An unusual list for unusual times

Earlier today I sent an email to my subscribers to pass on some of the suggestions I have collected that are hopefully different from what people are reading everywhere else. I've had some great responses to that email so I decided to post a revision of its contents here on LinkedIn, with some additions and edits that came up after I sent the original message.

Read on for suggestions about how to deal with six problems unique to this moment by leveraging technology directly to solve a problem, or by making a change to how you use technology that may be newly problematic.

1. Call your creditors and ask for a break: Many of your creditors or service providers are offering payment deferrals right now, but you have to follow the rules each creditor sets out in order to take advantage of these programs. Call the number for each service located on your paper or e-bill. Many will be overwhelmed on the phone, and if that is the case, go to their website and look for a front page link to information about Covid 19. Many will defer payments with no penalties through June of this year. Each will handle this differently, but at this time having access to your cash is of great importance, so do what you can to hold your cash. Additionally in many areas evictions, and the disconnection of essential services like water, power and gas have been placed on hold. In all cases it is better to communicate early with the provider so they can note your account. Simply not paying and waiting to see what happens will likely not work out well for you.

2. Call your internet service provider and upgrade your speed: It seems like everyone is working from home right now, here are some tips for making that a better experience if you are among the new remote work force. First, I know this will be hard, but limit the online gaming your kids are doing while you try to work. I have heard from some of you that this is like asking the kids not to breathe, but there is solid reasoning on this one. Online games like Fortnite and others will use a lot of your bandwidth to the internet and performance on other devices you use to connect to the internet for things like phone calls, Zoom meetings, and online productivity applications hosted by Google, Microsoft, Apple and others will suffer. We depend heavily on our Cloud based services, so this may be a great time to actually cancel your TV service and use that money to upgrade the total speed available to you through your Internet provider. Cord-Cutters have been doing similar stuff for years, and today there are dozens of options for online programming. Upping that internet speed to your house may never make more sense than right now.

3. Get your financial ducks in a row: Take this opportunity to review your banking and credit card statements. Be aware of all of the services that are charging you for recurring services and fees you are either not using, or can do without until the crisis is over. Prioritize what's needed and eliminate wherever possible to bring your financial house in order. If you've been laid off or have seen work stop as a result of what is happening, this is the time to focus on keeping your cash, and the best way to do that is to stop spending it on stuff you don't need. Cancel all of the automatically recurring charges you don't need. Focus on keeping services that keep you working if you are able, so focus on your internet connection as mentioned above, perhaps a commercial Zoom account, and remote support from your IT service provider. Here's the link to Zoom plans, https://zoom.us/pricing

4. Suspend your gym membership: Seriously. My yoga studio contacted me when all of this started to tell me they had pro-actively suspended my membership to protect me from unnecessary charges and they launched online yoga classes within a day or two of that announcement for FREE. Yoga studios like https://hot8yoga.com/ondemand/ are geographically limited to the Los Angeles area for physical classes in normal times, but now they are offering free classes to anyone who cares to visit their website. Web based exercise classes can be a great way to pass the time, and to ensure you don't end up gaining a bunch of unhealthy weight during this crisis. Also worth looking at is PocketYoga for iOS. If you search the App Store for PocketYoga you'll find them. From an iPad you can AirPlay the PocketYoga session to your AppleTV and have a big screen yoga studio experience. Check it out and have fun while working up a sweat.

5. Support your local farmers with home delivery orders: Speaking of weight gains, we are all eating a lot more than usual. Stress eating is absolutely a thing so be careful with those extra trips to the snack cabinet. One really avoidable side effect of this comfort eating is that we have to go to the grocery store much more than we would normally, exposing all of us to additional danger of transmission. Online food shopping is a great way to deal with this. Services like Farm Fresh to You, and Moink are available to send you fresh foods and have websites that will let you order fresh veggies and meats shipped at the levels and with the contents you order. https://www.farmfreshtoyou.com and https://www.moinkbox.com are the url's you need. Be patient with them, a lot of people are using their services, demand is high, but this is a great way to support farmers right now and get great food and great prices without going into a store with hundreds of other people. If either of those services are unavailable to you, search the web for local farm collectives. Local farmers are delivering food to your door because they can't set up shop at the now closed farmers markets that usually open up all over the country every day. A good place to start is the website for your local farmers market. Give them a call and see if they can point you in the right direction.

6. Participate in the government small business assistance program: The SBA is offering emergency small business funding, and if you are anything from a small non-profit, to an independent contractor to an employer of hundreds or maybe even thousands of people, you may qualify for this money. https://covid19relief.sba.gov/#/ is the link for the form to apply. You do NOT need to pay anyone to do this for you, it is fast and easy. If you figured out how to start your own business, you can do this on your own, I promise.

Those are my top 6 suggestions for today. There are certainly other things you can do right now to stay safer, so please read the ever changing CDC and WHO recommendations for what you should be doing to protect yourself and the rest of us. Visit https://www.cdc.gov and https://www.who.int respectively and stay on top of what they advise.

Lastly, please try to relax. Be safe, follow the rules, take it all seriously, and please be kind and patient with each other. In my first message to folks I had some type-o's in there. I hope this re-write addresses those and adds some value for you all.

Take care,

Sean