Keep Good Daily Cycle with Cyclying

Hello, I’m Ken Yoshida. I’m working as a Project Manager in FinTech company.

Like many of you I’m working from home, WFH, for more than one month. During the WFH time I tried to keep my routine and make my daily cycle healthy not only with my body also in my mind. Here is my tip for WFH.

My daily routine: Commute

In WFH we can cut commuting time. As you may already know here in Japan the daily train commute normally takes more than one hour in average and we have to spend time in the hell of the packed trains in Tokyo every morning and evening.

Initially I enjoyed the spare time in the morning instead of the useless and risky communing time, and kept sleep long or had a long breakfast until 10AM. For the evening time I could take a dinner with my family at 7PM. (I was normally taking a dinner after 10PM before WFH.)

After taking WFH more than one month, however, I realized I couldn’t start my work well in the morning. Even at the breakfast I was opening MacBook on the dining table, and checking news, emails, Slack, Works, SNS and on and on… So I didn’t have a good chance to clearly start my work in the morning. Also at the lunch time or in the evening I couldn’t switch my mind from work mode to private mode. Sometime I was still frustrated with work related things in my mind and couldn’t enjoy dinner with my family.

  So that’s why I decided to resume “commuting” even in WFH.

I had an indoor cycling trainer (like a picture below) but I didn’t use much before. So I set it up again with the most recent technologies. (“Zwift”, virtual cycling trainer, and “Smart Roller” are keys for the effective indoor cycling.)

Here is my way to virtually commute at home:

When I come into my room at 9AM I should say “Itte Kimasu/行ってきます！” (I’m going to work!), and ride on the bike for 30 minutes. Zwift (zwift.com) is a good iPad or Smartphone app to do cycling in the virtual world (using real maps like in NYC, London, or Switzerland). Furthermore you can change the cycling speed in accordance with your real speed and heart rate on the trainer, so you can feel it like a real cycling or race. I use a couple of big fans to feel breeze like outdoor cycling.

After the evening work around 7PM I commute back again with the indoor trainer. After the 30 minutes commute/training I totally soak in sweat. So I take a shower and come back to the living room with saying “Tadaima/ただいま！” (“I’m home!”). Then I can take a good dinner after the workout and change my mind to private totally. Of course I have a good reason to take “Kanpai/乾杯！/Cheers!” with beer for the reward to myself!

I have additional tips to help WFH easier. After finishing the morning workout the training data is connected to Strava, Sporting SNS, and in the same time it automatically sends a message to Slack like “I come to work/業務開始！”.  After the evening exercise it’s sent as “My work is done for today/業務終了！” in Slack. Also I’m forwarding the exercise data to LINE and check my daily activity on LINE!

Another good point is that we can get and go together in Zwift virtual race. So if you are interested in the indoor cycling let’s ride together in the virtual NYC or London!

We can stay close even stay at home!

Some good evening time I bring my bike on the room balcony and do cycling outside at home.

My daily routine is specifically for the bike virtual commute but you can do this with something else: Morning Yoga, Evening Squat, or Short reading between work and home. I hope you can switch your mode from business to private easily.

So this is my tip for WFH. I can keep my good daily Cycle with Cycling commute!

 

Thank you,

Ken