Make the Most of Your Social Distancing Time

With a quickly changing macroenvironment, most people are finding themselves with a very sudden amount of home-time, whether from voluntary social distancing or mandatory government quarantine. 

Corporations will be testing out their business continuity plans on a large-scale and business will slow as people gage what the next two to four weeks looks like from both a personal and professional scale. 

While this is intimidating or stress-inducing for some, it can actually be seen as an opportunity for those open to it. 

Think about all of the time you are getting back into your day. 

Until you do a time inventory of your day, you may have no idea just how much time you are waiting on tedious or low-value tasks on a regular basis. During the work week, even an eventful and exhausting one, it's possible that there are a few minutes at a time that you could easily get back. Individually, that's not much, but collectively, could add up to be a generous chunk of time to add back to your day.

• Commute Time
• Work Breaks
• Team Meetings
• Lunch Hour
• Vanity Time

Commute Time

How long is your daily commute – round trip?

Living in Atlanta, for me that can be upwards of one-hour, each way. Yours might not be nearly as drastic (for your sake, I hope not!) but even finding a parking spot or waiting in line to leave the parking garage can be soul-crushing.

  Related: Business Podcasts to Listen to During Long Commutes

What about the extra time you have to allow yourself to stop and fill the gas tank because you drove it home on “E” last night… again… and now you finally can't stall any longer?

What if you are a creature of habit who can't get the morning started without swinging by the Starbucks drive through for your caffeine-kick, because the free stuff at the office just won't do the trick? That could be an easy 20 minutes back in your morning — and $5.00 back in your wallet.

What would you do with one or two extra hours at home or with your family every single day? 

Work Breaks

Whether you get formal breaks or not, let’s admit there are a few minutes of every day we are able to break for a breather.

In the restaurant industry, you may get a smoke break or scheduled 15-minute intervals to get off your feet, check your phone, and have some down time.

At an office, even if it's not scheduled in, you may decide to do a couple laps of the building just to get your blood flowing and your afternoon energy up, or you may end up chatting at the coffee pot for five to ten minutes at a time with other colleagues you haven't spoken to much lately. 

All of this time adds up and becomes invaluable when you realize you can get back 30+ minutes a day without those distractions. Working from home, while often lonelier and quieter for the same reasons, can at least bring about the advantage of time if you choose to see it that way.

Team Meetings

Yes, team meetings are important to streamline communication, and they can become even more valuable when distanced from your normal working environment. Communication becomes the utmost importance for business continuity and to make sure nothing vital falls through the cracks. 

That said, does your office have several team meetings that often result in, “That’s a good point, let’s regroup next week?” 

There’s a great TED talk about “No MAS [Meeting Acceptance Syndrome],” that I highly recommend watching and sharing with your peers.

Now that our standard operational processes have to change, I expect meetings to be streamlined to only those vital to decisioning the item on the table, or imperative to the next actionable item or deliverable in the process being discussed.

Lunch Hour

While working from home, and assuming you are on lockdown with minimal other options to turn to, I can't help but think you might sneak 20 minutes – minimum- back into your day by being able to reach into your fridge and sit back down, with no lines, cooks, or cashiers to wait in line for.

Though some of us may not always have a true “hour” for lunch, even the short time it takes to head downstairs to the cafeteria or across the street for fast food can truly add up if you aren’t diligent about packing your lunch for work each day. 

Vanity Time

Likely, we all have our standard morning routine down to a science. Regardless of your position – executive, creative or otherwise – there is some standard of care that goes into every morning.

Even if your uniform is non-negotiable, you may put a few extra minutes into your hair or makeup. If you have a client meeting, you may realize it’s vital to iron the outfit you laid out the night before. As trivial or vane as it is, there is a standard us women often put in prior to leaving for the office.

If we stopped at brushing our teeth and throwing our hair up into a messy bun post-shower, how much time would we let back into our day?

I have a feeling that working from home in pajamas, makeup free, accessory free and hair tossed up a la Rosie the Riveter, 30 minutes back in to my morning is a conservative assumption.

With all of that time back, what new can you add into your daily routine? 

If you haven’t been diligent about working out because of lack of time, maybe this is a chance to add it back in, even for just a few minutes a day. You still don't need to add an hour to get to a gym or register for a personal training class, you can walk your dog instead of just letting him run around in the yard, or you could treat yourself to a nice home gym setup if you want to get serious about it.

Me? Personally, I am utilizing it to (finally!) update this site, and to help other women in business in the same boat, working to side-hustle (or grow their primary hustle.)

It’s an opportunity to practice new skills on my Cricut Maker and slowly build up to my Etsy Shop for fun and unique celebratory gifts for home and garden. 

Related Posts: What can I do once I buy a Cricut cutting machine?

The time to do that, on top of the time to make dinner with my husband, instead of one of us prepping for the other, has the potential to be an incredible upside opportunity to the social distancing process right now.

If you used even half of the options listed above, what could you bring back to your friends, family, or even your own personal peace of mind?