Wireless Earbuds, Kneeling Chairs and Staying Upbeat

It’s hard to believe it’s August. It’s hard to believe it’s been four months of working at home. It’s hard to believe how much I’ve come to enjoy it.

I think working remotely has helped me be more productive. It’s forced me to schedule the things I have to do more rigidly, and plan out the objectives I have for the day ahead. It has also reduced the frequency of interruptions I get throughout the day, which has done nothing but help in that respect.

Surprisingly I have had no issues getting my workday started. No working in pyjamas for me. It’s a shower and casual clothes for me every morning. The only thing I’ve had to really work at is stopping at a reasonable time and shutting off my work brain at the end of the day. I’ve found myself in the groove at 7pm still getting stuff accomplished but I don’t want that to become the habit, so I tend to shut things down around 5:30 unless there’s something I’ve specifically promised to get out.

I have always loved to drive. The commute to and from work was never something I loathed. But in the same breath, I’ve really enjoyed not having it around. :-)

So having everyone at our firm working remotely is going to end soon (gradually and cautiously). I’m going to be doing some thinking about what I might try to change. It’s been a murky 4 months in terms of predicting what’s going to happen. Business has been surprisingly steady and strong throughout, but with our southern neighbours heading into what looks like another several months of a neverending dumpster fire (in several respects), who knows what the economy will or won’t bring in terms of my line of work.

It’s so easy to scroll-scroll-scroll through Twitter or Reddit or any other news site and just feel like you’re sitting in the middle of a neverending shitshow. You need distractions just to not be overcome by it. Something to aim for to get yourself upbeat again. This is why I sometimes worry about my dad having 24hr news on the tv all day. It’s almost all bleak and repetitive. It wears on you.

On a lighter note, I did get a couple of interesting things recently. First, was a pair of these:

They work and sound great. I use them mostly on solo dog walks and sometimes while I work if I’ve got something to do that involves more doing and less thinking. They pair up and stay connected to my laptop and my phone at the same time so I can listen to music or do web conference calls without having to do any device switching or re-pairing. I’ve never been a huge earbud guy but I figured I’d try these and it turns out I like them quite a lot.

The second thing I got was a kneeling chair. What’s a kneeling chair I hear you asking? Well it’s one of these things:

Yes.. yes.. I’m that guy.

I have spent the last 3.5 months at my work desk in my dining room in front of the front window sitting on just a conventional wood dining room chair on some doubled-up seat cushions. It hasn’t destroyed my back or anything but it sometimes aches and I have caught myself exemplifying the epitome of poor posture throughout the day. I remember seeing something about kneeling chairs probably 10 years ago, and I just decided to take the plunge and order one.

It is remarkably comfortable to sit on.. er.. in. I’ve been very happy with it so far. It took me about 15 minutes to assemble and only about 5 min to get accustomed to. The position you end up in somehow just feels so natural. My wife tried it and immediately said it reminded her of when you were a kid and could kneel on the floor and play for hours. (I have still managed to figure out how to sit on it with poor posture - just lean ahead onto your arms on the desk) but it does force me to sit up and use my own back to maintain balance most of the time I suppose. I’ll have to report back in when I’ve used it for a while.

Other things of note? We watched the Dark series on Netflix. You almost need to take notes while watching a show like that. But it was interesting and well done and sparked quite a few interesting conversations between my wife and I while trying to figure it out. And it definitely had a German feel to it. Which was refreshingly un-North American. We’re now watching Season 1 of True Detective. Neither of us have seen it before and we’re enjoying it. And yes, I’ve heard season 2 is shit. :-)

Hope everyone is staying safe, healthy and happy.