Working & Winning From Home - The 5 must do steps for everyone

In these times most of you are working from home or from cafes and juggling kids, parents, work, telecons at the same time. It is tough and likely to be our new way of working for some time.

Hence writing to you to share some thoughts on how we can both succeed in this time continuing our tradition of high performance and also manage our personal and family lives. 5 thoughts to share

1. Your Own Health First – If you are not healthy then you cannot help anyone else. Hence personal hygiene comes first. You should not be short of sanitizers but if you are use a soap. Proven to be effective in 30 seconds against every known virus and germ. Wash hands as often as you can. Second wear a mask if you are headed to a public place with a lot of people – it doesn’t hurt to wear one. Ask people in china – they do it everyday and are now used to it. Eat well, rest and take breaks. If you can use the time to do some light exercise to build up your strength and immunity.
2. Your family next – Many of you will lack child care right now and will have schools closed for your children. Your kids need your time – please devote it to them. If it means some work calls missed or projects delayed, it’s ok. Please find how to occupy your kids time and energy and if you need to do home schooling please put it in your calender and everyone will respect your time. If you have elderly in the family they need extra care – they should not be exposed to the outside and ideally groceries and other trips for them should be done by you. Also on a lighter note after working from home, in china divorces are on the rise ! It seems our spouses are not used to seeing us so much, hence too many petty arguments. So be kind and be gentle at home. It’s not easy for anyone.
3. A Soap & Sanitizer for everyone – Your goal and mission should be to put a soap and /or a sanitizer into the hands of every person you know and care about. If nothing else works a bar soap works. If you cannot do anything start with your neighbours. Give them what you can. If anyone is short of soap / sanitizer / masks for personal or family use please write to me at aseempuri@gmail.com - we will do our best to help.
4. Social Welcome not Social Distance – When you step out, when your kids go to school, when you are shopping the proven way to stay healthy is practice social distance. 1-2m away from the next person, wear a mask and when you meet someone use the age old Indian Namaste or the thai wai mudra to greet each other. Do not shake hands or hug. The word Namaste means the divine in me respects the divine in you. Practice it – its easy and safe. So instead of being aloof from each other and walking away we look each other in the eye with warmth, compassion and kindness and say namaste
5. Success At Work – While all this is happening you want success and growth at work. How do we do this while working from home ? Some ideas for you to consider

• Create a small home office space – safe for you to use and ideally less open to disturbances where you can work. If not possible is there a café or open space nearby
• Stay Charged – Your Laptop and Phone should be connected, have adequate disk space, installed MS teams and skype on both laptop and phone + get a back up charger for your phone
• Energy – You need energy creating activities when you do work alone. This can be yoga, exercise, quick walk, coffee etc. Build a rhythm where you can do it 2-3 times a day to draw your energy from there
• Over connected to your teams and bosses – We need to over connect. Over communicate. Over call. We need to be more present for each other in this time. So take your time to do this – check in with key team mates and bosses daily. Even for a few minutes. It makes all the differences
• Reboot and Re Learn – you will save some time on the commute. Use this time wisely. With family ofcourse but also to reboot and relearn – you can take a whole host of online courses and learn new skills / languages

As the wise old advisor told the Persian king “this too shall pass” and we will be stronger as a team at the end of it. You have a deep responsibility to yourself, your families and then to the world.

Stay safe, stay strong and healthy always.

aseempuri@gmail.com