I'm going to get straight to it. Our work lives look different than they did before Coronavirus. You may be uncertain, frustrated, confused, scared...I'm here for you!

If you are spinning, wandering, feel like you should be doing something, but not sure where to start...If you are trying to figure out what virtual learning should look like for very young children, and trying to support families as they stumble through this - I've got you! 

Let's start with one important word: routine.  Most of you have probably lost yours. Let's start by finding a new one. I am NOT telling you to make a complicated, rigid schedule for yourselves or your children. There are plenty of those floating around on the internet right now, and 99.9% of them are going to fail.

Instead, make three lists:
1) Things that need to happen every day at your house
2) Things that you think will help you cope
3) Things that might help you enjoy this time.

List 1 might include things like:

• Be online for your job during a certain time window

• Eat

• Participate in mandatory video meetings

• Feed your pets

List 2 might include things like:

• Use a Clorox wipe on cabinets, door handles, and light switches

• Take a walk

• Take a shower

• Talk with family members in other places or reach out to someone who lives alone

• Shut down work email  and turn off work phone at 6:00

List 3 might include things like:

• Light candles in the evening

• Read a book

• Play board games

• Watch old episodes of The Bachelor

Next, look at all three lists together and choose NO MORE THAN FIVE things to start to build your own routine. You are going to resist this. You will want to do all of the things. And you can, if it works out. But these five are going to be your non-negotiables, the things you do every single day no matter what.

Here are mine:
1) Spend at least 2 hours on focused work
2) Eat one meal as a family
3) Walk outside for at least 20 minutes a day
4) Clean the kitchen every evening
5) Get to bed by 9:00

Start there. It's fine to do more things. I am also making my bed, showering, working for several hours, and doing yoga most days! But don't beat yourself up if you only manage to do these five.

Make sure that your five things are not open-ended. "Keep the house clean" is not a good thing to have on your list, because that could take all day every day. "Wash, dry, and fold one load of laundry" works because it's clear when that's done. "Spend time with my kids" is too vague. "Spend 15 minutes working on a jigsaw puzzle with my kids" is much better.  Instead of "Work" try, "Respond to all emails that came in yesterday." Identify what done means for each item on your list.

The purpose of this to stop spinning and get out of survival mode. You are processing a lot, probably getting multiple conflicting directives from your supervisors, and feeling lots of big emotions. Do not even think about adding anything to your list of non-negotiables until you have done these five things every single day for several days in a row. 

You'll notice that I didn't tell you to assign a time to each item on your list. That's because you shouldn't. Consider this a routine rather than a schedule. Once you have found your rhythm, you will be able to help staff members and families find theirs. This will be much more effective than just throwing a bunch of activities or resources at the people you are trying to support.

If you are in a position of leadership, please do not get tense about whether your staff members are working or not. I promise you that they want to work, they want to do the right thing. If we're being honest, the problem is that none of us knows exactly what work should look like, or exactly what the right thing is.

Take a breath. Let your staff members take a breath. Consider asking them to do only the bare minimum for the next few days, rather than stressing them out about filling every second of their time. Instead of running around like a chicken with your head cut off (and expecting staff members to do the same) remember that pausing and planning will make everyone more effective. This isn't going to be over any time soon, and nothing will truly be lost if we chill out for a week.

For sure, there are some things that are more urgent than others. It's important to prioritize. Start by prioritizing your own breath. Pause. Think about the big picture. 

Stop checking news and social media sites. Newscasters are paid to freak us out so we keep loading their websites, or keep watching their channels. Russia is trying to spread panic and fear through social media. Every time you fall down the internet news rabbit hole, every hour you have your TV turned on, your life gets worse.

Limit your checking of news to once a day, and carefully choose how you do that. I promise that you won't miss anything important. I listen to the Up First podcast in the morning, and I check the COVID-19 live blog on the Colorado Public Radio website in the evening. This gives me one national source and one local source, and is the perfect amount of information. 

Was this helpful for you? September is offering short-term coaching on time management, productivity, and emotional regulation during this pandemic. Spaces are very limited! Click here to sign up.

If you did the triage exercise above and find that you aren't actually able to do your five non-negotiables every day, cut down to two or three. No shame in that!

As you move past survival mode and start to create a rhythm for your days, choose two or three categories to focus on. Some ideas of what those categories might be:

For families with young children -

• Outside time

• Sharing books or stories together

• Playing together for a few minutes a few times a day

• Time that parents work while children play independently or have screen time

• Doing housework together

• Regular rest times or bedtimes

• Eating family meals (breakfast works as well as dinner)

• Connecting with friends, family, teachers or caregivers

For teachers trying to create a work rhythm -

• Connecting with children and families

• Planning activities and organizing those connection points

• Finding resources for families

• Engaging in coaching

• Other professional development

• Planning for next year

For coaches trying to create a work rhythm (coaches, I made a video just for you) -

• Engaging in coaching

• Supporting teachers in coaching families

• Finding resources for teachers

• Facilitating professional development opportunities for teachers

• Professional development

• Planning for next year

For leaders trying to create a work rhythm -

• Strategic planning

• Connecting with staff members

• Planning and organizing those connection points

• Professional development

• Supporting staff members to engage in professional development

• Getting organized - cleaning out files, streamlining forms, etc.

For everyone: Ask yourself what you have been wanting to do that you haven’t had time to do. Can you build time for that into your routines now?

