Is Your Productivity Down in midst of Quarantine

This question was brought up in my recent team meeting, that is our productivity down in midst of quarantine or when we all are working from home. We are working from home from the last 3 months and thus we had a virtual team meeting to discuss the well being of team members as well as what are the challenges we are facing.

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Everyone was telling about the good things happen like, they can spend more time with their family, less pollution intake, less travelling time as well as bad things like no proper work from home setup and that's why back pain, mood swing because of home quarantine, power cuts affecting work and availability of individuals in the team. Though all these things are just common and every team member has experienced it but what became a talking point is productivity. When asked about it, almost everyone said that the productivity has increased but when the numbers came in, everyone is shocked to hear that we are running late by 2 weeks, that means whatever has to be released this week has been postponed by 2 weeks.

Now the managers pitched in to tell us how we should not hamper our productivity in midst of quarantine or tough situations, what he actually meant to say is we should put in extra hours to make up the lost hours because of the reduced productivity. But the problem is everyone is actually stressed out because of the ongoing condition, it's not like that we are working from home because of our need but because of the situation, we are in. It's ok to take some time as a break or do stuff at your own pace rather than pleasing someone. We all are fighting a battle, literally all by staying at home, by working at home or whatnot. It's great to put in extra hours to get some praise but I think it's not worth the mental stress you will take, it's not worth the anxiety you will be in, it's not worth the mental health.

When we all got the work home schedule, we are delighted that we will have a lot of time to do a lot of stuff, I was too. I was in cloud9 that I will save around 3 hours of my time and thus I will start working on my side project. But that dream was short-lived because the reality proved to be challenging what I have found out in those 3 months is that you seem to be less energetic now and thus motivation has pulled down. This is because we are living in uncertainty, what will happen next is what constantly going through our minds, how long will this continue is what affecting our personal lives, our careers and overall psyche. When I was commuting 3 hours daily, I could easily walk 10000 steps but now I could not walk more than 5000 steps at home, this is the byproduct of uncertainty.

Now what changes we should do to make it productive, we should take things lightly. Every one of us are in this situation, we need to accept it and thus we should run and should not sprint to achieve our goals. We don't have to be perfect, it's ok to take breaks and take our time to do stuff. If something is negatively impacting you, it's ok to take a step back and retrospect rather than pushing yourself.

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Along with that, we need to build the habit of working from home, because you never know if you have to work from home for the whole year or not. So let's make a habit of doing an exercise to keep that fatigue away, do motivation to keep that negative thought away, take short breaks to talk with your family members, spend the evening in a balcony or a terrace to enjoy that cool breeze, sleep around 8 hours daily. These things will eventually help you to feel better, as it makes me too.