Routines, School & Working from Home Tips: COVID19-era edition

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Speaker 1: Hi. This is Laura Vandercam. I'm a mother of four, an author, journalist, and speaker. And this is Sarah Hart Hunger. I'm a mother of three, practicing physician and blogger. On the side, we are two working parents who love our careers and our families. Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about how real women manage work, family, and time for fun, from figuring out childcare to mapping out long term career goals. We want you to get the most out of life. Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura. This is episode one hundred and forty, which is airing in early April of twenty twenty. Like many of you, Sarah and I are both locked down to some degree. Sarah still has to go to the hospital to work, so that's of course a different matter. We had another episode running on our morning routines, and as you can imagine, our morning routines are very different now in an era when nobody is going to school in the morning, many people not going to a physical office in the morning. And so while many of our episodes we've decided to keep running and to do some bonus COVID episodes. This one just seemed like it was not going to be helpful right now. So maybe we'll run again in the future when we can talk about morning routines, because forever people will be trying to figure those out. But right now, our mornings tend to look a little different, right Sarah, Yours is probably quite a bit different, quite a bit different. Yeah. I was like, I don't think I anybody wants to be subjected to the blow by blow of exactly what we do to get like, you know, the kids to each school on time, when nobody is going anywhere right now. So I'm glad we decided to re record this episode, although I guess it would have been sort of archival in a way. Yeah, what life looked like in February exactly exactly February twenty twenty versus April of twenty twenty. Yeah, clearly our mornings are very different. I mean, in some ways they're a lot more relaxed. Because the truth is, even though there's things about this pandemic that are stressful and that are might make work a little bit more challenging, there are some things which make the logistics of the day to day potentially a little bit easier in some ways. Have you guys found that, Yeah, well, I mean, not going anywhere removes a lot of time stress from a daily life. I have been able to use my mornings for work in a way that I haven't in years. You know, things had changed anyway with the baby, the new baby, but he often eats around five thirty or six in the morning, and then when we had school, many times Jasper would have to get up not too long after that, so there wouldn't be a huge chunk of time in there. I mean there's enough time for maybe me to get a shower and you know, sit with my coffee for ten minutes, which is nice, but it's not enough time to do anything elaborate. But now nobody's getting up for anything. I mean, we have morning meetings around nine nine thirty, but that leaves quite a bit of space versus the say six point fifty you know, stuff earlier. So I'm getting up and feeding the baby, getting him back down. He tends to still be sleepy in the morning and can get quite a good long stretch of time there. I get up, I record podcasts and do a little work, and then when the morning starts for our learning, I feel a little bit more relaxed about that, since I know I got stuff done. Yeah, same thing. I mean, when you think about the amount of minutes that previously went into dragging the kids out of bed, getting them dressed on a certain timeline, doing multiple drop offs, I'm finding that I actually do have a little bit more time to play with in the morning. I've been really fortunate and lucky right now that the kids are sleeping pretty well. And I don't know if that's we are forcing them to go outside every day, maybe that helps like reset their circadian rhythms, or maybe it's just the newness to everything. But many nights they'll go to bed between eight thirty and nine, and they're not up until past seven, although I guess Annaboll I think she can down at six forty five, and I said, oh, it's early, and she's like really, and I'm like, well, for now, because they've been getting up even closer to eight some mornings, which is crazy, and that has allowed me to either work on blog stuff or work on actual work stuff and not be so stressed about trying to get everybody ready in time and dragging them out of bed. So I mean that part's been kind of the one one of the silver linings of this whole thing right now. Yeah, yeah, And I mean I've found myself doing a lot of recording, but it turns out that that is the only window when everything is quiet in the house. I can't really guarantee it the rest of day. I've done a few like ad recordings, you know, if I can get a minute that I know will be quiet, and I'm not upset if it's not quiet, because then I just tell that person to be quiet and try again, because it's only thirty seconds that I need to get through. But well, I don't hear too much background noise right