Life in Lockdown
Four weeks into lockdown, you’re probably ready to lose it at the next article promising tips for work productivity at home. We are too.
Instead we thought we could keep it light ahead of the long weekend and you could get to know our core team better. Get some tips and tricks as we share some of the various activities and resources that we have found helpful during lockdown to keep ourselves sane.
Dr David Rosenstein (Co-Founder)
David has been keeping busy in a lot of different ways – ranging from teaching his young son the basics of archery (but no shooting!), having fun with tabletop roleplaying and board games with family and friends on Discord and studying Zen (Doskuan) with his instructor, online, at the Zen Garland Order. He says card games and board games such as Sushigo and Exploding Kittens have been fun bonding with his wife, when not watching series or running after their two young children. David’s workouts have mainly been HIIT training when he can fit that in, either before his 6 month old daughter wakes in the morning, which is very early, or in-between his various Zoom meetings. David still maintains his private practice, which has moved exclusively to telepsychotherapy, where he is innovating with Virtual Reality and nifty new apps.
David has also taken on the Chef duties at home, for which he says UCook has been a big help.
Mark Drummond (Co-Founder)
Mark has used this time to appreciate being with his family. He has been using a wide range of online resources to keep his kids entertained, such as Google 3D animals, which lets you see animals in 3D augmented reality using your phone, virtual tours done by museums and virtual game drives through the Kruger National Park, and free online Zoom and Youtube classes teaching art and music online. He and some friends have also organised a “Lock down/Dress Up” dress up challenge so that all their kids can get dressed up in different costumes every day and send the pictures to the group. He’s also keeping up with the “older”kids, old business colleagues and friends from varsity through weekly Houseparty App sessions.
Mark also appreciates that his parents are embracing technology that they had previously avoided, such as using Zoom to keep in touch with family through virtual playdates and tea parties or ordering their groceries online. To keep active, his boxing classes have also moved online for at-home training and there are also a number of free online resources to keep both his body and mind active, such as Les Mills (fitness for both young and old) and interesting Coursera e-learning courses.
Simone (Marketing Associate and Research Analyst)
Simone has had to find ways of keeping herself from irritating her cats too much. Cooking has been really useful, especially now that she has the time to make dishes that tend to take a little longer like stews, breads and roasts. Recipes can be found anywhere, but she has specifically enjoyed the content put out by Bon Appetit, which makes good cooking approachable. Her krav maga instructor has also been posting daily workouts on his YouTube channel, which Simone does her best to follow along with.
Masterclass offers a variety of courses taught by experts (and often celebrities in their field). Simone is currently working her way through Neil Gaiman teaching the art of storytelling. For keeping up with friends and family, Discord and an app called SyncPlay have been useful in both having virtual dinners together and watching movies that are synced up.
