March 13, 2020: Reader Q&A
Good morning,
Today I’m covering questions from readers. If you’d like me to answer your question next week, please email me at andrew@wfhtimes.com.
My Room is 10x10, how do I build a workspace when my bed, dresser, and closet take up all of the available floor space?
This is certainly a challenge. If you’re used to a standing desk, maybe you can transform the dresser into a makeshift standing desk? I did this a few years back before getting my “real” standing desk, and it worked surprisingly well.
For a sitting desk, maybe there’s a side of the dining table or a cushion on the couch that you normally never sit on. You can make this your “work side” and allow the other side to be the “not work side”.
Creativity is key when working with small spaces. Think about the child whose amazing brain turns a few toy cars into an epic monster truck rally.
Please, please, please just don’t go work from a cafe.
Good luck!
What should I do this weekend that will help avoid me getting sick/spreading sickness but also gets me out of the house?
As I’m sure you know, the key thing here is to avoid close contact with other humans. What are some activities that get you out of the house yet still achieve this goal of dramatically reduced close contact?
Ride a bike.
Go for a walk or a run.
Tend your garden (if you have one).
Start learning a new skill (a language? podcasting? drawing?) and do it from your deck.
If you do go outside, please avoid cafes, museums, concerts, bars, and other places where you’re in close contact with other people. Figure out how your outdoor experience can be as solo as possible.
What if one of my housemates gets sick?
I recommend talking about a game plan for this before someone gets sick because once people aren’t feeling well, asking them to further isolate can feel, well, downright mean.
One reasonable strategy would be to attempt to avoid other housemates from getting sick. This might mean cooking meals for the sick housemate so that they don’t need to use the kitchen, and asking them to disinfect surfaces they touch (i.e. in the bathroom).
Even if it’s inevitable that you will get sick too, slowing down that process is a good thing from the perspective of peak medical load. You may not need hospitalization, but you may spread it to someone who requires it.
I’m extroverted and I’m starving from not seeing other people. What can I do?
I’ve found that facetiming with a friend while I’m walking around the neighborhood is a great way to both get some exercise while not seeing them in person.
Other ideas might include collaboratively building a side project with a friend (maybe they can do visual design from their house and you can code from yours), or anything else that naturally works remotely and also allows for social interaction.
Is Zoom the US equivalent for remote schooling? Can it handle the load? Any thoughts on academics teaching over zoom?
Zoom is possibly the platform that schools turn to! We will see, although schools need to be closed first before remote schooling even has a reason to take off.
The additional traffic from academics live-streaming lectures on Zoom? Agreed, I'm not so worried about that. The additional traffic from companies going from 5% remote to 100% remote, where video chats might go from 2 participants (big conference room + one remote person) to 20? I'm more worried about that.
In terms of effectively using Zoom, jeez, I would imagine that it depends on the context. I’m not an expert in teaching online, perhaps someone else is. Most of my experience comes from the tech startup world and personal use.
I’m sick and tired about hearing about coronavirus, I just want to live my life
Ok, this is more of a rant than a question, but I’ll comment anyways. The world seems to have decided that coronavirus is a big deal right now, both from a biological and social perspective. If you really just want to live your life, I suppose you could stock up on food, turn off the internet, and enter a zen-like focus mode for the next 2 months. That would probably work. But anything that involves interacting with other people will probably end up getting yanked back towards this coronavirus for the foreseeable future.
Where can I read more about the characteristics of the disease?
I found this https://github.com/marialma/covid-19-messaging/blob/master/what_we_know_en.md useful.
WFH setup of the day
Spotted at Ocean Beach, SF. Look at that social distancing!
There will be no updates this weekend, see you on Monday!