Working From Home(school): What I've Learned During Lockdown

Working from home is not necessarily a new concept, especially for those of us whom work remotely in professional consulting. Years ago, I worked in sales and spent time either in my office at home or in the car visiting customers, so this isn't my first rodeo. Sure, working from home requires good time management and some personal drive to complete tasks, but it was not something that presented me with complication. Enter COVID-19 and lockdown. Suddenly, all of my worlds collided in one place. Without warning, in addition to being a working professional and a mom, I became a lunch lady, janitor, school teacher, and PE Director. It's been a messy, stressful, humbling, sometimes joyful experience (which is still ongoing) that has taught me some valuable life lessons. Here's my top 3 insights:

Insight #1: There is No Playbook

When working at home (or in an office), you have most likely developed a basic routine for getting the most important work done. When the world goes into lockdown, the demand for more online content skyrockets, and your little elementary school children come home with pages of activities to be completed daily, clinging hopelessly to that previous routine to keep you grounded is no longer an option. Cue Pinterest boards full of elementary school lesson plans and activities, Facebook Live events with the local zoo, and an overwhelming amount of haphazard activity to get it "all" done. For that shaky period from March to the end of school in June, I consistently craved some sense of order in my life. It has taken months of frustration and stress to fully accept that there is no standard playbook for navigating this type of situation. On a daily basis, it's most critical to identify the important, high priority items and focus on those to move forward. Truth is, there will be those days when you feel like you're filling a pool using a cracked water pail but no one else can tell you how it should have been done. The sooner you accept that there isn't the 'one way' to make all of this work, the more easily that you can show yourself grace and KEEP MOVING FORWARD.

Insight #2: Nobody is "Winning"

This disruption to our daily lives has caused many of us to hold up a mirror and scrutinize our lives in comparison to others. The most disheartening thing about this exercise is that we often use social media as our measuring stick for success in the midst of a crisis. Even as a professional adult, it's all too easy to see posts on your feed about promotions, fun time with kids, or mini-trips away to work from the beach or mountains and immediately question what our own lives look like at that moment. Maybe your kids are wearing last night's pajamas in the middle of the day. Maybe you're dressed professionally from the waist up, but your bottom half is in a pair of worn out joggers and bunny slippers. Sure, it's not a glossy image on a Facebook feed of you in the mountains sipping hot cocoa and typing away on your keyboard in lockdown bliss, but it's real. Culturally, we need to come to terms with the fact that much of social media is a mix of wishful thinking and fabricated fantasy, but most of all, we need to stop using it to punish ourselves for being anything less than perfect. Let's be clear here...nobody is winning in this situation. We are all making a concerted effort to survive and, hopefully, thrive during a time of uncertainty and disruption. The last thing any of us need at a time like this is to dismantle ourselves and make comparisons on an unlevel playing field.

Insight #3: Find Your Cheering Section

In times of crisis, everyone needs reassurance from a support system. The support system can mean different things to different people, but I like to think of them as a cheering section. You might be playing the worst game of your life, but the devout fans will stay until the last quarter has ended to show support for their team. I genuinely believe that all of us need something like that to get us through the hard times. It's been almost a year since we started shutting down schools and hunkering down at home as COVID infiltrated our communities. Throughout this journey, there have been moments when I have felt defeated from all angles, sometimes all at once. The one respite I've found from the madness has been those small words of encouragement from people in my life whom I know and respect. I could be at the end of my rope on a rollercoaster of a day, but some unsolicited positive feedback from a work colleague thrusts enough wind under my wings to carry me through to another day. I've found a lightheartedness to texts with other parents about assignments or the kids' Zoom meetings as we all low crawl awkwardly through this minefield of virtual learning. We share frustrations and victories (and sometimes defeats), but the most profoundly uplifting sentiment can be distilled to a simple, grammatically incorrect statement: 'You Got This!'.

Working from home has taken on a new meaning for many of us since 2020. For some, it has created job flexibility and higher productivity. For others, the isolation from the office has been socially crippling. As a working parent, I've experienced many different emotions, ranging from gratefulness to hopelessness (sometimes within a matter of minutes). However, this time 'retooling' my life to fit the current state of things has been truly eye-opening and has forced me to broaden my perspective about my work and home life. Remember, there is no playbook, nobody is "winning", and find your cheering section to help you get through the tough times. I don't know who needs hear this today, but 'YOU GOT THIS'.