Take a bit of time on Sunday evening or Monday morning to reflect and plan:

1) What went well in the last several days? 
2) Think about your routines - the ones that you have purposefully created, and the ones that you've just fallen into. Which do you want to keep and which do you want to get rid of?
3) What are the most important things you can focus your time and attention on next week?

For me, there are lots of things that have gone well. I walked outside every day with my boys, I got back into a regular exercise routine (basically, online versions of what I usually do at the gym and yoga studio), and stuck to my bedtime. 

I've created a morning routine that I really like - wake up, work out, shower and get ready for the day, listen to podcasts while I make my bed and have breakfast, then either jump on my first call or look over my calendar and email and then take a working walk before I sit down at my desk.

My afternoon routine has been much more unintentional. A couple of days this week I threw my afternoon work plan out the window and took a nap. This felt like what I needed, so next week I'm going to plan for afternoon naps pretty much every day.

Here's my plan for next week:

• Continue my morning routine

• Spend 2-3 hours of focused work time

• Take a break for lunch and a walk by myself or with my husband

• Work for another hour or so

• Take a walk with the boys

• Take a nap

• Do a bit of work that requires less focus (email, clearing off my desk, etc.)

• Spend some family time as we prep and eat dinner

• After dinner, I'll see how I feel. Last week I used this time in a variety of ways: reading, housework, playing games, working or doing household work like paying bills.

You probably noticed that I am not tasking myself with an 8 hour work day. That's because I know that when I set aside all distractions and hone in on the project at hand, there is no way that I can work for longer than 4 hours. My brain is exhausted! 

Also, walking doesn't look like working, but it's truly the most efficient way for me to solve problems or figure things out. Counting my morning and lunchtime walks as work time brings my total work hours closer to five.

Putting in five really productive hours beats eight hours of checking email, taking lots of breaks, wondering what to do, starting something and then putting it down...which is how many people spend their work day even when they are not working from home.

Four or five uninterrupted hours may seem like a dream to you! My kids are old enough to take care of themselves, and they don’t get up until around noon. If you have younger children or other obligations your routines will look very different. That’s fine, just be realistic. If you know you’ll be interrupted every 5 or 10 minutes, accept that and plan around it.

That’s why it’s so important to reflect on the last several days and think about how things actually went before you think about how you want this next week to go.

As I sat down to write this, I reflected on all of the conversations I've had with teachers, coaches and leaders over the last few weeks and got on a bit of a roll. Buckle up, because here we go...

Is what you are asking of families realistic? If they aren't logging in or using the resources you send, it's because what you're giving them isn't meeting their needs. That's a tough thing to acknowledge, especially if you've put a lot of time and energy into creating something, and even more especially if your supervisors aren't giving you a choice about what to offer. 

Supervisors - is what you are asking of staff members realistic? Remember, many of them are also trying to parent young children or have other things going right now on that you know nothing about. Don't turn a temporary crisis situation into permanent burnout or disillusionment by trying to rigidly hold people accountable for working in a particular way, or for a particular number of hours. Give your staff members permission to know what the right thing is and then have faith in them to do it. If you aren't able to do that, you've got a bigger problem than COVID-19.

Many districts and programs are squandering the perfect opportunity to truly walk the talk about play-based learning, and instead are spending a bunch of time trying to make parents emulate what happens at school.

What's really important right now?

1. Helping parents get through the day

2. Helping parents feel connected to your and their peers

3. Supporting parents in building their child's independence, playing and interacting, and teaching social emotional skills

4. Helping kids feel connected to your and their peers
   

Coaches, we could think the same way about teachers. What's really important right now?

1. Helping teachers get through the day

2. Helping teachers feel connected to your and their peers

3. Supporting teachers in reflecting on what they know and believe about how children learn, expanding that knowledge, and putting those beliefs into action - right now and when they return to school

This is an opportunity to re-think early childhood education and family engagement - let's not waste it!

Remember, for most of human history, children never went to school. For most of the history of school, schooling lasted about 4 hours a day for 6 years, and didn't go year round. If you're worried about lost time, think about all of the incredible art and literature and all of the inventions that were created by people who went to school for a total of 54 months or less. Preschool as we know it wasn't a thing until the late 1960's.

Kids can learn without circle time, without a bunch of stuff from Lakeshore, without worksheets, without tablets. 

In fact, they should probably be learning without those things at school, too. What would that look like?

What if, when you bring children back in your building, the focus for the entire day is on engaging them in authentic play and authentic work, supported by loving adults who follow their lead? Figuring out how to pull off that transformation is probably the best possible use of your time right now.

Pro tip: You can probably figure it out better if you are walking outside than if you are sitting at a desk. If that's an option for you (I know that it isn't for everyone) you can adopt the mantra "walking is working" and go for guilt-free walks during your work day. 

While I'm on this "real talk" roll - Let's NOT tell children that if they wash their hands they can stay safe and healthy and they can keep others safe too. Hand washing is important, but it's not magic, so this isn't a true statement. 

What happens if we give children that message, they wash their hands and then they get sick anyway? Or if a parent gets sick? Will they blame themselves?

And what about children with medical conditions that have nothing to do with hand washing? "Did I get cancer because I didn't wash my hands?" "Mommy, does that boy have a feeding tube because he didn't wash his hands?"

Instead, say something like, "One way that we can try to stay healthy is to wash our hands."  Or,"It's important that we wash our hands because that can wash away germs." Or just create routines that include handwashing.