Before I really dig in. I want to say a HUGE thank you and much love to the Doctors and Nurses unable to stay in place or safely out of harm’s way. These doctors and nurses are the ones on the front-lines treating the COVID crisis are to be honored and thrown a parade down the Canyon of Heroes, as NYC Council member Eric Ulrich suggested. Seeing the USNS Comfort roll in shows me relief is here for 66,000 suffering New Yorkers in New York Harbor.
We will get through this, and I pray for those suffering, families of lost loved ones to COVID. I also pray that the positive habits written below can help those who are able to stay at home realize the habits we do now , can last with us beyond this pandemic.
Believe it or not, I’m used to the stay at home life. While I, myself, have been out and about, I’ve been fortunate and blessed to see my hard-working mother , Rev. Laurie Sue Brockway, be the rock of our little Queens family from home as a writer. Don’t get me wrong, she has been there for the amazing moments in this life, but she has also struck an amazing balance between working from home and being a mother.
Seeing this balance should have prepared me for this inevitable working from home status, right? This pandemic has de-wheeled me and I’m still in shock even thought we all ideally should work from home! I did truck in most of March as an essential employee to work my radio shift and get drive-time on the air. Now, the chance to work just as hard from home has been given.
I’ll admit that while I was ‘under foot’ of my mother as kid while she wrote romance novels, my rollerbladin’ foot is getting ancy. In addition to being in lockdown, the energy I’m putting into my content makes me wonder if I’m doing too much to stay occupied or if I’m doing EXACTLY what I need to be doing in this moment.
There truly is a fine line between overproduction and producing quality content! I podcasted nearly every day last week just because I felt I had the free time even after coming home from the city. It got me thinking whether or not it was necessary to produce all this podcast content ! In the end, I think it was meant to be!
Starting this week , it’s also become balancing my on-the-clock Radio work vs. podcasting and blogging from home. Have you been finding that balance of striking your own creativity on and off the clock?
I’ve been coming to that balance during this whole process we are in together. My goal is to keep such balance after the quarantine is lifted and I can ride into the city sunsets again! I’m realizing that how we adapt to working from home isn’t meant to be a temporary adaptation .
This is God telling us to be mindful, healthy and to change all of our ways. While we pray this quarantine is only temporary, we should also explore ways to keep the habits learnt during this time a long-term routine. No one has really uttered the term, ‘budget your time wisely’ during this tragic ordeal. It’s an important reminder to continue to do so, if you have or haven’t started already .
Write what is and what isn’t working during your experience working from home . The adjustments you can make each day could work toward perfecting work life not only during this time, but the coming months and years after !
While I may not have children of my own, I know this time has put everyone in the same house , slowing all families to a near grinding halt. Remember how busy everyone was at the beginning of the month, that some commercials guilted us for not making time for loved ones? Well, this is that opportunity. It’s not just an opportunity to bond with family for the duration of this, I’m seeing this as an opportunity to truly stick together as family and loved ones long after this is past, even through Zoom or Skype or FaceTime for the ones afar!
This too shall pass, but the habits we make now doesn’t have to pass us by once we are all out of quarantine. Let’s let the adaptable , positive habits we make now stay-in-place for the rest of time!
The Writings of Alex Garrett 