First of all, let us state a simple truth, formulated by Kozma Prutkov: "You cannot embrace the immensity." In a home confinement, you cannot simultaneously be a super professional home teacher, work full time in extreme conditions economic crisis and at the same time maintain ideal relationships in the family, combining this mix with serene self-development, mindfulness practices and ideal everyday life. God forbid to have time for at least something.
From the point of view of time management, you always need to MAKE THINGS.
Determine: what is most important to you? What should be done right now and first of all?
Of course, take care of the health and safety of your family. This means that it is necessary to organize the observance of all necessary precautions: hygienic, social, organizational.
Check that u older relatives there was a stock of groceries and a regular delivery of everything needed.
Train yourself and all family members to wash their hands before and after any external action - from touching the buttons in the elevator to leaving the house to the pharmacy.
By default, wear a mask and gloves when leaving the house.
This is your first line of defense.
However, all these measures will turn out to be useless if another security system is not implemented - economic. The problem with our mentality is that we - especially those whose childhood and youth fell on the era socialist education - it is very difficult to accept the priority of money over other life values. Deal with material wealth and the system financial security families are boring, unpleasant and uninteresting for most of us. However, there was an emergency, one for all, and the basic rule of financial protection is to have a "safety cushion" and a reserve of funds for 3-6 months - sounded sharp for everyone who lived from paycheck to paycheck and spent more than earned.
What to do now?
The same thing that all experienced and efficient businessmen do during economic trials.
- Remove unnecessary expenses as quickly as possible, just cut them to zero.
- Provide the most favorable treatment for those departments and employees who bring money.
- All capricious, dissatisfied, rocking the boat - to the exit.
- Everyone who is able to mobilize as much as possible, quickly and without long explanations to understand the tasks at the moment, should be left.
When fires are blazing around, this is not the time to babysit those who are not aware of the danger of the situation.
The same principle can be applied in the family. There are two functions in priority:
- Making money.
- Maintaining an intra-family structure - one that does not interfere with making money.
For a while, it will be necessary to postpone the need for self-realization and satisfaction of the "wants" of those family members who do not bring income. Housewives with highly artistic unpaid hobbyno matter how promising they may seem to you. Schoolchildren and students with the most important studies in the world, except for those cases when they will receive a solid cash grant or a full-scale scholarship right next day. Good-natured grandmothers, whose "incoming" help with household chores is worse than a nuclear war in its consequences. The interests of these close people should temporarily recede into the background. And the first one is the one who brings more than other money or, which is especially important, can bring at least some money in the short term.
“Money is here and now” is the main criterion of the present moment.
This prioritization can be completely out of the ordinary. For example, if in your family the main source of income is the pension of older relatives, start blowing away dust particles from them and provide them with the most comfortable mode of existence.
If the only one who can work now and bring home some money is a student son who got a job in the delivery of Yandex. Food ”- let the whole family help him.
If your dad who earns a lot of money is forced to work in an unusual and unsuitable for him home environment - do everything so that he does not feel any inconvenience.
Rule one: the more money a person brings to the family, the more convenient his place should be for work, the more polite and the more attentively other relatives should treat him, the quieter children and pets walk around him.
It is similar to the laws of wartime, but this is the only way you can survive in extreme conditions, when everyone is at home, everything is remote, and money is earning more and more difficult every day. When the period of abundance comes again, perhaps you will take care of expanding your home, of creative self-realization and updating the technical base: laptops, smartphones. But now you cannot afford that.
What to do with children?
Relax. The urgent transition to distance learning for unprepared schools and schoolchildren does not imply that parents should completely replace the entire education system.
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All you can do now is to comfortably “overexpose” children in inappropriate conditions. If your children at this time read books, watch lessons online, chat with their favorite teacher on Skype, chat with classmates on social networks, breathe fresh air on the balcony or learn how to put away your toys - you can already consider yourself superparents.
If for some reason you have adopted a mild sleep and rest schedule for children at home, it's time to fix it.
The exact time of getting up and going to bed, strict adherence to the regime moments - nutrition, hygiene procedures, calm and "violent" games "on schedule" are useful not only for children, but also make life much easier adults. And adults have to solve a lot of difficult problems: how to find a new job, where to get new sources of income, how to keep their family ship afloat. If your kids have a rigid and understandable routine, you will know how to arrange your day around these immutable rituals. They sent the children to bed at 10:00 pm - and you have a couple of hours to rest and catch your breath, for example.
