It’s been a few long months since the coronavirus lockdown started but things are starting to improve… well kinda. Things are reopening… whether that’s a good idea or not is a different question….
For the four months of lockdown my ability to get work done has been hugely reduced. I’ve not had a suitable environment or enough routine to provide energy. For anything focus intensive (coding, writing etc) I work best at the cafe and trying to do it at home has pushed me well past breaking point. Trying to work at home has entirely ruined my ability to relax while at home. Unable to work at home and unable to relax at home had been fuelling huge frustration driven meltdowns.
However as lockdown lifts a little we can start trying to address the issues. We need to reboot my routines, reboot my ability to travels and in general kick start my autonomy.
To do this I’ve been granted three weeks off work. Roughly speaking I’m using the time to work through three stages of rebooting.
The first week is focused on routines. We’re restarting morning and evening routines with a support person visiting. We’re starting small as we have to work out how to make the routines work in a safe socially distanced way. This is requiring a redesign of my home to make it possible to clean all surfaces before support visits etc etc.
The second week is focused on more trips out on foot. Walks to the B&M shop, maybe a bus ride into town. This also means finding solutions to a bunch of new challenges. Things like finding masks which work from a sensory + numb hands perspective, adding new messages to my AAC apps and stuff like that.
The third week is about starting to pick up the smallest of tasks. Either in the cafe (if I can) or in my tiny cupboard office in town. At first this week be short trips where I pick up a task as small as a tweet.
The hope is the time will grow until I have enough capacity to start picking up work tasks again around mid July.
Overall I am optimistic. We are building on techniques which are known to work and we have templates to follow. We’re also giving it the time needed for new issues to be resolved.
After 5 days of work I’ve finally managed to sit down and write a blog post. So it seems we’re already starting in the right direction.
