200 Words A Day archive for 2 full years. 731 days of unbroken consecutive days of writing. 7 Dec 2018 - 8 Dec 2020. I now write daily on https://golifelog.com

How does one become pandemic-proof in work?

So many changes are going on right now in the economy. I wonder if we will ever go back to how we used to work anymore. Almost overnight, some skills and jobs become obsolete or close down, and new ones take their place. That got me thinking: How do I better prepare myself to the inevitable changes to the economy, society and life in general? How does one be pandemic-proof?

Some skills that are high leverage in times of COVID:

Remote skills

Ability to communicate, facilitate and convene meetings and conversations over video chat. Remote work will be the new norm, and Zoom had hockey-stick growth over the past month. With video chat being the de facto replacement for meeting rooms, how one conducts discussions will change. You need to be more verbose and expressive, because nuances are harder to detect over video chat. Instructions need to be more explicit and broken down, so that they can follow. You need to know how to hold attention in a new way.

Contactless businesses/work

Work and businesses that can be done contactless and just over the internet, so no meetups, no actual deliveries even. Many indie makers had their SaaS products double or triple in revenue overnight. Whatever you work in, if it doesn’t involve you needing to deliver your work or service face-to-face, then you’re safe. Even if governments close down shops, malls and public transport, you’re likely to be able to continue doing your work or running your business as per usual. So that ecommerce side hustle you were thinking of? Get on that now, because that might become your main hustle.

Being home-body happy

I think it takes a certain type of personality to sustain long weeks and months being at home. But I think this can be learned too. Being home-body happy is a matter of learning how to create a life around the four walls of your house, instead of outside. Previously we never bothered trying because we never needed to. But if a civilsation-crushing meteor comes hurtling down to Earth and you got to hide in underground caves for years, you will find a way. Because that old life is crushed and obliterated for good by the meteor. The only way is forward, underground. Now imagine something similar for us now. The only way forward, is at home. How would you respond then?

Managing rituals and spaces

With work and home spaces now deeply enmeshed, there’s a new skill you need - being able to compartmentalise your home. No, it’s not just about physically segregating space for work and play, colleagues and family. It’s also about what creating certain rituals so that you can mentally let go of the previous mindspace and move into the next. A friend of mine wears her ring that she always wears when she goes out to work, to start work at her laptop. After work hours, she takes the ring off ritualistically, and continue using the laptop, but now for entertainment. Sometimes it’s also about compartmentalising via time. Like how the dining table becomes a work space in the day, but cleared out by the evening for dinner. Timetables also work really well if you have children at home doing home-based learning because schools are closed. A time to study, time to play, time to not bother you, time to rest. In the past we depended on heading out of our homes to compartmentalise work and family, but now, we got to do it more intentionally within the four walls of our home.

Being agile, nimble & adaptive

If there’s anything this crisis had shown, is that the ones who are most agile and adaptive will survive. Individuals and businesses alike. In Singapore, the lockdown restrictions on business operations are changing rapidly, with rules sometimes flip-flopping within a week. Recently, all bakeries except those selling mostly bread were ordered to close, as the government deemed bread to be a staple, but cake is not. Even bread bakeries that have permission to remain open have to stop selling cakes. A friend’s cakery was given the green light to continue business, but to only sell savoury pastries and breads, no cakes. Then, a week later, the government changed their minds and ordered them to cease operations. It’s a wild roller coaster ride, even as an outside observer. I’m sure the past weeks had been worse for my friend, since you’ll never know if you’re next on the list of businesses deemed ‘non-essential’. And the bakeries that did well? They pivoted to online delivery fast, and some even moved production to central cloud kitchens (which was allowed). Another friend who ran a restaurant used the downtime to quickly hack together a website, bring together other F&Bs in his neighbourhood, and rolled out a shared delivery service that catered to just that area. He called it Foodhood. What a brilliant idea, and from concept to implementation, all within weeks. He might just have given his restaurant (and many other restaurants nearby) a chance at survival due to his speed to market. How should we—individuals or businesses—be agile, adaptive and move fast to respond to the volatile circumstances, and leverage on fleeting opportunities that bubble up?  

To be continued…