It’s week four of the Coronavirus lockdown here in the UK. I’m sitting in my garden in glorious sunshine. Aside from the busy chatter of many birds and the distant drone of lawnmowers and strimmers it’s very quiet. To be honest though, for me it’s pretty much situation normal. I’ve been working from home now for over six years. I have to say I’m finding a lot of the “lockdown madness”, I’m seeing a little hard to understand.
I’m sure this situation must be hellish for some – and I sympathise with them. I’m also pretty sure that a lot of people are loving it and might want to continue with a work from home lifestyle after the corvid 19 virus lockdown has passed. If you are one of those people I have some ideas and resources to share that will help you do it.
I should frame my situation first as I’m aware this won’t be practical – right now at least – for everyone. If you are locked down in an apartment with a young family for example you probably have enough on your hands and limited access to the outside world. But lockdown won’t last forever.
Your Rainy Day Has Come
After being made redundant in my late forties I started an online business. I’ve written about this in detail elsewhere so won’t do that in this post. Suffice to say it enabled me and my partner to move from a Glasgow apartment to the rural western coast of Scotland.
I work from home (or anywhere I choose really) and she is a driving instructor. We have no kids. By developing several properties over the years we have managed to buy a nice 3 bed home here with a big garden and have a decent buffer of savings. I appreciate that we are in fortunate situation but we have worked our butts off to get here.
When the lockdown was announced it basically stopped my partner’s business dead in its tracks. Hopefully it’ll recover as soon as she is able to get back to work. The government’s support package will pay her a decent portion of her lost revenue at the end of June (it’s April now). But our savings make us ineligible for benefits till then. The savings she will make on fuel and other expenses will redress some of the balance so all in all not so bad.
On the other hand, my business is not really affected. If anything I’m expecting a boost in sales with everyone now spending so much more time online. In fact I sell online education products which teach people how to create digital businesses like mine. More of that later.
Taking Advantage of “The Pause”
So if you find yourself in a similar situation to us ie. With no immediate financial concerns and an extended period of time where all you basically have to do is stay at home. You are actually in an incredibly good place to prepare yourself for what is inevitably coming our way post corona – a massive global recession.
The last global recession in 2008/10 cost me my job. It didn’t however, affect the digital economy which has actually grown in leaps and bounds. The traditional economy meanwhile continues to flail from one recession to the next with or without pandemics like Covid19.
I’m not alone in thinking that this trend will continue but at a faster pace when we emerge from lockdown. Surviving traditional businesses will see the savings they’ve made with staff working from home. The workers themselves will want to continue working from home. If the current employer cant offer that, they’ll look elsewhere.
There are other advantages we have seen from social distancing and lockdown. In many parts of the world pollution has massively decreased. Wildlife is reappearing in places it had long deserted. In short lockdown and working from home seem to be good things all round.
Prepare For The Inevitable
I certainly wouldn’t recommend starting a traditional business in a post Corona world. The Internet, automation and artificial intelligence have ready made bricks and mortar business a risky proposition. Months of lockdown will be the final nail in the coffin for many industries. If you want any kind of long term security and a work from home income you need to build it in the digital world.
I did promise to share some valuable resources with you so here they come. I really only started to get traction in the internet business world when I found the right education and the right mentors. This saved me a huge amount of time and money in the long run.
The platform I found also provides all of the tools, components and support that modern online business models require. The link below will take you to a web page where you’ll see a video by co-founder Stuart Ross. In it he reveals an incredible package of resources he has just released specifically for this situation.
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