“It’s okay to not be your most productive self during a f****ing pandemic.”
— anonymous social media meme
I’ve been winning my work from home game since 2007.
When I interviewed for my first work-from-home job (writing reviews of bankruptcy cases for Bloomberg Law’s budding legal database), I told my interviewer that it was my dream job. I wasn’t exaggerating: as a young attorney (I graduated law school in 2003) I wanted nothing more than I wanted to work from home. I hated commuting, dressing in uncomfortable clothes, and eating mediocre midtown salads for lunch. I longed to spend mornings in meditation (rather than in a commute), cook fresh Indian curries in the afternoon, and wear yoga pants all day.
I got what I wanted. I landed that Bloomberg Law job, which segued into me selling research and writing services to lawyers and law firms, which segued into me becoming an appellate attorney (one who mostly writes appeal and substantive motion briefs for other lawyers). In seventeen years of law practice, I worked in an office for only two.
I never struggled with working from home. I’m an introvert that works best in solitude. I’m naturally disciplined. I’m a master at organizing my day and my to-do list. So I have never had any problem maintaining a high level of productivity in my home-work space.
Until now.
When I first read (in the Economist back at the end of January) that China built a hospital in ten days to host patients of the novel coronavirus, I had a sinking feeling. That can’t be good, I thought. But I didn’t imagine the upheaval – in our daily routines and our sense of security – that we were about to experience.
In those first heady days of executive orders and panic-buying, my first thought was to write a blog post sharing my insights over fifteen years of working from home productively. But my usual productive self had vanished. I couldn’t get myself to write anything (even as my inbox filled with others’ posts on “tips for working from home”). I realized my old methods needed a reboot.
This situation is not as simple as all of society suddenly deciding to work from home. There is a whole lot more going on. Any “work from home tips” have to account for a stark reality: the economic spigot is almost entirely closed and, for many of us, work has slowed to a trickle.
In light of this novel time, here are three novel tips for working from home (or at all) during the crisis.
1. Slow down and take the forced break. There is no need, and really no way, to keep going at the same breakneck speed we have been accustomed to for the last, well, for as long as we’ve known. The world is closed for business. None of us alive have experienced anything like this – it’s a worldwide involuntary grande vacance.
I’m no stranger to vacation. In fact, I was on a two-week vacation in Guadeloupe when this crisis accelerated. But I like to work hard then play hard. And I expected to be working hard when I got back from Guadeloupe. Instead, I’m back in vacation mode: waking up lazily, reading novels and a backlog pile of magazines, and chatting with friends and family all day (via WhatsApp and Zoom, of course).
Settling into a slower rhythm is healthy, in both the short and long run (rest boosts your immunity!). My pre-pandemic workday started early (up at 6 a.m.), ended late (work until 7 p.m. or so), and was full of nonstop movement from one obligation to the next.
My coronavirus workday looks more like this:
between 7–8 am: wake up without an alarm clock
8–10 am: enjoy coffee while reading about yoga, scrolling Instagram, and practicing French
10–11 am: personal cleansing & meditation practice
11–1 pm: read news and updates on the crisis; email colleagues
1–3 pm: lunch & a nap
3–5 pm: reading the Economist; practicing Spanish; working on little pending projects
5–bedtime: yoga; dinner; reading novels; movies/video games while Zooming with various family & friends
I, like many others, felt a huge wave of anxiety when it became clear that this crisis will be deep, long, and painful. And I wanted to stay active – but frantically marketing or working on business plans, just to maintain momentum, is counterproductive. Not to mention tone-deaf to the gravity of this time.
So I’m doing the only thing I can right now: slowing down and enjoying the break. I’ll be ready to pick up where we left off when this passes.
2. Spend time in meditation. If you have a meditation practice, now is the time to practice. As one of my teachers told me long ago, “meditating in the Himalayas is easy, the real challenge is meditating in the middle of the city.” Quite so. And even more so in a city in the middle of a pandemic. This is the time you’ve been practicing for, when you will be challenged to maintain it during an intense mental storm.
If you do not have a meditation practice, now is the time to start. There has never been a more important time to know, intimately, the contents of your mind. Such self-knowledge will help you when you are overwhelmed with the emotions – like the ground has been take out from under your feet – we’ve all been feeling lately. Meditation teaches you how to observe your mind as it rides on the roller coaster of your reactions to news, your friends and family, and your own internal dialogue. Eventually you will learn to notice the space before your reaction starts, and at that point you can choose to react differently. It’s a skill that is cultivated through a ton of practice. You will use it over the next several months, but also when this crisis passes. So you should start to learn it now.
There are tons of teachers who can introduce you to meditation. Two that I recommend are Jeena Cho (a lawyer-turned-meditation teacher who focuses on teaching to anxious lawyers) and Sam Harris (my favorite intellectual thought leader who is also a fantastic meditation teacher).
3. Create some anchoring deadlines. The vast majority of my work is writing briefs for appeals and substantive motions. My entire professional life is organized around deadlines. With the courts closed across the country, guess what? I have no deadlines. An important anchor is missing from my schedule, and it’s causing me to bob aimlessly in this vast ocean of uncertainty.
A few days into this new reality, I realized I needed to create my own deadlines to stay motivated. So I scheduled a few networking calls on Zoom. I set a goal of emailing three contacts each workday to check in and offer support. I created a book challenge for my networking group (Deliberate Solos). I joined a Spanish book club and a French conversation group, both of which meet monthly and have required readings.
I will likely have to let a lot of this go when the economic spigot is turned back on and I am flooded with deadlines again. But for now, it’s grounding to have some invented deadlines to keep me focused. If you are feeling unfettered by open-ended time, then I recommend you do it, too.
If you are a solo lawyer (or a solo service provider professional who assists lawyers), you are welcome to join Deliberate Solos and take part in our book challenge (deadline: April 15).
Otherwise, stay healthy, safe, and sane. If you have any tips on how to manage this unique time working in the time of coronavirus, please share them in the comments. If you just want to chat or have a Zoom video call, feel free to contact me. I have plenty of time to share.
