Learning to work at home

For the last I-don't-know-how-many years, I have been a work-at-work person.  While I can get stuff done at home, in the evenings, I find the office to be the best place to get work done. 

The need for social-distancing has led to a number of disruptions for many of us.  The University switched from regular course delivery to on-line only as of March 18th (unlike many of my colleagues, we got word on the Friday that we'd have no classes on Monday and Tuesday to make the transition before Wednesday the 18th). Some colleagues at other schools got word Friday after hours that they had their weekend time to make the transition so classes could resume online on the Monday.  Others were clever enough to schedule their spring breaks for the week of the 23rd, which made taking the week before and the week after possible

But anyway, in four days, I had to learn to voice-over-powerpoint, and explore the dark recesses of the Learning Management Software, which to my eye looks kludgey and awful, but I'm getting used to depending on it for all my student communication.

But anyway, I'm sheltering-in-place.  Others are calling this 'lockdown' or 'quarantine' which is sort of overstating things.  We're supposed to stay at home, unless you have to work at something essential, shop for necessary supplies, seek medical attention, or have up to an hour of exercise.  While maintaining, as much as possible, at least two meters distance from anybody else.

Easiest for me is to just stay in.  I've been out three times since we started this. All to get food or meds or stuff like that.  I have taught, as of today, two full weeks of classes at a distance, asynchronously.  Which has been a struggle, but since I audio record lectures to go with powerpoint slides, it actually doesn't take as long to prep, in that I usually don't rehearse my material except while I'm putting the slides together, and then don't have to spend another hour actually doing it all.  So unbelieveably I'm actually starting to catch up.

But one of the things that has always been a problem for me is having to work in the mornings.  Because grownup adult human beings get up at reasonable human hours, and work reasonable human hours, and go home and reasonable human hours.  And sleep reasonable human hours.

But it takes me weeks to get into a rhythm where I can get up before 9am every day and be vaguely lucid by 10:30.  And it only takes the space of a long weekend for my circadian rhythms to get completely fouled up.

But since I don't actually have to be anywhere in particular at a specific hour, I found that only after a week, I had pretty much found my natural rhythm.   I wake up around noon, sometimes later, get up, putter around and fiddle on the computer for a couple hours, and then I can actually settle into vaguely productive work, with frequent, but nondisruptive, breaks.  I hit my peak productivity between 7 and 9 pm, and pretty much work at stuff until 1 or 2am.  Go to bed, and sleep from around 4am to about noon.  And since this seemed to be working for me, I've decided to lean into it.  I'm making it my usual thing.  I'm not worried about trying to get to bed at a decent hour.  I'm being kind to myself about lying in bed until noon or 1pm.  I'm getting stuff done. 

I've always known I was an introvert, and that interacting with people was tiring.  I didn't realize how exhausting.  I'm doing great.  Everyone else is going stir crazy. I'm having a great time.

So there you go.  This is my new normal, and, pandemic disease aside, I'm really enjoying it.

Now if I could convert some of this productivity to housework as well, I could probably, in a month or so, be a functional human being, if not grownup adult.