now. Where's everybody right now? I told everyone to be quiet. Now they're in the base. I just bet you so he's happy. We are recording this ad around noon, and yeah, like normally our episodes are many weeks in advance, but this is less than a week from when it airs, so it's like current. Yeah. Well, it's also that this podcast, I've also said, you know, our listeners are used to the back and forth of two people, and you know, I've fed the baby on the show. I just feel slightly less like, you know, if there's one person talking which is what happens with Before Breakfast, and then this new podcast. It sounds weird. If there's noise, it sounds like there's a mistake. I mean it's a scripted show. Yes, no, it makes sense if you're the one reading the script, then you can't really be like, Oops, the baby just cried, but you just let that well, I mean, I know you made the announcement on your blog as well, but why don't you tell our listeners just in case they're looking for another morning podcast to listen to. Yeah, so I just launched a new every weekday morning podcast some of our listeners may currently listen to Before Breakfast, which is and every weekday morning. Short tip, just take your day from great to awesome. Something productivity time related. And so a couple of weeks ago, iHeartMedia and I started talking about just the huge shifts in how people are working these days, with so many people working remotely for the first time, all the changes that are coming out of that. And yes, a lot of people will wind up back in the office in another month or two most likely, but for many people there's this wall that has been breached in the sense that it turns out your job can be done remotely and maybe it doesn't have to be done between nine and five and a certain location. And so because of that, people are going to be working differently. And this podcast is called The New Corner Office and modeled on Before Breakfast. It's an every weekday morning tip on how to thrive in this new world of work where location and hours are more flexible than in the past. So yes, the immediate news hook is people working at home with COVID nineteen restrictions, but I really believe this trend is be so much broader, last so much longer than that, and hopefully this podcast will help people get through that. Well. It's so interesting because you know, we had talked about doing telemedicine as a group for months and we sort of launched it, like I think there was one provider, one of our nurse practitioners was doing it for our diabetes patients, but it just kind of stagnated because there was no urgency. And now over the past just few weeks, we have obviously by necessity, ramped it up big time and I'm finding that it's actually, like logistically pretty great. So I'm hoping that maybe this will be one of the things that sticks, and maybe I'll even find myself having to glean some of your tips because I'm finding that parts of my job could be done remotely. Now. Whether or not that will be allowed in the post COVID era, I don't know. I know every workplace is different, but I'm hoping that, you know, by trying to be as productive and valuable as I possibly can during this time, maybe I can demonstrate that some of that flexibility could be used later on, and then I could continue to do lunchtime podcast recording to Flora exactly. No, but I mean the whole tel of medicine thing, that's a great example. I mean, there are so many routine office visits that you didn't actually need to, like do a procedure or a full physical exam or something like that, and there's no reason it couldn't be as long as you can get the privacy concerns worked out and the security and aspects like that. And if you consider some of your patients who are having to come in multiple times per year for checkups, I mean, that's a lot of time spent getting to your office, waiting in the waiting room. I mean, even though you're very prompt, it's still time and not having to do that as probably a huge benefit for your patient's families, and it is. I think they'll be lobbying for it too. I think in particular our diabetes patients because they do have you know, many of them come in like six times a year, because they may come in for four doctors' visits and then two like educator visits and a dietician visit. And really like if we saw them in person for two of those visits per year, that would be probably perfect and then the rest of the time we wouldn't have to disrupt their routine so much. So yeah, I mean there are some good things that will likely come out of all this. Yeah, and none of this has to be either or. I mean, like you said, seeing them twice a year and then doing four telemedicine visits would be a great balance between the two. As somebody left a comment on my blog that I love just because it just put a number on it, and she said that doing a meeting or a class by zoom was about seventy five percent as good as it was in person, And I think that's a good proportion. That's a good number to hang on to because then if you think about it, like, if you did two really good zoom calls, they could definitely take the place of one in person meeting