Like most people with kids, as soon as I heard that we'd be sheltering in place for more than two weeks, my first thought was about my kids. Not in the sense of "I hope my kids are ok" but more like "OMG, I am going to die if I'm stuck at home for two weeks with my kids." My kids are cute and sweet, but there is a reason I pay someone else to watch them all day. It's a very hard job.

And as I was talking to other parents I noticed that many (all?) of them shared that same sense of dread. Nobody was talking about their concern for their kids, or even their fears of getting the virus, but everyone was very concerned with their own mental health.

I started to think about about why we were all so anxious about being stuck at home and having to work. What was it that I was so nervous about, and more importantly, how could I solve that problem so my wife and I could stay sane and productive? Work Life Balance is More Like a Seesaw

Our generation talks a lot about "work life balance" as if there is some sort of magic equilibrium where work and life are perfectly in balance with one another.

I am of the belief that today there is really no such thing as work-life balance. Work and life are less about being in balance, and are more like a seesaw - its rarely ever in balance for more than a few brief moments. There will never be this wonderful prolonged period where work and life fit neatly together. And I dont necessarily think that's a bad thing. Today work and life are more like a see-saw. They ebb and flow together, one is weighing you down and the other can lighten up.

I have observed that its more helpful to think of it like a see-saw - they ebb and flow together; when one is weighing you down the other can lighten up. Sometimes work becomes overwhelming ( it becomes the "heavier" item) and you need to put in extra hours while home life gets less attention than you'd like. But other times when home life demands attention, you swing the seesaw in the other direction and take your foot off the pedal at work.

Rather than trying to think of it on a daily basis as a balance, I've always found it more helpful to look at things on a longer timeline such as a month or a quarter, when you can look back and say "overall this month/quarter/year I feel like I've spent a balanced mount of time focusing on these two important parts of my life." I work in tech, but I don't think this is strictly a tech thing¹: people can get flexible scheudles, people catch up on work at home at night, if there is an important deliverable you work over the weekend, and if something comes up with the kids you can take your foot off the pedal or even take a temporarily lighter load. This is the way I've always approached work, and its the way I manage people that work under and around me. I've found that trying to approach work and life as something that should be balanced is only going to lead to frustration. [obviously people that work in fields like healthcare that require you to be onsite, this is not as applicable] And that's the key, when one is up, the other is down.

When we realized that we'd have to work full time AND take care of our kids full-time, the see-saw snapped in half.

For many (most?) people, lockdown has been so hard because it's one of the first times that these two parts of our lives are completely colliding with one another. We need to be equally devoted to both work and home life at the same time, and that is totally impossible. Taking care of kids is a full-time, stressful, all-consuming job. While getting paid a salary takes an entire day as well. I think that's what concerned everybody, I know it was the main concern in my household where both my wife and I work. People weren't concerned about their kids per se, because we know our kids will generally be fine. Kids, especially young ones, are resilient. They are unlikely to notice or mind a change in schedule and for the most part are unaffected by the stress of dealing with staying healthy and fed. The thing that made us nervous and anxious was wondering how we manage to keep working and take care of the kids all day and not go insane. It was important to my wife and I that the kids not just sit and watch TV for 8 hours a day. We wanted to keep them entertained, stimulated and happy while we continued to work. So we created a structure for them, and that's what the rest of this post is about. We created structure for ourselves, our kids, and our jobs so that we will stay sane.

So far it has been working. Here is what we did: Created a daily daycare-like schedule for the kids.  One they - even below the age of 5 - could understand and follow Created a simple rotation for work A system that allows to be predictable, but flexible with Created a dedicated working space An area in the house that is conducive to work, and has the right equipment One quick note: We are incredibly fortunate that we have salaried jobs that continue to pay us, and I know that for people without work or with reduced schedules, this may not be applicable. Creating a schedule One of the things that was important to us was avoid having the kids watching 8 hours of TV a day, as well as the bad moods that go along with that. So we decided to create some structure - but the challenge is how do you create a schedule that even a 2 and 4 year old who dont read can follow? During a tour of one of the daycares, I remembered seeing a vsiual schedule on the wall that showed the kids what the next activity was. I know my kids are very visual, so I decided to try creating a visual schedule that we could hang on the wall in our condo. I found a bunch of pictures on Google Images, put them into Sketch and voila! A daycare schedule that even a two year old could follow. The visual schedule we put on the wallWe made a schedule and everything, with pictures for each part of the day and we hung it on the wall. And we made a big deal out of looking at the wall between each activity to see what we should do next. The kids picked it up really quickly, and they seemed to be really relieved by it. The structure helped them feel good - I suspect its because they didnt have any of the regular cues of the day such as getting dressed, getting in the car etc and they just had no idea what was going on. Within the monotony of staying home all day, see the schedule on the wall seemed to give them some grounding. After a few days they realized that they could negotiate some of the activities (such as naptime) but all in all the schedule gave them a feeling of structure and it really helped us get through the initial days and weeks of lockdown. Concluding thoughts It's been a really big struggle for us. Here are a couple things that have helped ease it just a little bit (but it's still really hard). First off, you need to get good at working from home. You need good space (not the dining room table), good equipment (ie external keyboard, monitor, stand etc), and some ability to focus on your own We need to create a work culture where we can be present when on "parenting" duty, and focused on work during other dedicated times.  Early on, I created a "contact contract" with my co-workers that let them know what they can expect from me in terms of response time, when I'd be working (and when I wasnt) and how they can reach me.  I put block on my work calendar that let people know I was parenting - literally half-day blocks of time where they would know I couldnt do meetings. But other times, and often late at night, I was catching up on what I could. Create a fixed rotation with half-day chunks with your partner.  My wife and I split each day into two chunks, and created a default schedule that we'd follow. 

This really helped a lot so that we werent switching every hour, and were able to focus on work. We also did a daily "standup" at the beginning and end of each day to plan the childcare portions so that we were on the same page. This has been really tough. We've figured a few things out, but I feel like there is still a very long way to go.