Living a Quarantine Lifestyle Full Time

We Have Always Lived a Version of the Quarantine and Remote Lifestyle

Here's How We Do It

Author: Josh Huck, Owner, Estimatica Cost Estimating, Inc

A few years ago, my partner and I made a few key decisions about our lifestyle. She worked at an office for a construction company. I rented an office for my business. The kids went to school. We lived the typical lifestyle that we grew up with and that most people live with. We were miserable, so we decided to make a change. We wanted more freedom and more flexibility for ourselves and the kids. By freedom and flexibility, we mean the ability to travel when we want to, to go on a hike when we want to and to enjoy the day when we want to. Having an office, working for others and having the kids in school had to change. So, we changed. I dropped my office space lease and made everyone remote. I built a space in my home to work from. The wife quit her job and opened up her own business- fulfilling a life long dream. We pulled the kids out of school and started them on online schooling. We made a space for them to do so. We have been able to do all of this by ditching our old lifestyle and our old ways of thinking.  

It hasn't been super easy, though. It turns out that when you grow up with a certain mentality, it can be difficult to shake it. By this I mean for years we thought that we had to be up and working by a certain time, we had to finish at a certain time, our kids had to be schooling for a certain amount of time. We were programmed to think this way and we realized that our programming, while typical in the US, was flawed. So, we deprogrammed.

We found that most local schools allow your online schooled children to attend dances and play sports, essentially to retain one of the most important aspects of being a kid- socialization. Also, we found that once you removed things like home room, a standard lunch time frame, breaks between classes and having to teach for 20 kids in a room vs one on one learning- the school day dropped to less than 3 hours a day. My kids are now learning the exact same thing as the kids in a school building are, but without bullies, without the fear of a school shooting, without the bs of wasted time and they are thriving. Now science class is a walk in the woods. Now math is real everyday life math, not magical unrealistic core math. Now memorization has changed to comprehension and time filling essays are a thing of the past. Online learning has turned out to be a win for all involved.
I setup my home office and my wife setup hers, far apart from each other because duh. No matter how much you love your partner, together all the time can be tough. You begin thinking things like "can they not exist so loudly?" and "wow all those Lifetime spousal murder movies make total sense now".

Since we have been living a stay at home lifestyle for some time now, I feel as though we can offer some advice to those now being forced to do it. Here is what we do and what we have learned, to cope: It's okay to start your day at 5am, or 11am or 3pm. Its okay to end your day at noon, or at 9pm. You do what works best for you mentally. Granted there are deadlines and meetings and obligations; but for both work and school it becomes about discipline. Set goals for the week for your work and for the kids' school and use the parameters of the week to accomplish these goals and tasks. It is actually much easier than it sounds. I like to get up early and get my day over with by early afternoon. My spouse likes to sleep in and doesn’t mind answering emails at nine at night. The kids do their school from eleven am to two pm. It turns out letting the kids start later in the day increases their learning ability and desires to do so.  

We work and learn to exist. We work hard to make a life to enjoy. But how often do we actually het to enjoy life? By living the independent 'quarantine/remote style' life it allows us to enjoy the life we work for. If it's 1pm and sunny out, I take a very long break and walk the dogs, or sit in the hot tub, or just sit in the sun and stare at the trees to recharge my energy.

How do you work from home effectively? Some people say to help work from home you should get dressed up. Okay, if that is what you need. I'm fine shirtless in shorts and flip flops, weather depending. I'll throw on a button up shirt on for a waist up Skype call if need be. I've found the most important and motivating thing is simply being able to isolate, even if that means putting in headphones to cut the outside world out. Keeping a simple, well organized and defined workspace does makes a difference. It provides the separation needed. I'm fortunate to have an actual office but before this current setup I carved out a corner in the dining room with a folding table and that worked just as well.

What to do when the kids are done with school? If you and the spouse are working from home, and the kids are done with school much earlier now, what the heck do you do with them? We have established time frames for them to keep busy while we work. They have their go on the phone/tablet time, their play station time, their reading a book time, their workout time, their go outside time and their free to do what you want time slots that they use to stay busy. At first, we had it all on a white board for them to see until it became second nature for them, and now they simply know what to do and when to do it. It's unstructured structure, if that makes sense.

I realize that not everyone has the luxury of a lot of space. I can't help you with this other than to say, use a door if you can, a curtain if you can, Les Nessman yourself an office with tape (anyone else old enough to get that reference?) and set boundaries with your kids and partner. Let them know, unless its an emergency, that you need a certain block of time without interruption. We do that and it works quite well. Other than that, it's about enjoying life. As I sit here writing this, my better half said, "I don't feel like adulting today" and she is taking the day off. She knows she will be able to make the time up somehow. It helps that we have learned to see all days as simply that- no weekdays, no weekends, just days that we do what we need to and want to, when we feel like it. Sometimes our traditional weekend Saturday is a Wednesday.

It sounds like I've oversimplified it and I really haven’t. Like I said, it's getting past the mental block of routine and learned behavior. Once you do this, it become easy. All this being said, there are times when everyone gets on each other's nerves. And that's normal, and that is where friends, play dates, hobbies and binge-watching Netflix all come in. It's okay to spend time apart, but believe it or not, it's also okay to spend a lot more time together- living this quarantined and remote lifestyle every day. It brings you closer.  It teaches you about what is important in achieving the work life balance and it helps you to live what you work so hard for. If all else fails and the lifestyle simply isn’t working, there's headphones and vodka. We use those too on occasion. I hope this finds you safe and healthy.