On Time

Like many people these days, I’ve been sleeping poorly, and having all kinds of weird dreams. Part of that, I know from experience, is simply a lack of movement throughout the day. While I’m still exercising, my overall, non-exercise movement has dropped steeply. (For example, my daily step count is down about two-thirds, from a pre-lockdown average of ~15,000 a day, to just ~5,000 now). And, obviously, a lot comes from the huge underlying stress inherent in living through this pandemic. But, beyond those two factors, I also suspect it’s due to lack of a fixed schedule. Of late, my wake-up and bedtimes have drifted all over the place.

Similarly, my productivity has been pretty erratic. Some days, I bang out a huge amount of work, while others I manage to make it to evening having accomplished essentially nothing at all. And here, too, I think the lack of fixed schedule is screwing me up. To state the obvious, if I sit down and start working, I’m much more likely to get things done than if I wander around and scroll through Twitter and space out.

So, starting tomorrow, I’m instituting time-blocking, at least for weekdays. The chunks are still pretty big and open – wake up at 7am, then exercise, shower, and caffeinate.  Kick off a ‘deep work’ block at 9am, focused on my big project for the day. Lunch break at noon, back to smaller tasks at 1pm, then calling it a day at 4pm, and working on personal projects and habits (like practicing trumpet or writing this blog), before cooking dinner at 6pm, and relaxing with Jess for the evening until we hit the hay at 11pm.

Historically, I’m pretty terrible at sticking with this kind of schedule. But, at the moment, I have waaaaay less calendared in the weeks ahead than I would in non-lockdown life, and many fewer external disruptions to derail me throughout the day. And, honestly, even if I don’t really end up sticking with the schedule precisely, I suspect even just pushing in that direction would help a whole lot. But, I guess, time will tell.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

April 12, 2020

Now What?

I was early in sounding the Coronavirus alarm, in social distancing, in wearing a mask outside, etc. So perhaps it’s fitting that I also feel ahead of the curve in worrying about what comes next. Alongside more productive work, I’ve been reading a ton on that front over the past few weeks. And while the deep dive has been fascinating, you can save hours of your life by just skimming this Ezra Klein article summarizing the best paths forward for booting back up our country.

Concerningly, we don’t seem to be moving towards any of those solutions. Indeed, we don’t really seem to be doing anything at all, aside from hunkering down, flattening the proverbial curve, and waiting.

But while social distancing is a crucial preparatory step for any decent solution, it’s not a solution in and of itself. It buys time, but that only helps if we use that time to make progress towards some subsequent steps, whether hugely ramped up testing, technology-assisted contact tracing, or whatever else. In the absence of any of those, we can stay home for months, but the pandemic is likely to come roaring back whenever we finally emerge.

In the absence of Federal leadership, private companies are stepping up, and various localities seem to be trying to piece together solutions of their own. But it’s hard to imagine any of those working without the reach, resources, and scale of a national, government-led push. At this point, I see zero sign of that happening, and I don’t have much hope that’s about to change anytime soon.

So, while I’m not sure how long this is all going to last, nor do I have any clear sense of what’s coming next, I’m not feeling optimistic, even if case numbers seem to be plausibly plateauing. I’m making life plans around the assumption that we’ll be in some degree of Coronavirus disaster for at least the next year. Buckle up.

April 10, 2020

(Pass)Over It

Last night, Jess and I made the best of things, setting up a seder for just the two of us on our living room floor:

seder

Though we had longer haggadot, and even some shorter ones, yesterday morning my mother sent along a Coronavirus-updated version of Shoshana Silberman’s A Family Haggadah, which we had used in my childhood.  And, somehow, that seemed like the right choice.

So, occasionally bolstering with prayers (like birkat hamazon) and songs (whether chad gadya, or ‘Take Us Out of Egypt” [to the tune of “Take Me Out To The Ball Game”]) and readings pulled from other books, we made our way through at a moderate pace, stopping to round up the ceremonial items I’d forgotten to bring out initially, or to pull various items out of the oven, or to go off on weird conversational tangents that had nothing to do with Passover at all until we remembered what we were doing and circled back to the seder.

We opted against opening our hall door for Elijah, singing out the open window instead.  And, though uniformly delicious, our menu was a bit less than traditional, working with the abridged ingredients we’d actually been able to round up.  Still, all in, I’d call it a great success.

We’re repeating tonight, this time with my parents (and possibly other family members?) on Zoom. And, yes, l’shana haba’ah and everything.  But, honestly, even in the midst of Coronavirus and lockdown and whatever else, I’d say this year, right here, is already pretty excellent, too.

April 9, 2020

Undelivered

I suppose it was fortuitous that I was having moral angst about the Shipt grocery order I managed to put in two days ago.  Because, after it was delayed one hour at a time for more than twelve hours running, Shipt eventually just canceled entirely.  So, yesterday, Jess and I strapped on our PPE, and headed to Whole Foods for a gigantic grocery stock-up.  Fortunately, the shelves were surprisingly fully stocked, and we had brought along a rolling grocery cart, my large backpack, and several giant IKEA bags.  The half-mile walk home was a bit of an ordeal, but I’m now at least feeling better about the state of our pantry, and my ability to pull together ‘real’ Passover seders tonight and tomorrow.  The remaining issue, however, is produce: while, each week, we’ve carefully plotted out our menus to waste as little as possible, and to stagger dishes by the shelf-life of ingredients, after five or six days, we’re inevitably down to just potatoes and onions.

So, I was very happy to discover this list on Eater.com, of restaurant suppliers now delivering directly to consumers.  Unlike pre-existing grocery delivery services, all these still seem to have plenty of excess capacity.  And, also unlike pre-existing grocery delivery services, I can actually feel good about ordering from them; doing so would be a great way to support the New York restaurant infrastructure.  Will post with a review / walk-through of my experience if I manage to wedge in an order at the start of next week as hoped.

April 8, 2020