We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to retreat into lockdown, work remotely and lose our freedom of movement and everyday routine, including social contact. However, it is at moments like this that we discover more inner strength and resilience than perhaps we thought we had. The team of Manifesto has been working hard and non-stop over these past eight weeks of quarantine, but as you still can imagine we all had plenty of free time to dedicate to ourselves, and this is what we have learned during the lockdown.
Michel Cruz (Founding Partner & Creative Director)
The worst thing for me was not the lockdown per se, but not knowing when it would end. As a business owner, there is the added worry about the economic impact too, but now that we seem to have weathered the worst of the storm and are slowly easing out of lockdown there is every reason to be optimistic.
As for myself, I was lucky to have work to occupy my time, and for the rest used the opportunity to enjoy a slower, less frenetic pace. I probably watched too much television, but while I’m really looking forward to having freedom of movement again, I didn’t miss traffic and stress. I think this strange episode will teach us to cherish the freedom and normal everyday things we perhaps take for granted, and hopefully teach us to balance work and life better.
Jackie Stone (Founding Partner & Business Director)
I am lucky in that I have a purpose-built office space already at home, so it has been relatively easy to settle in and get to work each day—that and being woken up with breakfast in bed every morning!
Being a fairly positive person and comfortable with my home space anyway, apart from the day-to-day workload of Manifesto, I have also dedicated time to becoming more creative and tried my hand at writing for myself—and must say that I’m quite pleased with the results. If we are to be at home for 3.5 months, I want to come out of this enforced lock-down period with something new and exciting to show for it!
Paul Lopez (Digital Marketing Expert)
Coming into the lockdown here in Spain I was not so worried about work discipline because over the years I have often been in jobs where I did actually work from home. I think what I have found the hardest during this phase is the lack of personal interaction. I didn’t realise before how important simply seeing people face to face was. I have since become an expert on Zoom calls and SKYPE, but even though it is live interaction, it is not the same as sitting across the table from someone.
I would say the main things I have learned is that I possibly took the simple, normal aspects of everyday working life for granted. I am very much looking forward to sharing a face-to-face conversation over coffee with my work colleagues again!
Oksana Drutsul (Graphic Designer)
I always thought that I would be terrible at working from home, all the distractions, TV, getting out of bed on time. But as it turns out it wasn’t that bad and I can be proud of my work ethic. By having to work from home 5/7 10-6 it actually helped me to keep my days organised and stick to a routine. Before the lockdown I also regularly went to the gym so this was one of my big worries too, how to stay active and keep in ‘shape’? Luckily for me, or even for a lot of us, YouTube provides millions of home workouts, so in the end I managed to stay active and even discovered some new things like HIT workouts that I became a big fun of. (A funny fact about the whole quarantine is that 5km around our house equals 60 laps). And of course, the most important thing that I miss is interaction with people—now I cannot wait to go back to the office and work closely again with my colleagues.
William Lee (Intern)
As a fairly introverted person, happy in my own company, I thought that being in lockdown would be a piece of cake. However, it turns out that I actually miss the human, face-to-face interaction with people, friends and family. It has made me realise how important my friends and family actually are and that we shouldn’t take things for granted. Also, I have come to realise how crucial routine is in my life. Even though I have been working well from home, having that set office schedule allowed me to have a clearer connect and disconnect with the job. Getting out of bed 5 minutes before work isn’t as great as it may sound.
As you can see from the comments of our team, the biggest single thing that we miss is being able to be around family, friends, colleagues and of course our clients. We are looking forward to being back to open our office doors for you.
