Working Remotely – A Week Seven Retrospective

I’m back again a bit early this week.  It was a lovely sunny day this morning as I was walking the dog and I was inspired to write this article a couple of days ahead of schedule.  I should start by pointing out that this was a challenging week for me.  I struggled with trying to stay positive, with managing an ornery toddler and in keeping up with a lot of unplanned work from the office.  Here’s the break down for this week:

What went well:

  • I held my first Atlassian Community Virtual event on Tuesday which was very successful. We are looking to continue doing Tuesday lunch hour workshops for the foreseeable future.
  • My wife and I have still been ordering lunch on Wednesdays. This week one of the other local restaurants which had closed, has now re-opened, YAY!  In speaking with the manager, they needed to close to give themselves time to figure out how to run things in a manner that would keep both staff and customers safe.
  • Thursday night Dungeons & Dragons has been a lot of fun! It’s worth noting here, that what makes it fun is the friends I’m playing with.  Table-top games while they are a lot of fun for me regardless, are even better when you have the right group of friends to laugh and joke around with during the game.

What could have been better:

  • Out of my control, but there were several days I couldn’t get out in the mornings to walk the dog due to pouring rain. This completely threw of the start to my day and usually made for a disorganized and unproductive day.  This left me discouraged and with low morale by the end of the workday.
  • The type of role I have at my company, has me responsible for co-ordination of code changes for patches/hotfixes. Last week was terrible for the number of interruptions I had to my planned work for the week.  No one blames me or holds me responsible for delays in my planned work when these things come up, but I hold myself to a higher standard and that also leaves me discouraged by the end of the week.
  • I’m not sure if there was a full moon or if my son is also getting cabin fever from being isolated indoors for as long as we have been, but last week was a nightmare. I was yelled at by a two-year-old for “playing with trains” when I should have been “playing with trains”.  Yes, that sentence was as confusing for me as I’m sure it was for you to read.

What I will change:

  • I’m still horrible about getting enough exercise. By the time I finish a full day of work, watching a toddler, cooking three meals a day and finally getting him to bed.  I have about 2 hours before I “should” go to bed myself.  Finding the motivation to hop on the treadmill after 8pm at night is really hard right now.  However, I’m going to see if watching something funny on my phone while going on the treadmill will give me the mental relaxation I need while getting the exercise my body needs (There are new episodes of Brooklyn 99 I haven’t finished watching yet :D).

What will stay the same:

  • Much of what I called out in the “What went well” will continue to be the new normal. Since those things are going well there is no reason to change them.
  • It’s been a while since I mentioned it, but my “work” desk has been an extremely helpful in mentally separating from work and home life and that will continue as long as I’m working remotely.

This was a tough week.  I felt that the rain and cloudy weather seemed to set the tone for how I felt during the week.  However, the sunny weather today seems to have given me some much-needed hope that things are slowly improving and will get easier in the coming weeks/months.

If you enjoyed this article you read last week’s post here.  Until next time, stay healthy and safe friends!

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Benjamin
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Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
May 2, 2020

Haha. Can totally relate to the "playing with trains" dialogue. 

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Teodora _Old Street Solutions_Tempo_
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May 3, 2020

The weather is affecting us in so many ways. Thank you for sharing another week, @Jimmy Seddon! I hope the next one will be full of light! :)  

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GBeirao May 5, 2020

Nice read - can certainly relate to a lot of this.

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nina_schmidt
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May 15, 2020

Thanks @Jimmy Seddon for sharing! 
I bought a second desk due to the reason you mentioned above too 😉

 

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Jimmy Seddon
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Community Leaders are connectors, ambassadors, and mentors. On the online community, they serve as thought leaders, product experts, and moderators.
May 15, 2020

@nina_schmidt I'm glad that my experimentation and feedback has been helpful for others in trying to find the right balance while working from home in unusual circumstances.

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