I one of the few who default meeting to video on.
If nothing else I'm enjoying demonstrating I can be an effective worker at home.
On the other hand, I'm putting on weight. I'm not listening to as many podcasts. I'm sitting on my arse for very long periods.
With a child in the house to care for (schools and childcare closed), it just doesn't work. And the emotional consequences of not being able to go for a walk don't help either, at least in my case.
I hope this crisis makes more companies support work from home under normal (non-lockdown) circumstances, but most workers and employers that are trying it now for the first time are going to get a very negatively biased sample of how it works.
Let's all be sure to remember this is equivalent to saying:
"I don't have to spend 10% of my life commuting."
It will give you energy(unlock your lymphatic system, improving your circulation, clean your waste) , activate your brain and body(generate activation hormones and oxytocins).
I recommend using the TV so you don't have to think(plan) what you do, just do it.
You can do yoga, you can do zumba, you can do samba or dancing, you can do strength, martial arts, bike, table tennis.
Right now everything is downloadable in torrents, and you can test any good program about any discipline before you decide you want to buy it(once you know you will use it).
I suggest you try for 30 days something different each day and you will find what you like to do and what not.
Once you know what you like, it is a good idea to buy the program so you make a(small) financial commitment that will help you to get used to the routine each day.
Once the routine is set in place, the difficult part will be not following it.
This changes overtime IMO. I've worked from home for years now, initially it's a blessing, in-time it can be a curse.
If you WFH and want to be productive you _must_ learn to plan your day and that usually involved some type of discipline.
If I force myself to go to sleep at midnight, I'm up at eight, no matter what (well, except in sleep disrupting circumstances, like drinking alcohol, no matter how few - I don't do that in the middle of the week anymore).
I think the need for alarm clock is actually a symptom that we live in a culture of sleep deprivation.
I know people who have quite irregular "natural" sleeping periods, and furthermore when they sleep 10-12hrs, they feel ill the whole day. They use the alarm clock to ensure a more regular period, and feel better for it.
If I need more sleep, I let my body sleeping more. Most of the time I don't need it.
In fact I use an alarm clock for working in chunks of 50 minutes, resting 10 minutes. Over time I have a very good idea how the timer is doing without looking at it.
> I've worked from home for years now, initially it's a blessing, in-time it can be a curse.
I had the opposite experience. For me working from home was a curse initially. Over time I have made that a blessing learning lots of different techniques and cultivating them.
But as I am working from home, I am getting more sleep too. I am too waking up without alarm. I dont travel to/from work anymore and therefore it is enough to wake up a bit later. I am also more ok going to sleep sooner, because there is more time for own activities not then it used to be.
There are no hard boundaries preventing your routine from changing into less-focused one over time. E.g. you may get away with a Netflix break in the middle of your work day now, because nobody is looking at what you're doing. And maybe you're susceptible to TV shows, and you'll soon find yourself watching TV shows when you should be working, and then trying to catch up with the work in the evenings or just having your conscience cause you distress. That's one example, maybe you're immune to that, but there could easily be others.
Also on my end, I'm stuck at home with my wife and 11 m.o. kid and, while my wife and I have an agreement that between ~10:00 and 18:00 I am in my office working, it's really hard to resist the urge to help with the kid (especially when she starts crying). It's taking an emotional toll on me. It wasn't that big of a problem before the pandemic, even though I've been WFH for the last ~3 years, because my wife would take the kid for a walk, or arrange playdates with her friend (who's also a mother of similarly-aged child and lives in the apartment building next to ours).
So while technically, you can take a short walk (AFAIR 250 meters from home) and can take your pets and kids out for a walk, whether you actually can do it often depends on the specifics of your particular neighborhood.
They didn’t say they slept in or woke up at varying times - you’ve imagined that - they said they woke up without an alarm clock. That could be at 5am sharp every day for all you know!