Bugger. Disappointed but not surprised. Worried, but more about the long term than the short term. Not expecting to be back at the office on Monday.

The good news is that we know what to do and won’t lose any time getting ourselves organised for lockdown. A lot of people found that it took a couple of weeks to establish their work rhythms and cadences in a home environment and get productive. Because it’s familiar, we shouldn’t lose time adjusting to our new working reality at home. We should be able to make the most of the opportunity to do deep work, the tasks and projects requiring focus and productivity.

An adjustment will be required at the other end as well. It took a lot of us a couple of weeks at Level 2 to re-establish the personal connections and dynamics that underpin the social space of work. It took us a while to get the teamwork going, which was critical to the collaboration we needed to think our way through the new challenges.

So, when lockdown lifts, we’ll be able to get straight back to quickly rebuilding the team – creating opportunities for collaboration and creativity, identifying ways in which we can adapt the business. 

They’re not just aspirational words. We all need to do that because the business has just been hit with another new reality. Whatever we were thinking about how to get the business through this existential challenge just got more complicated. We’ll need to use our quiet reflective time at home and our noisier collaborative time at work (when we get there) to maximum effect.

As always, all we can do is make the most of what we’ve got. Who knows, maybe this time you really will learn the ukulele!

Stay safe, wear your mask.

We’d love to hear your comments on what you’ll do differently this lockdown. Please share them below.