If you are alone with your children, but at the same time have to work remotely, if no one can keep your children busy for the duration of your work, you must win back these few hours. You shouldn't even think that you can work and entertain children at the same time. If mom or dad works, children should not make loud noises and pound on the door of the room where their parents locked themselves with a laptop or are talking on the phone.
Of course, a rare child can quietly self-isolate in the children's room for 6-8 hours in a row, which are needed for the full-fledged work of adult family members.
The distance now is not relaxation, but the highest requirements for prompt response, high-quality results of each action and difficult connections with other members of the distributed team.
Of course, you will worry about what happens to your children behind the wall. Try to act strictly on the clock. 45 minutes of concentrated work, then 15 minutes to visit the children and have a cup of tea, relax, switch from work to home. With such rhythmic touches, children will be calm, because their parents are not neglected, and you will be able to maintain an optimal mode of concentration and relaxation.
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If there are older children among your children, feel free to appoint them as “managers of the children's team”. At all times, the older children followed the younger ones and quite successfully. Only very recently have we begun to believe that children need to be relieved of such responsibilities within the family.
As a rule, children respond very well to rules that are precisely formulated and supported by all family members. If you agree and require a perfectly made bed right after waking up, do your homework right away after dinner and carefully collected toys 15 minutes before going to bed - do not hesitate that all this should be done. Your children will have no problem implementing such a program. On the contrary, it will be much easier for them than in a situation of “free choice”.
Technical and organizational infrastructure
Of course, it's easy to give advice on organizing a home office when you have a private home or apartment that's so spacious that there are more rooms than family members. But for our country, this is a rather rare situation. There are often fewer rooms than people and are not designed to work effectively. We do not live like Professor Preobrazhensky from Mikhail Bulgakov's “Heart of a Dog”, but exactly the opposite: we both “operate” and have lunch in the same room. We sleep next to the desk, or we don't have it at all.
But tightness is not the worst thing. Not always every family member is provided with the necessary for remote work technique. Much more often, one "means of production" - and in conditions of a distance it is, first of all, a working laptop - there are one and a half to two people.
What to do in such a situation?
If there is even the slightest opportunity, you still need to buy the necessary gadgets. You can cheaply buy used equipment in several ways: buy on the Avito.ru or Youla.ru websites, ask someone from acquaintances old office computer on write-off, take out a loan and buy some simple laptop model, sufficient for a simple work.
In any case, the dominant principle of distribution of premises and equipment in the family should be based on economic expediency.
Whoever can make the most money gets the best laptop.
Accordingly, if mom needs a laptop for work, and children - for study, mom works on a laptop, and children use smartphones or iPads available to them.
If your kitchen or bedroom used to be the most sacred place in your home, not to mention a living room with a TV, it's time to transform your home space into “office corners”, And these jobs must be absolutely inviolable.
You may have to work in shifts, distributing work sessions in time between family members. You may feel the need to create the ideal working environment for one person, and the rest of the transition to his service - bring food, clean the room, blow off dust particles.
The organization of family relationships is an individual matter. The main thing is that you understand that all this is temporary.
If you can hold out in such extreme "work overcrowding" during self-isolation, your efficiency in a hybrid mode of operation, which does not imply total retirement, after the crisis will become an order of magnitude above. You can masterfully combine work from a cafe, car, plane or coworking space with classic work in a traditional office.
Change of context in a confined space
It is difficult to find such a convinced couch potato, introvert and social phobia who would feel good without the possibility of leaving the apartment. The most difficult thing about such a limitation is the absence of a change of context: scenery, circumstances, setting.
A change in activities, a change in the environment, a change in work and rest regimes is a resource in itself.
How can we carry out a change of context if we are strictly limited in movement around the city and even in our neighborhood? There are several ways to overcome this threshold.
First, it is necessary to strictly distinguish between online and offline existence. In an ordinary pre-quarantine life without restrictions, we got along with our smartphones, we do not fall asleep and do not wake up without them. It's not so scary as long as it happens in the dynamics of a modern metropolis. I ran to the metro, sat in a comfortable seat in the carriage, looked at my mail or read an e-book, streets he uttered audio messages for friends and colleagues, called the children, checked what they were doing there, and came to office. Everything is in motion, the world around us is constantly changing. But when you are tied to the same place for many days in a row, you will imperceptibly begin to overextend yourself, and your psyche can can't stand. The total online total distance must be compensated for with a carefully sustained offline mode of life.
