Weeknote, #FamilyLockdown edition
Featuring home school (teaching and learning), family agile, and sunshine (thankfully)
We’re all in this together. Separated by two metres at least, but together.
In these Unprecedented Times (TM), we are all united against COVID-19, but our experiences differ. I thought this week of all weeks would be a good time to return to Weeknotes — a brief account of the past few days (in this case, 10) favoured by digital professionals. In a twist, given lockdown, this is a family edition.
On and off, I’ve worked from home regularly for years. Since last Tuesday, 17th March, I’ve worked exclusively from home, as millions (billions worldwide?) of us now are. Day One of the New Normal (TM) saw my team run a three-hour meeting with our independent panel of research experts — held online-only at a couple of days’ notice. Panelists and team members took to it really well. Day three featured a five-hour workshop on leadership research, originally scheduled to take place in Newcastle, expertly facilitated as remote-only by fabulous colleagues at the Open Innovation Team. Again, participants and hosts adapted brilliantly to the technology. I’d heard many other civil service teams had similar positive experiences with the sudden shift to remote-only — so much so that following Andrea’s tweet about virtual awaydays and James’ suggestion of a collaborative document, I started this informal guidance on remote-only meetings, workshops, and unconferences that colleagues from across government have already contributed to.
In recent days, the Cabinet Office has been ramping up efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting efforts to address the crisis. The National Leadership Centre will of course be contributing to this. But this isn’t a Look-At-All-The-Work-I-Did sort of weeknote — aside from noting that the past week has been a blur of colleagues swarming onto new priorities, forming new virtual teams, and still delivering great work, and that my mate Sam put this the best:
From Monday I have been joined at home full time by my six-year-old son, and wife. Work-life balance can be hard enough under the best of circumstances, which these definitely aren’t. Balancing my own work schedule with my wife’s (leader in a large east London comprehensive school) and my son’s (Year One) has meant even more plate-spinning than usual. Many others have it even tougher of course, balancing caring responsibilities or other complexities on top.
Here are a few things that we did as a family, that have helped us get through Week One of Family Lockdown:
- Daily Standup. Borrowing from the world of agile software development, we tell each other our priorities for the day, including which commitments are fixed and which are moveable. This helps us fit around each other’s routines.
- Daily exercise, indoors. Whether it’s PE with Joe, Star Wars yoga (what a time to be alive), or any other workout routine, highly recommended as something to do together.
- Sticking broadly to school routine. Really helped The Boy (TM)!
- Taking regular, genuine breaks. Thank goodness for near-perfect weather of late — lockdown when skies are grey would be unimaginable.
- Scheduled a ‘window party’ with neighbours, where we shared a playlist and opened up our windows for a bit of a boogie.
- Baking! Bread (using chapati flour as it’s what I had in the house) and cupcakes this week, who knows what next week?
This is of course only week one of what may well be a very long period of lockdown. Understanding colleagues, helpful neighbours, clear blue skies, and solid fibre broadband got us through. How has your #FamilyLockdown been?