Working from home day 1
I need brain breaks.
This is something I've known about myself forever. I can focus and get my work done and do a good job as long as I can also get up and move around for a couple of minutes. So, at work this usually looks like me going down to the water bottle filling fountain by the main office, or running down to the basement to ask an English teacher a quick question instead of sending an email, or having to go to the second floor to get the laptops that I booked, or leaving the classroom for a couple of minutes to check with groups working in breakout spaces. At home it's more like a 5 minute break after a meeting to put some laundry away, a quick tidy up of the toys in the living room, running the compost bin out to the back alley because I'm working in the kitchen and have become acutely aware of the scent of decomposing banana peel from yesterday's breakfast. This is making it significantly harder to close the activity rings on my apple watch BUT my house will be so clean.
Maybe.
It's actually kind of nice to be able to accomplish the little things that pile up around the house during the natural breaks that a school day provides. I'm still obviously working, my phone came up to the baby's room so that I could still be connected to my emails while I folded laundry during the few minutes of downtime between meetings, but these are all things that would have had to be done in the short few hours I have at home before bed every night - or waited for some down time on the weekend. It was also nice to take my 40 minute lunch break as a walk with Juno and my husband. Chilly, but the fresh air helped me to come back focused and ready to get some serious work done this afternoon.
So working from home has some serious work/life balance benefits.
I can also, for the first time in 7 years, use the washroom during the work day and not have to worry about what chaos I might come back to.
(to be honest, this is mostly only because my parents have resumed their status as official emergency childcare as of 7:45 this morning)
The work from home adventure today was calling students. I'm halfway through my lists and, as a millennial, am exhausted from the social anxiety that making 40+ phone calls brings on. Our generation was not meant for this type of communication. It was actually really cool to connect with the kids again and I'm even more excited to resume classes with them online on Wednesday.
In personal news, my husband had his hours restricted today. We're still so incredibly fortunate to both be able to continue our work at home and collect at least partial pay cheques, but I'm only 3 months out of a full year on EI so it stings a bit. Perspective tells me that we are the lucky ones though so I will continue to feel fortunate and check my privilege on the opportunities that have been afforded to us.
This is something I've known about myself forever. I can focus and get my work done and do a good job as long as I can also get up and move around for a couple of minutes. So, at work this usually looks like me going down to the water bottle filling fountain by the main office, or running down to the basement to ask an English teacher a quick question instead of sending an email, or having to go to the second floor to get the laptops that I booked, or leaving the classroom for a couple of minutes to check with groups working in breakout spaces. At home it's more like a 5 minute break after a meeting to put some laundry away, a quick tidy up of the toys in the living room, running the compost bin out to the back alley because I'm working in the kitchen and have become acutely aware of the scent of decomposing banana peel from yesterday's breakfast. This is making it significantly harder to close the activity rings on my apple watch BUT my house will be so clean.
Maybe.
It's actually kind of nice to be able to accomplish the little things that pile up around the house during the natural breaks that a school day provides. I'm still obviously working, my phone came up to the baby's room so that I could still be connected to my emails while I folded laundry during the few minutes of downtime between meetings, but these are all things that would have had to be done in the short few hours I have at home before bed every night - or waited for some down time on the weekend. It was also nice to take my 40 minute lunch break as a walk with Juno and my husband. Chilly, but the fresh air helped me to come back focused and ready to get some serious work done this afternoon.
So working from home has some serious work/life balance benefits.
I can also, for the first time in 7 years, use the washroom during the work day and not have to worry about what chaos I might come back to.
(to be honest, this is mostly only because my parents have resumed their status as official emergency childcare as of 7:45 this morning)
The work from home adventure today was calling students. I'm halfway through my lists and, as a millennial, am exhausted from the social anxiety that making 40+ phone calls brings on. Our generation was not meant for this type of communication. It was actually really cool to connect with the kids again and I'm even more excited to resume classes with them online on Wednesday.
In personal news, my husband had his hours restricted today. We're still so incredibly fortunate to both be able to continue our work at home and collect at least partial pay cheques, but I'm only 3 months out of a full year on EI so it stings a bit. Perspective tells me that we are the lucky ones though so I will continue to feel fortunate and check my privilege on the opportunities that have been afforded to us.
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