Whereas previously one “Internet Shabbat” once a week was enough, now it is necessary to arrange breaks of an hour or more without any telephone or Internet connection at all.
Of course, not in those moments when you promised your colleagues and partners to be in an active working state. But, first, make it a rule to turn off your smartphone when you sit down to dinner or do gymnastics. Maintain "gadget quarantine" one hour before bedtime. Do not look at the screen immediately after waking up. Small "no-gadget" buffer zones will give you the ability to balance your mental state.
Second, try zoning your home space. Divide your home into an adult and a child, or, alternatively, a male and a female. To the zone of "perfect order" and general chaos. Think about it and determine where in the apartment you feel relaxed and where you feel collected. The main principle is the contrast of states so that you can really switch when entering a particular room.
Perhaps the moment has finally come when it is necessary to cleanse balcony from trash and use it either for work or for good rest. Perhaps the problem will be solved by a minimal, but carefully tailored furniture rearrangement to your needs.
Experiment and be attentive to your real needs. Look for signals, "anchors" that in everyday life switched you from work to rest and vice versa.
Third, alternate intellectual and sedentary work with accessible physical activity, be it simple gymnastics with light dumbbells or violent games with children on the floor. If you've been sitting at a laptop or documents for a couple of hours, warm up in any type of homework. Nail the shelves, wash the dishes, tidy up the pantry. This should be done not "according to needs", but strictly by the hour. Remember, your body is not designed to signal you how to compensate for your natural walk down the street with household chores. Just set a timer, 15 minutes of vigorous "physical education" - and you can get back to business.
Timing as a way to reduce anxiety
In the current extreme situation, when “everyone is at home and everyone needs to work”, it is very easy to start making claims both to each other and to yourself. In ordinary pre-crisis life, you knew when to be happy with yourself and your results. They could feel how good and correct your actions were, according to the usual signs: a feeling of tiredness at the end of the day, the reaction of colleagues, the joy of relatives. During a crisis, all the usual coordinate systems are knocked down, you live and work in uncomfortable conditions, around your self-isolated little world is raging an ideal storm: in the economy, in public life, in healthcare. No one knows in which direction events will turn, no one knows how everything will turn out further, whether everything will return to its normal state and to which circles it will return.
It's hard not to worry, but you can't be nervous all the time. There is a very simple, albeit laborious, way to "ground" psychological condition and control what is happening to you in reality. Whether you are working hard or thrashing, you do your best to support yourself and your family, or are in a daze, do you spend enough time with children or criminally neglect.
Timing is a classic basic time management technique, which is a total recording, full accounting of your time during the day. In the "here and now" mode, you write down everything that you do in a simple table like this:
Time | How many? | What have you been doing |
Until 7:00 | 6 o'clock | Sleep |
Until 7:30 | 30 minutes | Lying in bed |
Until 7:45 am | 15 minutes | Cooked breakfast |
Until 8:15 am | 30 minutes | I read the news about the new quarantine restrictions, had breakfast |
Until 8:55 | 40 minutes | Children woke up, washed, dressed |
Until 9:05 am | 10 minutes | Call from work, got a scolding from the boss |
This is by no means a plan or a daily routine. This is precisely the fixation of what is happening to you, what you are actually doing at one time or another.
With the help of timing, you can really estimate how much time you need for a particular action, how much time you actually spend on a particular job.
The most important thing is not to do timing and analysis on days. First, write everything down and analyze it only after a couple of days.
The optimal timing is 2-3 weeks, but for the first results there will be enough data for several days.
Teach your kids to keep timing, it can be a fun educational game for them.
Do not impose on adult family members the time management practices that you have mastered. You can just tell them about the results.
The temptation to organize your neighbor, not yourself, is very great, but it also invariably spoils the relationship.
Time management experts Gleb Arkhangelsky and Olga Strelkova compiled a practical guide for those who were forced to switch to remote work. You will learn what can help you stay productive outside the office, how to use online tools effectively and keep in touch with colleagues, manage a remote team, and organize family routines when everyone at home.
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