Some free-time ? Some ideas !

I live in France so my work were stopped during this Covid-19 crisis. I don't do remote work because you know, the book Remote (by 37signal) were not translated to french (or maybe here big company loves managers and physical employees). So I'm at home, with 8 hours per day available and a limited internet access. What can I do ?

Hack-Covid 🦠

A lot of hackathons are emerging to help medical and emergency services. I can speak a lot about Hacking Health but there so many initiatives (from associations to companies and countries). It's great because you meet some people with various skills and you can work on a new technology.

Start a long-time project 🔧

Do you remember this awesome idea you got years ago ? Now you can try ! We regrets things we didn't try more than bad ideas.
I have Arduino and Micropython board and I didn't do anything with it. So now I'll probably burn out some LEDS and write something about a dream: transform an old (1940) typewriter to an external keyboard for computer (it's an experience for an awesome gift for my sister).

Write 🖊️

I will write a Jitsy tutorial for my family to promote visio-call and probably continue to translate some article on Mozilla Developper Network. Maybe I'll write here an simple introduction to web-certificate because there nothing on MDN. You can write that tutorial you wish you'd had in the past (all the point of view are welcome on complex subject).
It's very important to share knowledge and if you have no idea, you can write the best life lesson for your children or nephews and nieces.

Boring stuff: backup and mails 🧹

You know spending some time to automate today will make you gain some time later.

• Ransomwares are still dangerous, so I decide to seriously work on automated backup and find a solution to simplify backup on temporary connected hard-disk (stored at different places outside my home).
• Delete spam, unsubscribe to some newsletters, remove all attachment... I really love to have a clean mail box. Clean workspace is a good thing.

Learn (Read, talks, MOOCS) 📚

• I started to learn subjects more deeply, I'm very happy to discover this free ebook about cryptography. And I read other paper-book because you know, blue ligth...
• I'm volunteer to many conferences so I miss very interesting talks. Fosdem and Pycon contains so many interesting subjects (but you need a fast internet access and no data limitation). If you are french CNIL published a great MOOC about RGPD. And next you can write a blog post about your new skill.

Starting new habits 🗓️

• When you have a lot of time you can easily allocate some time to a new activity and build an habit (I think it takes 20 occurrences). So I plan one to do Yoga, piano and meditation. And I love to start poping some blog post from my to-read list.
• You can start contributing to something like take one picture per day and publish it on Wikipedia or Unsplash, add content on openstreetmap, learn a new language, etc.

Design (work without computer) 🧶

I draw some sketches for my new desk (not really a desk, something very special). Doing something different from a software is a very interesting task with new constraints and workflow, I definitively recommand it. You can conceive a new board-game, a new cook recipe, a new children activity, an infography on any subject, etc.

Think 🤔

I finish with this point. Viruses are not new, but Covid19 is (sadly) very special. Many things have helped to spread it and we need to think on all problems we are meeting right now and take some time on the causes. We should anticipate remote work, massive usage, learn to be more forward-looking about health problems, find solutions to coordinate people all arround the world, both block viruses and respect privacy, educate people to avoid fake-news. Technology won't solve everything and logic we developped as engineer can be apply to food supply and medical problems, so don't stick to computers, development, AWS and blockchain. When we can help we must help.

Spend time with your friends and family, call them, and take care. 💜

Thank you