What is life like during the pandemic? I am privileged enough to have a home, food and essentials, the ability to wash and dry our clothes, plenty of space for social distancing, and my family all in one place. The experience of single parents, high-risk people, and those without housing and food stability is drastically different than mine. With respect for the experience of others, I share these 20 thoughts about mine. 

1. We stayed home before it was ordered because we could. It is important to remember that we are all part of the same herd, and we all need to protect the herd.
2. I like being at home “stuck” with my wife and kids during the pandemic. 
3. Will working from home help men see how hard it is for women to balance priorities between work and family? For heterosexual couples, here they are sitting side by side at the dining room table or in the home office working. When they are sitting at the same table and the woman in the partnership is constantly interrupted to take care of their children, it has to be harder for the man in that partnership to sit there and keep working. Right? If this changes, it would go a long way towards gender equality.
4. Cooking without being rushed is fun! Yesterday, I made a fancy pasta lunch and created a recipe for a teriyaki pineapple pork tenderloin for dinner. Both meals were delicious.
5. I am teaching my kids how to clean, not just tidy. We are fortunate enough to have people who clean our house, but they need to stay home, too. This means that in addition to the kids’ usual routine of doing the dishes, wiping down the table and sweeping after meals, they are tasked with cleaning their bathroom and bedrooms. I created a checklist for each room and talked them through what to use and how to do it. I should have done this much earlier, but like I said, we are privileged not to have to do these things ourselves. They need to know how to scrub the shower and clean a toilet as they join the world. It took me years of working and doing these things myself before I could afford to hire someone to do them for me. I consider this a positive of the crisis – even if they do not. And, even though I have to clean my own toilet. 
6. Following a schedule is really important to keep the kids and myself moving throughout the day. 
7. Will men and women share the domestic work more evenly since they are all home? Again, both partners are home. The man must see that the woman is cleaning their house, washing their clothes, sweeping their floors, cooking and doing the dishes for their meals. They are both at home together – no work functions, extended hours, or business travel to mask the imbalance – he must notice. Hopefully, he will take action. What a wonderful outcome this would be.
8. Being inside these four walls, I have noticed they all need to be painted.
9. If this is hard for families with two parents, just imagine how hard it is for single parents.
10. No matter how many Oreos and Pringles we stock, we keep running out!
11. It is wonderful to not be constantly rushing to a sporting event, birthday party, work function, or running endless errands. Not that I don’t enjoy all those things, I do. But just being home is way more fun than I realized. Why do we overschedule ourselves and our kids so much?
12. I bought a compost bin many months ago but never took the time to start composting until now. I read a book about it but got overwhelmed and then there were so many excuses not to start. Luckily, a friend broke it down for me and last week, removed from my ignorance and all those excuses, I dug the kitchen compost pail out from the depths of the cabinet it was stuffed into unopened and started collecting kitchen materials. At the end of the week, I grabbed my full kitchen pail and a bag of shredded paper and headed for the bin outside.  Only time will tell if I did it right. 
13. Please consider helping a neighbor who is elderly or immune-compromised with a grocery or pharmacy run.
14. Our Nespresso machine and Soda Stream were great investments, as were the hair clippers and super shaver. 
15. All that money you are saving on daily Starbucks, 7-11, and dining out can be put to fantastic use if you donate even a little of it to your local food bank, homeless shelter, red cross or a local charity helping provide PPE (personal protective equipment) and medical supplies.
16. I need a green screen and a better webcam.
17. Life during the pandemic is hard. So, it is more important than ever to be kind to yourself and others. This crisis is taking a huge emotional toll on all of us (to say nothing of the grief and loss, and the economic costs and fears). As a society, and more locally, as companies and families, we need to remember this. People react to this toll in different ways, and there is no one right way. That is why kindness is absolutely essential. You don’t know if the person you are on a Zoom call with just finished crying or is just barely holding it together until the call is over.
18. We have more books to read, games to play, puzzles to do, and movies to watch than I realized.
19. I don’t think the world will ever return to business as usual. Life during the pandemic has changed us forever. All of the supervisors and managers who thought their teams could never work remotely are experiencing remote work. For many of those teams it will be a relatively smooth transition. I think this will cause companies to rethink expensive headquarters and restrictive attendance policies. This crisis will help Gen Xers and Boomers realize what Millennials and beyond already know: freedom to work from anywhere is something to be prized – and it can be good for business.
20. You can never have enough patience or kindness. Or Pringles.

I am certain there are more learnings to come as we move further into life with the pandemic. Have you experienced any of these same things? What would you put on your list?