Altec

My Daily Routine – Reinvented!


April 9, 2020 – Don Howren, President and COO

So here I am at home.  Like most of you.  Watching reports on the daily news about how we all can help slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus by continuing to practice social distancing and adhering to stay-at-home orders.  I’ve only left the house once this week, and luckily I have enough toilet paper and paper towels for at least a month!

Our new reality is that this ever-changing world is affecting both our personal and professional lives on a daily basis. The result? My daily routine has been reinvented.  FOR me, not BY me.   

One thing we’ve been focusing on internally at Altec is to ‘control the controllable.’  That means keep doing the things we can control.  Don’t let fear or uncertainty slow your work cadence.  This is precisely when we need to stay focused and work though this – like we’ve done in the past. 

So, here’s the changes I made this week to keep moving forward;

  1. I moved my operations onto the kitchen counter top.  Have you noticed how tricky it is to get your camera at the right height on video conferencing?  So I had to improvise – note the peanut butter pretzel snacks in the above photo!
  2. Microsoft Teams chatter was in full tilt mode early.  In fact, we even held some internal training sessions to set some ground rules.  One thing I did notice was the communication among our staff was brisk and fluid.  That’s a good thing.
  3. I signed up for food delivery service – what the heck, I always wanted to give it a shot.
  4. My ‘getting outside’ activities consisted of cleaning the garage – this did count as exercise.  Oh yeah, I also washed my car.  Truth be told, that’s exercise, too.
  5. I also used this time to donate some clothing to the Salvation Army.  If you’ve been in the industry as long as I have you can chart the timeline of your career by the logo’d shirts you have accumulated.  It was time to let some go. 

As we head into the weekend, my advice would be to try to ‘control the controllable” in your own life.  You don’t have to make big changes but focus on doing a few things to reinvent yourself!