We had our first online meetup two days ago, and for us it was like a breath of fresh air

Our community members shared a few things that worked for them and that helped them better cope with these “interesting times”. Here is a short summary:
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A lot of us are struggling with a work / life balance these days, and we constantly oscillate between working around the house too much, and working for our paid jobs too much. (2/12)

Having a discipline of writing down 5 tasks that you “must do” during the day helps with organizing the work. Also, try setting a timer while working, and focus on a single task for a certain period of time (= simplified version of the pomodoro technique). (3/12)

Group the multiple tasks that you have by type, and focus on one type at a time. For instance, read all emails for 30 mins - 1 hour, but do not answer any instant messages. (4/12)

Starting with the most difficult task and focusing to get it done might also help a lot. (5/12)

Create a separate space for work. If that’s not physically possible, try to find a spot that you associate with work only (maybe a corner of the table). Don’t work from your bed: you’ll either fall asleep during work, or you won’t be able to sleep at night :) (6/12)

Remember that we are people and we are working with other people. Using video in meetings and seeing people’s faces helps a lot with online communication. (7/12)

Taking online coffee breaks with your colleagues & friends (following the fika model) could be a good way of staying connected. (8/12)

Be empathic and care about other people’s feelings. A nice idea to understand how everybody in your team copes with working from home is to create a “feelings map” at the end of a certain period. Don’t overcomplicate this process :) (9/12)

Take care of your mental health. Practicing gratitude is something that can help with this: find one thing that you really liked or are thankful for during a day. (10/12)

Remember to be gentle with ourselves. If something doesn’t work for us, or if we can’t be as productive as we would like to be, that’s also fine. Things will get better in time. (11/12)

Hope these are helpful for you too! See you next time (12/12)