BY LANA

They say that “birds of a feather flock together” but for now, we’re only flocking virtually. We’ve been working from home for a few weeks to do our bit to #stopthespread and #flattenthecurve (and hey it seems to be working)! Here’s a little Q&A on how each of us are handling the home environment.

BONNIE

how are you running the creative side of Three Birds from home?

Wow, it’s been a major change for us! My creative team usually work most of the week in the office because what we do is so collaborative and tactile – we need to see our vision boards, feel material samples, compare colours… so it’s amazing how we’ve adapted to not being together. We’re doing everything over Zoom or FaceTime – honestly, I don’t know what we’d do without video calling. We’re using it for all our supplier meetings too and then they send us samples, instead of us popping in as they usually would. The owners of Zoom must be loving life right now!

We’re currently designing Houses 12, 13 and 14 so there’s a lot going on. I’m on calls most of the day, which is the biggest difference to my usual days when most of my interactions are face-to-face.

WHAT DOES your typical day NOW look like?

The first day was a total bun fight! So, after that we decided we needed to get the kids into as much of a routine as possible or it just doesn’t work for us. The three older boys have to be up, showered, dressed and had breakfast by 9am, ready to start their school work. They work through that until lunchtime when Nath will take them outside for some exercise. We’re so lucky where we live. We have loads of room for them to run around and play sport … and there’s nearly enough of them for a small sports team! Little Dodge thinks all his Christmases have come at once with us all at home all day.

In the afternoons the boys come back inside to finish off whatever activities they have left and then it’s free time.

How are you maintaining your sanity with 4 boys and 4 dogs in the house?

At four years old, Dodge is still so innocent and has no idea what’s going on in the outside world. It’s so refreshing to have him to continue on with his funny little jokes and sayings when it all feels a bit doom and gloom. The dogs are a bit like therapy for us all too.

We’re all right into a Netflix show we’re loving called Formula One: Drive to Survive. None of us have ever watched F1 in our lives and now we’re hooked. We’ve got a big puzzle on the go too. The food’s running out really quickly though!

ERIN

how are you managing the worksites from home?

A lot of phone calls is where I’m at at the moment! Working from home is something I’m quite familiar with because I usually split my working week between the office, our jobsites and home. Our worksites are mostly run by our builders, who I’m in contact with daily via the phone, so I only need to be onsite for a meeting and a check in once a week. We’ve got one active job at the moment and another two that are very close to council approval. Council approvals are still going through as usual, with no hiccups yet #touchwood

The main challenge for me in these ever-changing times is that we’re doing lots of reactive work to make sure we’re always on the front foot with all the new restrictions. This includes managing longer lead times and speeding up delivery of materials to make sure they arrive on time, in case of future restrictions. I’m a planner by nature, so this isn’t my normal way of working! Just last week we had a delivery of Parkwood Doors arrive from New Zealand on Friday night at 5pm. Not a usual delivery time but they’re for House 13 and we knew we needed to get them into the country in case international freight slows down thus jeopardising our timeline. The same goes with the Woodcut floorboards coming from Melbourne - we’d rather be safe than sorry and get them to site well in advance, in case of any potential border closures between states.

It’s all new territory for us. We can now only have six trades on site at any time on our large jobsite and we’re putting contingency plans in place in case any of our suppliers can’t fulfil an order due to the new restrictions.

What does your typical day NOW look like?

I’m really just taking it as it comes at the moment (which plays havoc with the planner in me!) …. but I need to be on my toes in case we have to react quickly to a situation or change our plans.

I still do the same core parts of my job each day, like checking in with the jobsite every morning at 7am when the builders arrive, clearing my inbox and checking emails to see if there are any updates from the HIA (Housing Industry Association). I also catch up with my team on the phone and continue to update our clients on progress once or twice a week.

Myself, Lana, Bon, and our CEO, Candice, speak daily to make sure we’re all on the same page and using the most up-to-date information to inform our decisions.

And the home-schooling?

