Staying safe and well during unsettling times

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  Thanks for sharing Roseanna,
  
  Agree with everything you've mentioned above.
  
  Personally I've found it far to easy to get lost in the soon and gloom of Twitter and 24 hour news broadcasts. The last week has been particularly bad.
  
  Staying up to date is important, but I've decided to put limits on my social media use and the amount of news that I expose myself to.
  
  From now on I'm going to check the news once a day and force myself to spend the rest of my time with my wife and kid and doing the things you mentioned above, whilst avoiding Pandemic news/discussions.
  
  24/7 pandemic news is just too much.

  AlexYates March 17, 2020 10:04

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  Podcasts: check out "You 're dead to me" on BBC Sounds 😉

  AlexYates March 17, 2020 10:06

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  Good post @RoseannaW !
  
  i'm not a worrier but my wife has a pre-existing lung condition (not too serious) so we're all at home at the moment seeing how things play out... just trying to be on the cautious side.
  
  I'm currently juggling work with looking after my two toddlers and two high-maintenance cats which is fun
  
  whilst working I listen to a lot of grime radio sets and in the evening I usually fall asleep to someone like Alan Watts (genius guy from the 1970s who talks about religion, zen, meaning of life and all that!)...   
  
  i've also been a big tyson fury fan for a long time so always enjoy watching his interviews and hearing what he has to say.
  
  Hope you all keep well
  
  cheers,
  Ben

  ben_b March 17, 2020 14:10

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  AlexYates said:

  Podcasts: check out "You 're dead to me" on BBC Sounds 😉

  Ooh will check that out, love a podcast recommendation! Thanks Alex.
  
  I completely agree with you about 24/7 news coverage. It's too much. Checking a couple of times a day is enough.

  Roseanna March 17, 2020 16:10

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  Thanks for sharing @ben_b. Sounds like a busy household! Glad you're all together at the moment and have some tricks up your sleeve to unwind. I've never heard of Alan Watts - I'll look him up.
  
  Take care
  
  Roseanna

  Roseanna March 17, 2020 16:13

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  Hi @RoseannaW
  
  Thanks for your nice message, I have five days without out of my apartment together with my wife and children, I live in the south of Spain (Costa del Sol, Malaga), we have adapted to a new routine and keeping moving :-) and combining funny activities, keeping under control the hours in front of the TV, agree with @AlexYates not 24/7 news is the best for our mental health.
  
  Take care
  
  Geo Hernandez

  Geovanny_Hernandez March 17, 2020 20:15

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  Thanks Geo, glad to hear that you've adapted to your new routine. I agree that it's important to keep moving. Today, Redgate organised a virtual pilates session for us, which was fantastic!
  
  Take care,
  
  Roseanna

  Roseanna March 18, 2020 15:01

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  Thank you for sharing, @RoseannaW! I'm definitely big on baking, more now than ever. Made a chocolate ganache tart this afternoon actually...
  
  I'd also like to share my 2 favorite podcasts if anyone is looking for something new:
  Stuff You Missed in History Class
  Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine

  BobPusateri March 19, 2020 01:24

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  Thanks so much for sharing, @BobPusateri. Ooh a chocolate ganache tart sounds amazing! You've inspired me to get baking this evening.
  
  Thanks for the podcast recommendations
  
  Take care,
  
  Roseanna

  Roseanna March 19, 2020 09:25

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• 
  I'm obviously worried about my Dad. He's a fit 81 year old that got told off by his 78 year old girlfriend for climbing apple trees.  Knowing him the nature of the telling off would be because she objected to being used as look out while apple scrumping.  Still, no-one knows how the virus affects individuals.
  
  I miss my eldest two sons, particularly my eldest who lives alone just North of Cambridge and has had to travel through London regularly.  My youngest is deemed to have an essential occupation but also has an auto-immune condition.
  
  Despite all this I am optimistic as to what the long term will be following COVID-19.  For some people working from home for the first time has been a revelation.  It would be something they would now ask about in a job interview.  Although not for everyone the implications on the number finding that home working works for them is profound.
  

  • A couple of hours a day NOT commuting
  • No open-plan offices with their distractions
  • Cost of transport significantly reduced
  • Work your own hours.  If you can't be measured by your time in the office you have to be measured by your productive output.  If I start at 07:00 there is nothing to stop me taking a long lunch break, walking the dog, or myriad other things. Drying the washing on the line (lower electricity bills), snoring the blossom off the trees!

  If society as a whole has a large proportion of home workers then the benefits for society can also be huge
  

  • Do companies need big offices in prime locations?
  • To what extent is car design dictated by the need for somewhere comfy to sit for 2+ hours commuting?
  • What does transport infrastructure of the future look like if a large proportion work from home?  Does HS2 go the way of HS1?
  • How many roads and bypassed do we need?
  • What does future retail look like?
  • Does the nations dependency on oil go down?
  • Does air quality improve?  Does energy demand go down?

  We could be looking at a revolution in society and with it some painful adjustments in the short to medium term.  If the number of urban workers drop then all the businesses that support the urban workers  suffer a dramatic drop in demand.
  
  I think that universities are going to get all sorts of research material from the comming months.

  Dave60103 April 05, 2020 20:14

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  Many thanks for sharing, @Dave60103. I hope you and your family continue to be safe and well. Your father sounds like my partner's grandfather - he's 91 and determined to keep tending to his garden.
  
  I think you've made a very good point about the positives of working from home. Both my partner and I have had more time to exercise, using our previous commute time to do so, which has been brilliant for our health and wellbeing. Plus, you save the commute cost to your bank balance and to the environment.
  
  I used to really dislike working from home as I felt lonely and out of the loop, but this experience has changed my opinion. I think going forward more people and companies will be open to working from home and being flexible.
  
  In times like this, it's easy to dwell on the negatives but there are positives too and it's important to remember and be grateful for these.

  Roseanna April 06, 2020 09:22

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  I have started taking a free Yale Course available on Coursera, "The Science of Well Being." I am currently on week 2 and so far I highly recommend the course.
  
  The course essentially contains research on happiness and activities to assess and potentially improve your own appreciation of life.
  
  While the course is geared primarily towards adults, I think the concepts and big picture discussions are applicable to humans of all ages, and haven't come across anything non-family friendly so far -- in other words if you were to play the videos on a TV I haven't seen anything that would be problematic for children to hear. So if you're short on alone-time due to quarantining, it could still potentially be accessible without having to wear headphones the whole time.

  Kendra_Little April 06, 2020 09:30

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  Thanks for the recommendation, Kendra! I signed up after seeing you mention it on Twitter. I haven't actually got round to viewing any of the classes yet. Hopefully I can catch up this week.

  Roseanna April 06, 2020 10:35

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