for many occasions and you'd come out ahead. So yeah, I think it's going to change and hopefully see how that goes. Be better for people, better for the planet, all kinds of upsides. Yeah, that's true, better for you because maybe your husband won't have to go to Europe so often. Yeah, well, he's had not gone anywhere for a long time and he's been here. It turns out lot of stuff can be done by video conference or by phone, and you know, I think there's just this I mean, now people have to but it turns out that if it comes down to it, you can pitch a major project to a client by video conference. And in the old way of working, I mean, people's like, oh, well you have to be there in person and shake their hand and you know, have dinner to talk about it or whatever. And I'm not saying that won't happen, but it turns out that that's not the only way that it can happen. And so even sales and client service can be done partially virtually as long as you maintain something to do with that relationship in person from time to time too. Yeah. Well, I definitely want to get into some practical tips from you, but I think we should have a quick emotional check in. Yeah yeah, So how are you doing, Sarah? You know, I'm I'm doing better today. I've gone through like all these phases, and I don't know, some people say they're like similar to the stages of grief for Cooper or whatever. Yeah, the Googler Ross phases exactly. I think I think I've hit a little bit of an acceptance period. I almost feel like I hit through that. Yeah, yesterday I had like a hunger and then I don't know, I was having a lot of trouble with as a healthcare provider, the idea that like I would lose my autonomy. I kept having nightmares about going back to residency and being you know, placed in the ICUs and things that I really disliked doing. During training. Last night, I even had a dream I was rounding on plastic surgery patients, which is not realistic. By the way, There's like definitely a kid screaming in the background. I'm sorry, so, but then all of a sudden, I don't know, this morning, I was like you know what, I am an autonomous adult. I'm also not a residence, so it's not even like I would have to give up my medical career if I got to a point and was uncomfortable with something. And I can try to be as useful as possible during this pandemic in the ways that I feel comfortable doing, whether that's telemedicine and some in person stuff, and make myself useful in the many ways that I hopefully can. But at the end of the day, I still get to make my own choices, and I guess acknowledging that that autonomy is real as an adult. I don't know. I just I felt a lot better all of a sudden, and I felt more motivated to just try to achieve and help people and do my job in the ways that I can and in the ways that I am currently useful. So yeah, I'm having a better day. O good. I'm glad to hear that. Also, it's the start of a new month that we're recording this, and so I know, Sarah always, I've been reading your blog for a long long time, and the new month is always this like excitement. I always have a good start of the month it's true. Yep. There's a few other blogs I follow where I noticed the same pattern, and I don't know if it's I guess it's not just an upholder thing because that would be you too. But nope, definitely get some energy from the new month, even though it's April Fool's Day, which I hate that holiday. I know. I'm not a big fan of pranks either. We've unfortunately that has been limited in this household at the moment. So what about you? Have you felt pretty good with this or I mean you've had a lot of happy stuff happening with the new podcast launch. Yeah, yeah, No, I'm pretty much doing fine. I mean there's various you know, partly it's the weather is getting better. I mean, on rainy days is when I'm just ticked off about everything. But when it's sunny and getting to be spring, the flowers are out, that that does wonders for mood. You know. Starting the new podcast is exciting, to be honest. I had had a little bit of anxiety about some work travel in Q two and how much of that I would have and you know, just with the new baby and we've got some changes coming up with childcare, you know, just how that was all going to play out, and now I don't have to worry about it, like I'm not going anywhere for a long time, and so well, while that is perhaps not the best for my income, it is what it is. And so oh yeah, the longer maternity leave has got some upsides to it. I've found that just staying off the news is the best thing I can possibly do. And I recognize this as somebody who's worked in media in the past that you know you want to keep people engaged with your content, and the best way to do that is to have stuff that is anxiety producing, that is, you know, as big as possible. Normalcy good news does not keep people clicking. And so yeah, that's I'm not saying there isn't a bunch of bad news, but if you limit your exposure to it, I think you can be an informed citizen. Maybe checking once a day and that's all you need to do, and maybe you even make a ritual of it, like doing it at a time when you were best able to handle