To the Hybrid Boomer
It has been 2 years from March 2020 to March 2022. One family vacation to Miami, FL and one road trip to Atlanta, GA for Christmas 2021 felt extremely good! Settling in as a Hybrid Boomer is official. The daily routine starts with getting dressed to go upstairs to the home “office”. I say goodbye to my dog Cooper, who always look at me as if to say “you’re leaving me?” I give him a treat and rub to say “I’ll be back”. Which depending on my meeting calendar, I do come back down to have lunch with him.
To make the transition to working from home, my advice to others is make plans to get out of the house. During the early days of the pandemic, I stayed home and worked all day, sometimes late into the evening. Life felt really off balance and in disarray because I wasn’t doing much of anything except working. Convinced that I had covid because of sinus issues, I left home to get tested at least 3 times during 2020 and 2021. Of course the tests all came back negative because how would I have gotten infected since I was so isolated. I was not socializing other than an occasional trip to my sister’s for dinner with a small group of less than 10.
Staying home working all of the time was driving me crazy. There are just a few of the things that I did to begin balancing my work life and personal life:, not necessarily in any particular order.
- Take breaks during the day as if still in a company sponsored office or facility.
- Avoid scheduling or participating in meetings during lunch time. Block this time off to step away from the “office” and have lunch, whether eating or not. Catch up on the news, take a walk, take a nap, do housework, take care of personal phone calls, take a nap, play the stock market, or actually go meet someone for lunch.
- Schedule time outside of the home, frequently. It is OK to flex your workday to run errands, take care of appointments, but come back to finish whatever is on your to-do list of work tasks that need to be completed for the day.
- Take care of house chores in between meetings or pressing tasks – these can be the “breaks” normally taken while at a company facility.
- Manage work tasks and your availability to ensure that you are reachable when not in your “office” working.
- To stay connected with team members and co-workers, reach out through email, Instant Messenger, video chat, or a good old fashioned phone call. If you are struggling with the transition, they probably are too! Reach out and stay connected.
- Maintain a to-do list. If I don’t write it down I will forget it. To-to lists makes the day go smoother.
- Stay engaged with your work life. Schedule online classes, participate in company sponsored virtual team-building exercises, meet regularly with your teams and co-workers.
- Go to a local high school sports activity. I like basketball! It is inspiring to see the kids competing and thriving!
- Make time for exercise. I placed my gym membership on hold during the pandemic and took up distant walking. Even in the cold! Sometimes I walk 5 or 6 miles a day.
- Adopt healthy eating habits. During the covid lock-down, I tried a food delivery service. The food tasted like a gourmet chef prepared it.
- Try intermittent fasting to detox and lose weight.
- Increase your water intake. Most days I do a gallon a day.
- Start a blog. You can find relatively cheap hosting for your website. Just write about what is going on in your life. You never know who will read it and be inspired.
- Attend a work meeting that is open to anyone on a topic that you are interested to learn more about to spearhead your career growth. Yes, hybrid boomers still want to grow!
The list could go on-and-on. We would love to hear about how you are settling into life as a Hybrid Boomer. Send us an email at boomer@hybridboomer.com about your experiences and with your permission, we might feature your story in our blog.
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