Here Charlotte Davidson, Publications Officer in Communications and Marketing, explains a typical day.
6:00am – The alarm goes off. Even though the commute to my desk is a fraction of what it used to be, I’m trying to keep to some of my old routine. I grab a coffee and head back to bed with my book for an hour before getting ready for the day at a leisurely pace. It means I’m much more relaxed when 8:30am rolls around and I need to start thinking about work.
8:45am – Time to log on and catch up with emails. Working in the Communications and Marketing team means that luckily my transition to working from home was pretty easy, and I know that lots of other colleagues have had a much harder time. Pretty much all of my work can be done on the computer, so I sit at my desk chain drinking tea all morning until…
11:00am – Our daily team catch up on Microsoft Teams. Although it’s not mandatory, we always try and check in with each other to have a blether that’s not work related. It’s a nice way to stay in touch and talk to some other humans.
1:00pm – It’s lunchtime! I try and get away from my desk while I eat. I normally watch an episode or two of a funny tv show to switch off a bit. Recently it’s been The Simpsons – so many great episodes. Then it’s back to work.
4:00pm – This is about the time when my concentration starts to waver. I take 15 minutes to do some stretches and get up and go for a wander around the flat. I check my phone and see that my pals have finally decided on a recipe for our virtual dinner party at the weekend. We’re going to all cook the same thing and sit down to eat it together. Looks like we’ll be having a curry. Yum.
5:00pm – Time to log off – I try and make sure I turn off the sound and properly shut down my computer as I’ve been struggling to switch off and not check emails after this time. A good way I’ve found of doing this, is to head straight to the kitchen and cook something that takes longer than usual. I’ve found it quite cathartic to spend a bit more time on my cooking, and there are plenty of free recipes online if you don’t have many cookbooks. I’ve been enjoying experimenting a bit more with substitutions too if I can’t get all the ingredients I need.
8:00pm – After dinner I settle in for a few episodes of the latest tv show I’m watching. At the minute it’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer – I can’t believe it passed me by first time around! Then it’s back to bed with my book and I’ll do it all over again tomorrow. The best way I’ve found to get through the past few weeks is to differentiate between week days and weekends. So during the week it’s smaller meals, reading and tv, and regular exercise to fill the time around work. The at the weekend I aim for less screen time, choose films instead of tv shows, and I keep in mind that nice big glass of wine (or two) when Friday rolls around.
What does your new 9 to 5 look like? Share it with us at bulletin@ed.ac.uk