it. Maybe that's right before you go exercise or something, because that you know that will put you in a better mood, so you can check it right before exercising, or even close it out with some sort of positive change, right, like you text an elderly relative, or you know, make a donation to doctors without borders, or just something that's positive at the end of your news checking, then go do something you put you in a better mood, and then do not look at it again. I think it's not sticking your head in the sand. But there's only so much you can do about certain things. And if you can't do anything about certain aspects of the world, then there's not much to be gained by being miserable about it. Does that make sense? Totally agree? And I wonder if, like many others, I've sort of hit news fatigue, Like I was clicking on a lot of articles and links and like learning all this stuff, and now I'm like, okay, like I'm tired and it's not helping me anymore. So we already have our plan, which is to continue social distancing for right now, and I don't think anyone really knows anything further. So yeah, all right, we do have to take our quick ad break for a moment, and then let's talk about school. All right, We are back talking life in this new normal, how we're doing in early April of twenty twenty. And one thing we are doing in April of twenty twenty that we weren't in say, February of twenty twenty is homeschooling slash distance virtual learning. So, Sarah, how has that been going? So we're actually very late to that party because the timing of our spring break kind of had us protected. We had our last day of school on March the thirteenth, and the week after that was going to be kind of like a throwaway anyway, because that week had I think one day off for election Day, and then the friday was off and one half day, like it was going to be like half a week. So they were like, okay, don't worry about it. And then the week after that, the week of March twenty third, was spring break. So we actually have only been in quote unquote school for this is the third day now, which I think is behind like money. My friends are like, I'm on day eighteen or something. So I guess I feel a little bit lucky that we were somewhat spared in that regard. I would say that second grade is going pretty well. My daughter is you know, she's able to read, which makes doing on screen work a lot simpler when you can refer to directions and stuff. My kindergartener needs a lot of handholding, and I know that some of that is just based on his learning style and some of it is just based on the way the resources are presented. So because my husband and I have been more flexible, we have been able to devote some of that time. But I also sent a teacher an email that was like, we're going to be spending one to two hours maximum with him per day doing learning. I'm sorry, that's all we can do, thank you. And she wrote back and she said that's completely fine. So it is what it is, and honestly, that's all we get here in this district anyway. I mean, we have half day kindergarten, and if you want extra then you have to pay for enrichment in a private school. Half the day wrap around care, so they're only in class for about I mean, the whole school day is two hours and forty five minutes and part of that is snack and outdoor play and whatever. So yeah, I mean, if you have an hour to a day for kindergarten, you're fine. That is so interesting because like the normal kindergarten here is eight to two, and it's treated just like another They even get grades like it's crazy. But they're still five and six year old, so I mean they still have the same capabilities in Florida as they do about the time. I'm pretty sure it yeah, well, yeah, and it's just what you say. If you can't read the whole idea of distance learning is somewhat difficult to make happen. Yeah, we've been doing this for two and a half, close to three weeks now, and it's you know, we're getting into a routine of it. We're figuring it out. We're mostly doing the instruction in the morning, and I have gotten I'm trying to be more relaxed about it in the sense that if I get up early and get my work done, and I'm trying to do the bulk of any focused have to do today work between about six thirty and eight thirty in the morning, because then once stuff starts after that, I'm troubleshooting a lot. We have four kids doing virtual stuff there. We actually had four kids on Zoom at the same time the other day, so but in different Zoom meetings. Yeah, different Zoom meetings. So we have a lot of devices in this house, but that's still a lot of different things. So we have my laptop, we have another laptop we had bought so that we had one that wasn't my husband's work computer because that's owned by his employer, so you know, better not to put too much extra stuff on that. We use my phone, he is my son's phone because again we own that as opposed to the employer. And it was just like, we have a desktop, so then if somebody else needs to be doing work that's not videocam you know, webcam enabled, they can be on the desktop during that time. But yeah, it requires a lot of devices, so that that's