Don't Let Lockdown Imprisons Your Productivity, Creativity and Joy

Lockdown. World's citizens are now experiencing a small bit of situation that most Palestinians face ever since the Zionist Israeli has been occupying the whole Palestine since 1967.  However, other than Palistinians, we all could be still being considered as very lucky. We could do many things during Lockdown period in our house, play with our kids, do work from home, and even continue to enjoy life.

This article is written to express some deep respects to all Palestinians with their efforts and spirits to fight against the Zionist Israeli. May Allah Azza wa Jalla protect our Palestinian Brothers, Sisters and famlilies, keep them safe and make them get their freedom and land back in the near future. Ameen.

Deep condolences to all families in the world who have lost their loved ones during this Covid-19 pandemic. Endless respect as well to all the doctors, nurses and all people who have been giving their best to stop this pandemic. May Allah Azza wa Jalla extend us the strength to stand together fighting this horrible situation. Ameen.

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Work From Home: A New Experience, For Some
This pandemic requires a big change from our ends for it to stop. One of the simplest thing to participate in suppressing the spread of this disease is, limiting as much interaction between people. This would lead to burying old habits like traveling, going to the clubs, gathering and any other activities that tend to bring more people into one or more places, temporarily. As for workers, most authorities in the world endorse them to work from home. This sounds surely and still, as a big change for many, many people.

This change may bring different results to different people. it's up to us on how we take it. We used to meet many co-workers at workplaces, clients and customers at meeting points, commuting within the town we stay at, or even traveling around the world to extend business and grab more opportunities. But now, it's different. Totally different. The pandemic forces us to change.

When we brought our "work" into our house in this situation, one big different experience is the pace. All business will be forced to slow down as we, the people who have been bringing business to the world, will have to stay with our beloved family at each of our houses. No face-to-face physical meetings. No lunch or diners with clients. No hangouts together with friends or colleagues. Just purely staying at home, for many days ahead.

A new challenge arises: balancing the family (I need to put this one first) and the work we bring home. This could somehow be tricky for some. But what I'm gonna write down here and share my own experience in this article, I could say, it's not a totally different experience for me though.


The Life
Different people, have different story to tell. In short, I just wanna share mine and how I've been managing changes in situation with me, my family and work today. I couldn't say I miss the situation before this pandemic started when regular days were populated with normal activities. It's just some shifts in experience.

Sure, there are some minor things that I couldn't enjoy while I'm away from my office such as tertiary equipment like 3D printer and scanner, very large display which extend my notebook screen and so on. But overall, it won't stop me from keep on working. The introduction of HP Remote Graphics Software many years ago led to me establish my own remote working environment that involved accessing my 3 desktop HP Workstations (2 HP Z400 and 1 HP Z820) on my desk in the office from everywhere I go, as long as I still have wireless broadband network.

At home, I have been having the habit of accompanying my daughter til her sleeping time at night almost everyday, then continue my work again before I go to sleep. This has been running for years and years.


The Work
Day-to-day plot was normally contained with emails, negotiations, meetings and all normal stuff like other people did in their daily life. No difference here. But now, other than doing all emails and documents at home, everything is being transferred to Skype, Hangouts, Whatsapp and Signal. My personal preference is Signal. Of course the preferred one is mainly for me, my staffs and colleagues as it isn't popular yet in Asia and even the world. But I can assure you, it is reliable and secure. Zoom? I personally prefer to stay away from it. It failed us few times in the past during critical moments for online meetings.


The Family
Spending life 24/7 at home with family is priceless. Teaching and discussing my daughter's academic lessons with my her, surely brought many memories of my childhood. It's such a blessing for me personally. The whole family did the dishes, cook, play and do home activities together. I personally value the moments. I do hope people are enjoying the moments with their family as well.


The Hobby
Okay, this might be the most interesting part for some. Everyone would like to know what others would do when they're not spotted doing their work. Well, it's no secret for some, that I love playing console games and jetfighter dogfight simulator on any of my Mobile Workstations. Other than that, I've been experimenting with Rhinoceros to design rc planes up to micro-mini UAV for the last 5+ years.

Here, I must say, I've  been in the most productive sessions of all my hobby time ever during this Work From Home period. I managed to intensively use Rhinoceros, Flowsquare, OpenFoam as well as other supporting software to design 3 rc planes in just a week, considering that I need to do other things I mentioned above. This happens, because I'm getting even more available time that I used to secure for commuting and traveling from one place to another. And I'm able to do more personal research with Rhinoceros in order to find better approach in designing and finishing any future designs.

And these are the pictures of the rc planes I just did in less than 3 weeks.

1. The Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird

2. The Saab Jas-39 Gripen

3. F/A-181E Black Wasp II

All 3 designs are completed now. I just need to be patient for me to construct them all as I'm currently running out of materials and couldn't buy any, yet. Once this pandemic is over, I will surely start building them and my other design that I haven't built, the F-117 Nighthawk. I intend to build another A-10 as I did some revisions to my original design as well.


Final Words
I know this pandemic is scary and as bad as other people's thought. But instead of focusing energy on worrying too much, the simplest way of killing this pandemic is as simple as staying at home. It will definitely reduce the disease to spread significantly and even stop it after some period of time.

While we're home, we could do so much with work, family or even hobby. it's not bad afterall. Pick few things that you love doing alone as well as with other family members. List them and do them in order to fill your days with positive things. That would boost your spirit and motivation, in all aspects whether it's physically, emotionally and mentally. Found some of mine, and I will surely explore for more. There are plenty of time until the lockdown stops.

So what are your things?

#flattenthecurve
#stayathome
#workfromhome