No one saw it coming. It hit us suddenly and with incredible force. Whole fortunes in the stock markets were wiped out overnight. Within a few weeks, vibrant cities like New York and Berlin became ghost towns. Small businesses were torn apart. Restaurants mutated into drive-ins and we started tracking infected and dead people on worldometer instead of our steps on Fitbit.
What had happened?
A royal virus catapulted our capitalist house of cards into a deep crisis before our very eyes. A tiny organism barely larger than 125 nanometres (1 nanometre is 1 billionth of a metre) confronts our fragile, demanding society with the existential questions of our time. A virus that uses a globalised economy as a Trojan horse and does not know national borders. However, it slowly dawns on us, that the virus is not the real danger.
Psychology of the Masses
Fear has rarely been a healthy basis for decisions. And yet we do seem to fall back to it in times of hardship: we sell stocks in panic after having just spent a sleepless night. We hoard paracetamol, cans and toilet paper (I have not yet been able to find a conclusive explanation for the latter). Even consumers, who have been relatively relaxed about the situation so far, now come to Aldi and stand in front of yawning empty shelves. And suddenly panic sets in and they start to clear the remaining shelves. This is how the virus propagates: from biological organisms into the psyche of human beings, from there into the DNA of our culture and into the deepest cells of our economic system — no longer as a biological pathogen, but now mutating into cultural memes.
The real danger is psychological contamination, the spread of the virus into the psyche of consumers, decision-makers, politicians and the military. It is the fear of wars, catastrophes and epidemics that was anchored in our collective subconscious through our ancestors, always in the starting blocks and ready to be activated. For we know from epigenetic that the emotionally traumatic experiences of our grandfathers are inherited.
What to do?
In this situation, many of us sit at home in our home office and ask ourselves what to do with our newly gained time: Serial marathons on Netflix, binge-eating and virtual reality games are the obvious candidates. But how about instead of following the herd, we take the path less travelled? Warren Buffett once said that for times like this (when everyone is leaving the stock markets in panic) he keeps cash ready to invest at the right time. But this anti-herding strategy does not have to work only for the stock markets.
What if we — one by one — started planting a white rose? A rose of hope, which, in all the chaos, panic and despair, reminds us what contribution we can make in a world that has gone off the rails? How about mindfulness instead of panic, calm instead of chaos and empathy instead of blame? Are there little things we can do every day?
As a little inspiration, I have put together my personal list of things I do to stay resilient and prepared for these times and to use the time in my home office wisely.
10 useful tips to use the time in your home office wisely
1. Use Google Hangouts or Skype to connect with people, with acquaintances or with people you haven’t connected for a long time. Ask them where you can help them: e.g. in the form of emotional support, shopping for them, helping them think about their future.
2. Establish a morning routine: I get up at 6 a.m. every morning, alternating between yoga and a no equipment workout at home for 20 minutes, then 20 minutes of meditation followed by an ice-cold shower and breakfast. With such a routine you already have a good start into the day. Then I create my to-do list. So even in times of Corona my days in the home office feel too short and I don’t feel I have to revert to Netflix to fill spare time. It is important to establish routines, i.e. to integrate a daily routine firmly into your day.
3. Use YouTube for personal fitness: actually, you don’t need a fitness center anymore. YouTube has an arsenal of really good yoga, fitness and mindfulness videos. Here are some I am using regularly:
20 minute intense Yoga workout
20 minutes no equipment intense workout
10 minutes guided meditation
4. Daily team stand ups on hangouts, MS Teams or other tools: as a team we motivate each other through daily short and virtual meetings. We start with emotional check-ins followed by updates and to-do’s for the day. If you are a freelancer and don’t have a team, create one by teaming up with other freelancers.
5. Journaling: It is hard to describe how cleansing a daily diary routine can be to address all the current emotional burdens, but also to brainstorm new ideas and design visions. Alternatively, you can write articles, start a blog or finally start the long awaited book project.
6. Lifelong education: 6 months ago, I started a Bachelor’s degree in artificial intelligence (AI) on the side. My university in Linz offers the program mostly digitally. At the moment I try to use it every day and study at least 2 hours for exams, read books about AI or watch a lecture digitally. But you do not have to be registered at a university. There are so many courses available through Coursera, Khan-Academy, Udemy and Co. and most of them are free, so that you can continue your education in many professionally relevant topics.
7. “Design your future”: whether you are self-employed or not, now is the perfect time to pause and think about how you want to design your future and where you see yourself in the years to come.
8. Design an offline Kanban board for your most important goals. I use this not only in business, but also for private projects and goals.
9. Pause, note down the people and things for which you are truly grateful and plan to do or say something good to a person around you every day.
10. Order a white rose and put it in a place at home that is important to you! Take it as inspiration for your darkest moments, remember that you are not alone, take a photo and share it with important people!