been troubleshooting with Zoom. In between the hours of nine twenty and ten thirty is kind of what I'm doing. I sit down with Alex on my lap most mounties unless I'm feeding the baby at the time, and Alex does circle time for his preschool at nine to twenty, and that's been really cute to have everyone check in and the teacher leads the same circle they would have done there, and then they send around things that they would have done as assignments like tracing letters or circling numbers and other age appropriate sort of pre KK related stuff. So yeah, it's been doable. Jasper's got pretty much full on school. Like all his teachers are now sending assignments and some are starting to do interact of synchronous stuff, so he needs to keep track of when his classes are and sign on for those. Yeah, we're hanging in there. I guess we'll get better and better at this as the time goes on. But I will say I have, like I mean, I appreciated teachers already, Like, don't get me wrong, but now I not only appreciate teachers, but I really do appreciate that you send your kids to play school during the day where you know they're safe and you know that they're having like productive time, or at least you kind of assume that they are. And it also serves as a way, I mean, like not to bring the big g of guilt word in, but like I don't feel guilty when I'm working and they're in school. And yet you know, of course, I think both Josh and I feel a little bit bad if we're seeing patients on telement and we can hear them downstairs struggling or you know they're trying to get us or something's happening. So I greatly appreciate that school exists and I can't wait for it to starting, you know, I know, yes, don't take that one for granted. Well, it's funny. I've sort of yes, the amount that we view school as not just school, but as custodial care for children during the day, that it's a safe place and when it's not able to serve that function for kids, that is obviously hugely disruptive for many people. And you're so how much are you working from home versus being at the office and in the hospital. So there was like a lot of different permutations. Right now, I'm pretty much from home except for my on call week, and I thought my on call week was going to be very frequent because the number of the providers in my division where we were trying to protect them basically for different medical reasons. However, they did set up telling medicine for inpatient stuff, so I think that's going to be less of an issue, which I am so happy about. So right now I've just pretty much been home. I have a call week in early April, so during that week I will be going to the hospital, probably most days of not every day, but only for a couple of hours. Josh was even saying like he's never been so desperate to get in and get out when he's seeing patients because there's just no reason to stay. You do your documentation and a lot of other things digitally, it's just like the hands on part that needs to be hands on, and then you just want to leave because everybody's just a lot of stuff, you know. I know I can't and we're not even allowed to speak to specifics, and I'm sure who knows this is airing in a week. Things could have changed even by then, but it's just it's not a place that anybody should be hanging out, just for safety reasons, for the patients or for themselves. So yeah, yeah, getting it out. Definitely get in and get out as fast as you can and scrub yourself down on the Yeah, I have scrubs now. I haven't worn scrubs since twenty ten, and my division chief she sent her husband to like the scrub store to buy us all scrubs, and I have a set of black scrubs and it's like I put them on and was like, oh my god, time machine, Like it was like a filing and a resident again, right, you're in exactly. Oh my goodness. Yeah, well, we thought we we'd share a few work from home tips in this podcast. I'm sure people are work from home. We're figuring them out too. I mean, I was basically just going off what you put in your letter of what you've been trying to figure out over the past few days. Like first, the fact that it turns out that traveling to work and traveling home provides a break in the day, Like it's very clear when you start your work and when you end your work, if you are getting in a car and going somewhere. Yeah, it's so interesting, Like I never really thought of it like that, but all of a sudden, I was finding myself and Josh was like, what are you doing? Why are you like sending another email? Why are you like sending another text? And I think especially all of us who are new at this, so we're not used to like setting an end time, We're all just like the doctors are texting each other at eight o'clock and nine o'clock when we wouldn't be doing that normally, because it's like we would have finished our work day and be home and then add to the fact that obviously we're doing a lot of like logistical discussions and stuff. So I have found that my day has bled so badly that I'm just trying to cut it off and not respond to text change and if somebody calls me, like an actual telephone call, like I will answer it if something's going