Lockdown Learnings #2

#LockdownLearnings

Hopefully on May 3rd, the Govt may take the decision to slowly ease out the lockdown… its a big “may”. The decision is a difficult one and the whole world seems to be really far away from being “normal” and as my friend Swapna said earlier in the day, we are all adjusting to the “new normal”.

I had written a week back about some of the Lockdown Learnings #1. Here’s the second set of learnings –

1. Relationships Matter – Am sure almost everyone reading this blog has had video parties and virtual get-togethers in the past month. My KV Happy Valley gang got together twice over video and it worked out well because we haven’t managed to do a proper reunion in a long time ! I have spoken to several cousins over video calls and for Amma it has been a wonderful feeling to see her brothers or sisters or their children (my cousins). Makes one wonder, why we didn’t do this earlier. Zoom, WhatsApp Video, Skype Video, Google Meet etc etc have been around for a few years now, but it took a Virus to make us all use these tools to connect effectively. As our friends and families are in different parts of the world, it also brings the realisation that the world is one giant family …. what happens in the US affects us in Madurai and what happens in Dharavi affects people in Israel and what happens in a village in Italy affects people in Australia and so on. Am hoping the “new normal” is that we continue to invest in relationships and remain a closely knit world family.
2. Time management – Switch off that TV !! Am sure parents have stopped yelling at their children with that statement because the lockdown has just made TV both useful and a big bore. When we were out working and kids were out in school, the amount of time that one could spend on TV was lesser, so we always wanted to see the news, movie or some soap. Now that we have all spent a few weeks glued to the television, hopefully it has started becoming a nuisance. I struggled to complete my work yesterday because I watched a movie for 90 minutes and then both the hour long episodes of Mahabharata. 3.5 hours of mine were gone in a wink ! Today I haven’t switched on the TV and I am already done with  cleaning the house, Krishnan and I have completed our pending calls, we have paid a couple of utility bills, and most importantly caught up on our walking. Everyone wants to manage their time better – well, start by switching off the TV, and start waking up early. Remember the nursery rhyme ? Early to bed, Early to rise, Makes a man, Healthy, Wealthy and Wise. This rhyme is spot on. Try waking up early and you always have a lot of time to get things done. The other trick that I use to manage my time better is to take up a couple of priorities for the day and first get those done. Even though I lost 3.5 hours yesterday to TV, I still managed to get an important presentation ready. So the day didn’t go a complete waste.
3. Stress, the silent killer; Relaxation, the silent healer – Doctors world over kept saying this to everyone … stress is a killer. We never got it. It was all about getting that goal and then the next and then the next and then the CEO’s role and so on. A week back, the BMW India CEO, Rudratej Singh passed away at 46. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/bmw-india-ceo-singh-dies-at-46/articleshow/75260584.cms. Was he an achiever? heck yes. Was he obese ? No. Its important to remember that the youngest CEO of corporate India Ranjan Das, died at 42 in 2009, eleven years back. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/SAP-India-head-dies-after-heart-attack/articleshow/5146999.cms. He was a health freak, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink … Stress and no relaxation brought on these untimely deaths. During the lockdown period most hospitals have reported fewer cardiac arrest cases – https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/curious-case-of-fewer-heart-attacks-during-covid-19/articleshow/75004924.cms. It could be because of the fear that going to a hospital may bring them in contact with the virus, that fewer people are reporting heart attacks, but it could also be that the lockdown has brought down people’s stress levels !! No stress of driving in crazy traffic, no high calorie canteen food, only home cooked meals and most importantly time spent in the company of your loved ones … the same loved ones for whom you were supposedly earning with a lot of stress :). Again hoping that corporate honchos (men and women) use the lockdown learnings and stay stress free even as they resume their work post lockdown. You need to live to enjoy the money you are making. 

Every dark cloud has a silver lining and so does this Covid19 cloud. The optimist in me says, the world will be a better place post Covid19 and if the conspiracy theorists are right about this being a bio weapon, well, it failed.

#Covid19