Physically Confined but Mentally Free

As we approach the 100th day of working from home, I believe this might be the longest, most of us are confined to staying at home at a stretch. 

As I interact with people about their current experience, there is a clear polarisation of views on this issue. While some love the experience and call this the new normal, an equal number are gearing to go out.

There is also another dichotomy in place. I have a few friends and colleagues who were traveling when the lockdown started, so they yearned to get back home. At the same time, there are many who have been at home during this period and yearn to get out.

The current shift is an inflection point, and some of the changes are irreversible. I am wondering if it is possible to embrace this new normal and be excited about the possibilities, rather than being depressed by the lack of physical freedom that it brings.

As far as my experiences go, in the last almost hundred days I have adopted several new habits, which are now turning into behaviours.

Extra time – I realised pretty late in life that time is the only resource I cannot earn or afford to waste. I now have almost eight to ten days of extra time every month, which is extremely precious and which I am able to convert into more efficient working hours. I used to spend almost 1 to 2 hours every day commuting and about 8 to 10 days on business trips every month. Both the commute and travel time was not very efficient. While meeting someone physically does have its own advantages, spending ten to sixteen hours in travel/transit to have a three-hour meeting is not efficient.

More and frequent interaction – I have met more customers, investors, analysts, media, employees from all around the world and participated in more webinars in the last 100 days, than in any time in the recent past. These interactions have been more frequent than travel would have allowed earlier. Again, there is no substitute for the friendship and camaraderie with customers or colleagues over drinks and dinner, but this alternate has worked well.

Geography is irrelevant – Video interactions have also blurred the geographical barriers that were true earlier. If I had to meet someone in Australia or Middle Americas or in the Nordic countries, it would inevitably be seen from a travel time vs. meeting benefit criteria, and I would miss out on such interactions. Now, that travel time is instantaneous, I interact with everyone and immediately. This is extremely rewarding both personally and professionally, as the breadth and the depth of interactions are no longer governed by geography.

Global Centres of Excellence – Our typical business model had expertise in functional areas like pre-sales, application engineering, data-analytics etc. being regional due to proximity to customer or engineering site. Now we have global centres of excellence, wherein we have experts in different attributes who may be located in different parts of the world interacting with a customer thousands of miles away. The regional model of expertise is on its way out.

Deeper understanding – The current times initially required a deeper involvement in multiple areas of business.  I realise that such involvement with teams on brainstorming and problem solving together is mentally very nourishing. This also brings back the joy of learning new areas about the business and technologies more deeply than having superficial knowledge. 

Efficient Innovation – The current constrained environment has led to multiple innovations in efficiency and automation. While the disruption in supply chains and logistics demanded some of these changes, the innovative solutions have become game changing differentiation on their own.

Downsides – While the experience I mentioned above is mostly positive for us, there are several downsides too. As the boundary between work and home has faded, it also led to to an always-on work mode. I miss out on the unstructured and unplanned drop-ins in the office and interactions with colleagues at lunch, as now all interactions are on the calendar. While travel is inefficient, it is useful to have physical meetings and visit new places. Some of the long flights turn out to be extremely relaxing as well, where one could switch off from work and calls (without buying the on-board Wifi !).

I realise that there are multiple jobs that cannot be conducted from home and require us to work in factories, warehouses, logistics and on project sites. On the whole, I am extremely grateful to have a job that I can effectively and efficiently work on remotely. I am grateful towards my colleagues, as well as the entire supply chain ecosystem, which works around us to ensure that our lives, business and economic activity continue as close to normally as possible.

While today is close to the hundredth day of quarantine in my home, I feel more excited than ever for the potential that can be realised both professionally and personally.

I would love to hear thoughts on this subject.