on, but really most things can probably wait till the next day. And it was just out of the fact that there was no natural ending, I think that stuff was continuing. So I'm a total newbie, but I'm already figuring that out. Yeah. Now, I think for a lot of people it really helps have some sort of transition ritual that means you're starting and some sort of transition ritual that means you are ending. And I'm not saying you have to like I don't. I will put it out there that I don't have any sort of real transition ritual. But partly that's also because all my kids are around here right now, and I'm work when I can work. I mean, that's honestly, but when things are more normal than often, getting the kids on the bus in the morning is the time when I start, and I at least acknowledge that they are getting off the bus in the afternoon. I'm not saying I completely sap, but usually I would have had activities that I need to start driving to, and so then that provides some sort of ending element for it. As well. Many years ago, when I did not have children and I was first working at my kitchen table in my apartment in New York, I wound up auditioning for and singing in three different choirs. And the reason was because it gave me something to do at seven pm, three evenings a week, and so those were days that I would stop work around six six fifteen so I could get to rehearsal. And if I didn't have that, well, I mean there was no efficiency whatsoever. I just like keep working all evening, but not really I'd be like half surfing the web, half working, and what is that like? You know, it's monstrously inefficient. So you know, having something to end the day is good for people. And you know, if you're in normal times working from home, it could be going to get your kid at daycare, or getting the kids off the bus, or sending your sitter home or whatever it is. But we have to view things differently. Now because of not having many of those obvious markers. Another key thing to help you realize that the day is done is to make a limited to do list for the day with what absolutely has to happen, and once you get through those things, you know that day is good. Anything else is a bonus. I mean, stuff may have come up. Usually a good reason to limit the list is because stuff will happen that you could not have anticipated at nine am before five pm, and those things will have to be dealt with. But if there are say three things that you know you want to get to today, and then you get through those three things, well good, you can stop. So whereas if you don't have that more limited, discrete list of things to do, then it's always said, well I could be doing something else. Well, yes you could, but you have chosen the things that will happen today. You have done them. The day can be over if you want it to be. Conference calls are their own being focused? What are your tips for that? Because I don't know that that part's hard. Some conference calls are structured really well. Some seem like they're longer than they need to be. I find that taking notes sometimes helps, especially if they're like going over a bunch of logistical stuff. But yeah, please conference call tips, I need them, well, whenever possible, make them video calls, and I know you don't have that set up yet for the internal calls, right, Yeah, So that's that's the problem. I mean a lot of the reason a lot of people using stuff like Zoom and Blue Jeans and Google hangouts and whatever is because it is very easy to multitask on an audio only call. It is very hard to multitask on a video call because you're looking at people like they can tell if you've got your phone up and you're checking it, or you're like, you know, eating something, or you're you know, talking to another person. So it keeps people focused when you can see them. And so I highly recommend doing video calls whenever possible. I mean, you can reach it in agreement with your group, like we don't care if your has and a ponytail, if you've done your makeup, whatever, We're all in this together. But look at them. I mean, that's that's that's honestly the best thing I can say. You know, if you are running the meeting treating it with the same level of detail and care, that you will and in person meeting that you're getting people together. So you need to have a purpose. You need to have an objective for the meeting, like how will the world change because you had this conference call? And if nothing in the world is going to change because you had this call, then you really need to think about whether you actually had to have all these people in one place, even if it's a virtual place, account for what everyone on the call is doing with every minute of the time they're on it. I mean, that's if you can't do that all on people randomly, call on people randomly. If you can't account for what everyone is doing with every minute they're on the call, then they probably didn't need to be on the call. So that's just having that level of care means you'll have a lot fewer calls. But that's a very good thing. What else did we have? Oh, you asked about breaks? What are you doing for brains? Are you? What am