TV and movies for Lent, so we’ve been playing board games, card games (my 4 year old is a pretty good Blackjack dealer! Too bad he can’t add yet.), and shooting baskets.
• Doing some reading. I’ve finally picked up some classics to re-read. And at night, after the kids say prayers and get in bed, I have been sitting in the hallway outside their bedrooms and reading aloud to the younger kids. We just finished The Hobbit last week and are a couple of chapters in to The Lord of the Rings. I say the reading is for the younger kids, but each time I finish a chapter the teenagers yell from their bedrooms “Read another one!” I used to do that every night, but got out of the habit for a few years. The older kids heard some great books (Dickens, L.M. Montgomery, Jane Austen, Tolkien, Fr. Francis J. Finn, Laura Ingalls Wilder, John Flanagan, etc.). I’m looking forward to running the younger kids through many of the same.
• Reaching out to friends. With Zoom, Adobe Connect, FaceTime, GoToMeeting and other solutions available, we’ve been able to have some great group conversations with family and friends. We’ve started issuing board game challenges to other families, where we spend an hour on a video conference with the other family and play a board game like Scategories, Headbands, Mafia, etc. One of my sons has also started using video conferencing to play chess with some buddies. We may be isolated, but we are going to use this time to get closer to some friends and family.
• Pray more. You gotta put this whole thing in perspective. Prayer will do that. Plus, also using video conferencing, my extended family has started to “get together” virtually on Sunday afternoons to say the Rosary (we’re Catholic) and catch up. It is a firm 40 minutes (20 minutes for the Rosary, 20 minutes of chit-chat). We had 35 people on for the first one and I bet we have 50+ this Sunday. It is great. Give something like that a try with your family.

Just wanted to mention a few things we’re trying to do to take advantage of the quarantine to improve personally and professionally. I’d love to hear comments from you on what you are doing or what you would recommend.

Thanks and stay safe!

Pete Cook