I wrote this article a year before COVID hit….wow, I thought I was becoming a shut in then……now it just looks like a commentary piece about life in lock down…..
7 Signs That You Might Have Become a Business ‘Shut In’ – Any of us working from home need to heed these warning signs.With more and more of us working from home on a regular basis, new issues are starting to arise that we probably never encountered in the past.
One of those is that we can easily start to get a little cut off from the rest of the world.Having worked from home for many years, I certainly did notice there were a few times when I had to admit that perhaps I needed to get out a little bit more. I was spending way too much time at home and enjoying it just a little too much.
Some of the indicators that I was becoming a “shut in” were more obvious than others, but all lead to the same conclusion. As a service to fellow home based workers I’m going to share my 7 warning signs that I needed to get out a lot more.
If you tick any of these, you may be in trouble. If you tick all of them, it may be too late:
1. It’s been about a week since you had a shower.
2. Your conversations with various pets (including the fish) are getting longer and far more involved.
3. You’re eating food that is several years past its “BEST BY” date because you couldn’t be bothered going out to buy new stuff.
4. You hide when someone knocks on the door and act like no one is home.
5. You ask yourself if you really need to put on pants when you are only going to the drive through for emergency food supplies? (the answer is of course “no”).
6. When a friend comes over (which you begrudgingly allow because they are bringing food or other essential supplies) you notice the look of shock in their eyes when you open the door and they scan you from head to foot.
7. You start developing unusual compulsive and non negotiable behaviour, like making sure all of your spoons are facing north and all of your forks must face south.
OK, now I’m not saying I’ve done all of that stuff (shut up damn you Nemo), or that I’m doing it now…but I do think that we all have to be more aware of some of the signs that we need to get out a lot more.
Once you have that little wake up call, bite the bullet, have a shower, realise just how badly your clothes smell, brush your teeth, whether they need it or not and take your pale skin and sensitive eyes outside in the world. And slowly but surely everything gets back to normal. Consider yourself warned!
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