How many of you have ever said: “I am so busy! I wish everything would just pause and let me catch up!” I know I have said that on many occasions. Due to the Corona, or Covid-19 virus many of us are in a situation when our normal routine has been disrupted. It could be that our customers are no longer available to meet with us or there is a reduced demand for our product or service.
My wife and I enjoy going on cruises and I am sad to see how that industry is being impacted. I have to think that every cruise line is taking advantage of this downtime to do their routine maintenance and annual refurbishment that each ship goes through. I would even bet that they accelerate any major overhauls that may have been scheduled for later this year. That way they can get this work done and not have to take their ships out of operation once the virus clears and they get back into business.
We need to take the same approach to our work.
I realize this is a stressful situation for many of us, especially if our paycheck is being affected. Rather than being stressed and waste this time, we can use these days to do things we always wish we had time to complete. Here are a few ideas that may be a good use of your time during this unusual period.
- Review your list of customers. Clean up duplicates and update your contacts at each company. Spend time adding notes in your Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system so the information will be more valuable when you resume normal operations.
- Update your process documentation or create process documents if you have never done so.
- Complete online training on a topic that will benefit your career.
- Spend time with your team to create your strategic plan for the coming year.
- Read some books on a topic that interests you, especially if it will enhance your personal or professional skills.
- Work on your marketing materials, including writing articles to publish or updating your corporate website.
- Reach out to your customers to see how they are doing and ask if there is anything you can do to help them get through this challenging time.
- Offer to help others in your company who may be experiencing a rise in demand for their time.
- Improve your new hire on-boarding process, including updating quick reference guides and other documents that will help a new team member come up to speed.
- If you are in leadership, complete, or at least start, your personnel reviews, even if they are not due for a few months.
Everyone is hopeful that this virus will be controlled soon, and we can get back to our lives as we knew them before the Corona Virus. Until then, make the most of your time so you are prepared to hit the ground running when the starting gun at the race goes off.