Lucky for me, our three kids are great independent learners and their schools have all provided amazing, comprehensive materials for them to learn from home. I had an all day meeting last week via Zoom and the kids just sat and did their work the whole day by themselves. I know I’m one of the lucky mums at the moment ;-)

Any tips or tricks to keep the boredom at bay?

We make sure we’re getting lots of physical activity. We get out every day as a family and the kids all have their own sports programs from their coaches. We’ve had a few family movie sessions and inducted them to Coach Carter and Boyz in the Hood (I think that one went over their heads!). Board games and puzzles have also been a saviour.

LANA

Moi - HOW AM I Running Three Birds Marketing from Home?

With the construction industry currently deemed an essential service (hopefully it stays that way), it’s kinda business as usual for Three Birds at the moment but we’re scenario planning for events that may arise down the track. None of our digital platforms are affected so we are live 24/7. Nothing has really changed yet in my world except maybe a few less trips to the office and the worksites. I feel more obligated than ever to be giving our audience the content they want during this crisis. We don’t want to ignore the situation but we also don’t want to flood our audience with negative vibes. So right now we’re trying to strike a good balance between acknowledging the seriousness of COVID-19, but with a light-hearted approach, while still giving people the home inspiration we always have. Even though I’m at home, I can continue to create our social content as usual. We have some great apps that make it easy to share and edit content across teams and we can still make videos from home (did you see my fitted sheet folding tutorial ?)

I also spend lots of time on zoom with Sophie #fourthbird as she’s our Digital Manager. She’s always been a work-from-home-gal so she’s got the routine and the “look” down pat. Contrary to most of us mere mortals, Soph’s home office and her home-style remain impeccable, even during this COVID-chaos.

Just last week Soph and I were super busy launching the FREE Reno School module. It takes a whole lot of set up in the backend of our website to do something like that. But with almost 20,000 people signing up - it was worth the effort #stoked.

My WFH daily routine

Pre-COVID, I would get up around 7am, just in time to see my 12yr old daughter leave for high school. Now that she’s moved to “off campus learning” there’s not the same impetus for me get up so early so my new wake up time is around 8am. Why so late? I hear you shout. I’m a hardcore night owl and get some of my best work done at night. I love being awake when most people have gone to bed because I feel like I’m getting ahead while everyone and everything has stopped.

The first thing I do in the morning is check my phone and Twitter before I visit the family in the kitchen (yes I’m the last in the household to wake). Yes Twitter is not a typo - I’ve discovered it as a great source of news and humour. Once we’re all together downstairs, I switch on the TV so we can catch up on the latest COVID-19 news. I even flick to CNN to see what’s going on in the US. Trump gives his daily press conferences at this time …. which are usually more terrifying than the virus itself #dumptrump.

Every morning without fail, my husband Jason whips me up a super healthy smoothie (let me know if you want the recipe!) He’s really into health and wellbeing so he’s more focused than ever on ensuring our family’s immune systems are at their peak during this time. As a rugby league coach, his job is on hold at the moment so he’s able to really help with the kids which allows me to focus on my job. I’m very lucky to have him around right now!

By 9am I’m at my desk, which is where I will pretty much stay until I run out of steam. Jason’s been making me lunch and he’s our designated shopper and coffee runner, to minimise our social contact, so I’m well fed and caffeinated all day. Regarding exercise, my weekly netball games have stopped so I’m going to have to find a way to keep fit and healthy. I haven’t solved that challenge yet.

Home-schooling

It’s a dream actually… until my daughter, Ruby, asks me to help her with long division and then it’s a nightmare! No, in all seriousness, Ruby spends the whole day in her bedroom in her online classroom. And we borrowed a grungy old laptop from a neighbour, for 10-year-old Heath and he’s loving the novelty of having his own computer. He gets everything done before lunchtime (I think I better ask his teacher for more work) and then is free to do other activities. He’s teaching himself to play golf in the backyard at the moment. I’m bracing for the sound of broken glass at any moment.

Oh, and Sunny, the bird, and Befrey, the bunny, - they think this is all just fabulous! They love having us all at home all day. So that’s a silver lining.