I doing? Recording a podcast? Sometimes? So a couple of times, if Josh has been home and if I hadn't gotten my workout in the morning, Josh has been doing some beach body with me, So a couple of days go or last week I think like midday, we like did a workout upstairs hiding from the kids together. That was fun. Yesterday I was in a total mood and I took a walk outside that was helpful. Or I'm helping the kids with a little bit of school. So yeah, those are pe been my main breaks. What do you think are the best breaks? Well, definitely going to walk outside is huge if you are still able to do that in your area, which hopefully people are, or even just go in your yard or stand on your apartment balcony or something. But getting outside and getting a little bit of physical activity are both huge mood boosters. You know, maybe a mid afternoon cup of tea something like that, or half caffeinated coffee, you know, if you're going to do chores, I mean, this is something that winds up distracting people when they're working from home in a way that obviously it can't and when you're in the office, if you're not seeing the dirty dishes in the sink when you're at your office, those could be done as a break. I would definitely recommend leaving them for ex iplicitly chosen breaks, like don't sit there and do them back and forth during the day. I don't multitask on the conference call doing your dishes just you know, say I'm going to take a fifteen minute break mid morning. I'm going to take a fifteen minute break mid afternoon. I will switch out the laundry or ful the laundry during that time. I will go do the dishes during that time. But you know, leave those for breaks as well. Don't just try to do them all day long just because theoretically you can. I have not gotten sucked into much of that, although before I was working well this has listening with that. But I will say, like the urge to organize during those like pockets of time when you're with your kids at home stuck doing nothing else for hours, I've felt that, but I have not really done any organizing breaks per se. Yeah. Yeah, And then you know, for the tips for people who you know, if you've got little kids and you've got no child care, it's it's really rough. I mean, that's what we're talking about. Getting up early in the morning and doing stuff before they get up, doing nap time, doing at night after they go to bed, having a box of you know, new toys, like you know, if you want to put in an order on Amazon, and it's stuff's coming slowly now, but maybe a new toy could come out right before, something that you absolutely have to do that's not during nap time or early morning or in the evening, you know, because it's and to really triage your work list as well, because it's tempting, like once you get the kid down for a nap to be like, Okay, now I need to clean out my inbox. Like, no, you do not need to clean out your inbox during nap time. That's when you do anything that absolutely cannot be done with the kids around, whereas you can sit there and go through your inbox like while they're crawling over your legs. During the day, and so anything that could be done in two minute chunks don't do during those times that are more open for deeper work. So really triage in your to do list that way totally. I think it might be fun in the near term future, maybe if we can find the right guests to come on and talk about how they're juggling this is. I do feel like it is a very special and specific challenge. I can't speak to those specific challenges as well, but I know it's incredibly got to be incredibly hard, and hats off to people who are still getting stuff done in those cracks of the day when they can and hopefully taking turns with your partner, because if you are in a two partner household, then all kinds of time and yes, it is not one party's responsibility. Both of you are in this boat together if you're both trying to work, and so both of you can take time within both of you can handle school and stuff like that too. So we have a question from a listener that is coming out of some of this. Do you want me to read it or you can read it, or okay, I'll read it. All right, here we go. I'm like Sarah muted herself, so apparently I'm meeting it. I'm reading it. So the question from the listener says, in this unprecedented time of not being recommended, when we can't just throw money at childcare problems, I wonder at what point the mental slash emotional slash psychological toll or damage of doing the right thing, that is trying to work full time from home with two small kids and feeling like a failure at both becomes bigger than the risks associated with doing the wrong thing, that is, using some form of non family childcare in an area not yet considered a hot spot for infection, but otherwise adhering to social distancing. I think it's an impossible question to answer, but it's where I find myself impossibly stuck. Specific example aside, I think I wonder if someone's or many someone's mental health factors into the equation at all when it comes to risk assessment of daily activities. Well, I'm not sure that, you know, the powers that be on either the