Day 7 since the whole family is at home. I like to write and talk a bit about our current situation and how we try to cope with it. It’s not easy but I think challenging times make us rise to the occation. And like always it makes us aware that it could be even worse. Actually it is a great opportunity for us, because of remote work we are free to schedule the day the way we want. A lot of stuff I wanted to try out before, I’m now trying todo. I’m not there yet but eventually I will match @jockowillink and do a training together with him :-). I really think there is truth to

“Discipline equals freedom!”

It’s interesting to see that habits really form the base for everything, for a loong time now I’m writing my morning journal. It’s easy to add some more stuff and build on it once you have established any kind of habit. At the moment it looks like this:

  1. Get up before 6:00
  2. Have a Salt-Lemon-Water (thanks to Wolfgang Unsöld https://ypsi.de/starte-jeden-tag-mit-himalayasalz-und-limettensaft-in-wasser/)
  3. Cold Shower (thanks to Wim Hoff https://www.wimhofmethod.com/benefits-of-cold-showers)
  4. Make a cup of coffee with the AeroPress
  5. Write the morning journal (something between BullettProof Journal, 5 Minute Journal and stoic Journaling)
  6. Get to work …

Not perfect but I try to stick to it now for 7 days a week. I think it has several benefits (besides improved sleep ;-). Especially as a father I think it’s important that I show the kids at least some kind of discipline. I’ve set some goals for myself, one of it is todo some kind of training at least once a day with the kids. So currently at least the oldest one is training with me and some times the others are joining in. I’m glad that we are allowed to go outside and have a small garden.

We are working in a HomeOffice setting (and are grateful for that), the kids have to be HomeSchooled. Ok I have to admit to make everything work we really on our Internet connection. 2VPN Tunnnels and 3 YouTube Streams need a lot of bandwidth. So I’m glad we have a 100MBit connection. I’ve found an interesting article and I think there is some truth to it https://www.zeit.de/gesellschaft/2020-03/social-distancing-homeoffice-homeschooling-coronavirus-covid-19

Kinder können in dieser Situation viel lernen, auch Eigenverantwortung und Selbstdisziplin. Eltern können dem Kind begleitend zur Seite stehen, aber sie sollten nicht alles übernehmen.

I really believe, as mentioned in Drive by Daniel Pink (great book btw!), that the most valuable thing we can teach or help our kids with, is to develop self discipline and foster their intrinsic motivation. We are experimenting a lot with stuff from the agile toolset. And I think it’s really a good method to empower the kids, but also to make them aware of the current situation. They now have to learn to cook, wash the clothes and clean the dishes on their own. Since worst case happens, the parents are sick with CoVid19. They have to take care of all the family buisness. Can they do it of course, are they able to do it now? Not yet, but we will get there for sure. So we are doing Dailies, Weeklies and use a Kanban board. Perfect? Of course not but, does it work as we would like? Not yet but we are getting better at it. It’s a new situation for all of us and we need to get used to it somehow and we will. Need to get breakfast with the kids and go for a run with them ;-) Take care, stay safe!