When I was writing this, there were at least 149 new cases of Covid-19 received by hospitals throughout Indonesia, with the largest number of fatalities in DKI Jakarta, amounting to 85 people or a mortality ratio of around 10.5% based on BNPB data dated 1 April 2020 I could be one of the patients or even my wife and child can be the next patient number 451, like getting a queue number in big events.
Of course, we must be prepared to accept these risks if we do nothing. As with the Dale Carnegie principle related to managing anxiety:
- Ask yourself, “What is the worst that can possibly happen?”
- Prepare to accept the worst.
- Try to improve on the worst
These three things become my guideline when about three weeks ago I proposed to WFH for our office to reduce the risk of being one of the patients with the serial number.
After experiencing work from home several days, the reality was not as good as I imagined. Productivity must be maintained while doing the roles of a husband and a father at the same time. Imagine when we were preparing for a meeting and our toddler child whined to play and didn’t want to know that the father was busy with his work. Not only the company has to adapt to this situation, but I, as an employee, also must adapt to two inseparable roles. On one hand I need to adapt to get work done from home, while as a father, I also need to understand the needs of my children.
It is at times like this that good time management is needed. Inevitably these two roles need to be included in our timeline when working at home. For example, when in the morning we prepare for today’s work, take a moment to prepare our children’s needs for the day. When working, as much as possible every 2-3 hours we take a break to interact with our families, especially our children. At lunch make sure to do it with family. There may be activities that are not according to our plan, but at least we can still do high priority jobs.
Sometimes we also need to work overtime when our child has rested, and the house is calm again. Try to use this time to make a Time Log, a record of all our activities throughout the day, to see where we spend our time the most today. Based on that time log we can make a work plan for tomorrow using a Block Time – set aside some time to do one job undisturbed. With these two tools, time log and block time, we can monitor where our time was leaking and improve for the next day.
At times like this, we also need to be creative as employees and family members (parents or others), because boredom will always be there when we and family are at home alone for weeks. Maybe we used to think about innovations in our work such as improving SOPs, utilizing technology or even brainstorming in solving problems. But what about at home? Are you going to make SOPs at home? Or even invite families to brainstorm together to solve your household problems?
What I have done for the past three weeks has been to create activities for the family, for example when my wife cooking, we try to involve our child in the activity. I try to think creatively to create activities that involved all my family members such as drawing games together, playing Tik Tok, or even card games like Uno. When our family is engrossed in an activity, it is most likely when we can remain productive in our work.
This situation is a situation where we must be able to manage our anxiety, manage our time and continue to innovate. Stay at home and work from home does not mean we are not productive and don’t have to be boring. Stay at home means more to be with the family and at the same time contribute to stopping the spread of COVID-19 in Indonesia.
Dodi Wicaksono Hadinoto – Trainer Dale Carnegie