local, state or federal level are taking you know, the mental health of people trying to work with small children around into their guidelines. I mean, you know, I think they look at numbers that look scary and think it's better to sort of put the boot down in the hope of having those change, knowing that if if they're more lax, a lot of people will just say like, oh, it's not a big deal, don't have to do anything, right, so it in general, I think it's probably that people are risk managing all of this and saying it's better to say don't do anything then to say, okay, well just make a best call, because then some people are be like, okay, I'm throwing a party here, right, like, let me have fifty people over tonight. That sounds awesome. So I think the you know, mayors and governors are trying to make sure that people don't do that, right, I mean, that's that's sort of what I'm what I'm totally and I mean behavior is on a spectrum, right, Like that's I think I wrote something like holding on a party on the beach. That's disgusting. But like, you know, getting some form of emergency childcare if you you really need it and doing it in a smart way, maybe that is okay. And again, I don't want to make any health provider type decrees, and every situation is going to be different, and I do believe that the social distancing is very important overall. But there, you know, it is hard. It is very hard to be in a situation when everything seems very black or white. And sometimes there's alternatives that you can come up with that are helpful. I mean, we did even talk about the idea of finding like a live in college student so that they essentially become a member. If things are really dire, you have them kind of become a member of your household and they can stay with you and you can all socially distance together, and that would you know, at least keep everything contained. I know that's probably not feasible for every household, either from a financial level or from a space level, but it is, like you know, sometimes there are avenues around this where you can achieve both aims. Yeah, so, Sarah, you said your love of the week. You said I think you said it earlier, right that sending the kids to school. It's your love week, non a home school is my love of the week. So thank you teachers, thank you government, thank you for having school in general. Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm a big fan of school. I think I'm going to be a big fan of camp this summer. Given how much time we've been out, I'm going to probably try to sign up for more camps if those are running, so their kids are out the whole time. All non baby children will be out of the house all summer long. Let's hope, Let's hope, let's hope. Yeah. No, I mean, I'm trying to keep a hopeful face on all this, and you know, it looks like some of it is probably working. I mean, some of the scariest things are lagging indicators. Deaths are lagging indicators, somebody, you know, those numbers go up even as actual yeah, because those reflect cases from like weeks prior weeks, and you know, like we know and even the new cases that are the new positives that are getting posted. I mean, we know, for instance, a gentleman who tested positive, but by the time he got his test results, I mean, he was recovered, like he was over it completely, and that was then registered as a new positive when it came back right like, which is way past the time when it was actually happening. So not to say there's not a lot to worry about, but you know, we are going to move through so we can start seeing some plateaus. Plateaus would be great. We're hoping for that, and hopefully by the time this hours that will be the case. But we'll see. Oh well, no predictions that kind of time, just hopes, just all hoping for life to go back to normal, you know, And I think a lot of us are sort of thinking about it might be helpful to think about what you want life to look like when things go back to normal. What would you like to take out of this, what would you what have you really missed? Because that's the course the things that should go back in your life first. And I've also been trying to think as we're recording this on April first, of you know, the odds are the kids will be out of school for at least the next thirty days. I think that's probably what it's going to be. And so if that is the case, what do we want to do with this month, Like, what do we want the month of April twenty twenty to look like, what would we like to remember from it, what would we like to tackle during it? And so trying to be a little bit intentional about that is hopefully going to improve the experience thirty days thirty days at least. Yeah, yes, well there you go. Well, anyway, this has been best of both worlds with our COVID related content here, our new routines, our new lives. We'll be back next week with more on making work in life fit together. Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram, and you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. This has been the best of both worlds podcasts. Please join us next time for more on making work and life work together. Eight