Staying Connected During A Crisis

A crisis makes you rethink life. It makes you reconsider what’s important and what is not.

The COVID-19 crisis has done this for me. With the shelter-at-home and social distancing policies, connections can become a hard thing to maintain during a crisis.

I’ve realized I enjoy spending time with people (I’m an extrovert, after all!). I enjoy changing up my routine. And I enjoy connecting with people.

In the last couple of years, my connection game has fallen by the wayside. I used to connect with 20-30 people on a regular basis through email, phone calls, texts, and blog comments. As the years progressed, I began to slack in my connections other than a few, select people.

two hands slipping apart

Photo by Toa Heftiba

This crisis has kickstarted my desire to be connected with other people. In all honesty, I think I’ve been more connected in the last month and a half than I have in the last 3 years. It’s been great.

But, how do you stay connected during a crisis? Especially one that encourages social distancing.

We live in a wonderful time. It allows us to stay connected without being physically present.

In today’s article, we’re going to look at a few ways you can stay connected with your team, your family, and your friends.

Staying Connected During A Crisis

Connection is crucial to the human experience. We crave connection. We long for it. And we thrive when we’re connected.

A crisis can stop the connections we’d previously formed. Or it can make us find new ways to connect.

You can stay connected during a crisis by:

Creating a Slack or Discord channel:

Slack and Discord both offer a great resource for creating a small community with a group of people you know. My band of brothers and I use Discord to speak with each other every Friday to talk about our lives and what’s happened. We also use their rooms to send messages to each other throughout the week. Slack offers similar options.

Both are great for staying connected during a crisis. Use one of these tools to touch base regularly with those you care about.

Call or text:

We carry our phones with us everywhere we go. We use our phones to send emails, check our websites, and more. What don’t we use our cell phones for these days? Staying connected via phone calls and texts!

You can change this. You can pull your phone out of your pocket and dial (gasp) a number. Your friend or coworker will pickup and you can have a conversation!

These are great for connecting while you’re on the go. You can call while driving to or from the office. You can text when you have a free moment and don’t need an immediate response.

These two ways of staying connected are great!

Zoom, Skype, or Google Hangouts:

The technological landscape has changed when it comes to staying connected online. You have so many options of having a video conference with people that the options are overwhelming. My three go-to’s are Zoom, Skype, and Google Hangouts.

We use Zoom for our church meetings and Basecamp connections. We can easily connect with a large group of people and share our stories.

Skype and Google Hangouts have been better for connecting with friends and family. You can easily hop on a Skype or Google Hangout and see everyone together.

It’s a great feeling!

Send an Email or Letter:

Whoa, talk about going old school but I really like these options. Let’s first discuss email.

Emails are simple to send and are received almost instantly. When the COVID-19 pandemic began to become serious, I thought of the people I would want to email and touch base with. I reached out to them via email and let them know I was thinking of them.

Doing so was simple. It also provided a big impact in connection. My email to these people let them know I was thinking of them.

Now, you can take it a step farther with an older school of communication: The handwritten letter.

Handwritten letters in the mail are amazing. They show someone thought of you and took the time to put pen to paper. Typing is easy. Writing an actual letter, that’s harder and requires more time.

Use either of these two methods to stay connected during a crisis.

Don’t let a crisis disconnect you from those that are important in your life or from your team. We need to stay connected during a crisis more than ever before.

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