“Work from Home” Tips
The website https:// economictimes.indiatimes. com shares helpful tips from astronauts and submariners, who are most familiar with working in isolation and confinement:
Have a schedule. “We need to have the right expectation, we don’t know when this is gonna be over,” advises Scott Kelly, a retired NASA astronaut, who spent nearly a year aboard the International Space Station.
“We could be in this for the long haul so your mindset needs to be: ‘I’m living a similar thing to living in space for a year, I need to have a schedule, I need to get up at a regular time, to go to sleep at a regular time.’”
He also said exercise was key for both physical and mental wellbeing while confined.
Find your mission. For Vincent Larnaudie-Eiffel, a former commander of a nuclear submarine, working well in confinement means finding and investing in your own personal “mission.”
He suggested that just like on board the submarine, “stuck in our apartments, we all share a mission and that
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is to protect others, medical workers and successfully navigate this ordeal.”
He said it was important to establish a daily routine and stick to it.
Try new things. Sailor Isabelle Autissier was the first woman to circumnavigate the globe alone. It involved a lot of time by herself.
But she said she never felt lonely because – “I chose to be alone.”
For people stuck at home she recommends using the time “to try new things, reading, listening to different music, write your journal, take photos, start drawing.”
Morale dips are normal. Cyprien Verseux,
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an astrobiologist at Germany’s University of Bremen, once spent over a year in a small pod with five other volunteers simulating conditions in a future mission to Mars.
“It’s normal for your morale and productivity to dip,” he said. “That’s not a sign of weakness. Don’t add guilt to your problems.”
When in confinement for the experiment, Verseux wasn’t allowed outside and was forbidden from communicating in real time with the outside world.
Stay in touch. In 2009 astronaut Frank de Winne became the first European to command the International Space Station.
He said it was vital to maintain human contact, even if only electronically. “Means of communication are there, you have to make the effort and use them,” he said.
See, there are creative ways around a difficult situation, as those ‘masters’ attest. Everyone just has to think of a way to fill in his or her usual routine. It takes a little while to adapt, yes, but it’s going to be smooth sailing (again) after a certain point.
In the meantime, work-at-home workers may savor the warm company of loving family while doing official chores, like emailing that report to the main office. Their kids or little nephews and nieces may even be asked to help out, like checking the numbers or proof-reading that letter to a client. There’s a silver lining to the situation, of course.