Silver Linings of 2020

As this chaotic year winds down, we took the opportunity to look around and find a few things to appreciate that might not have happened without the pandemic. These are the SoFab silver linings— let us know what you’ve discovered as an unexpected upside to this year.

Spending more time with our pets, and adopting new pets. The crew at SoFab loves cats and dogs and we got to spend much more quality time with them curled up in our laps as we worked on projects for our clients. We love spoiling our pets and spending as much time with them as they can stand.

 

Reconnecting with friends and celebrating true friendships. The pandemic has given our friendships a litmus test—you either care about someone or you don’t. This year has provided us a chance to reconnect and deepen our authentic and real friendships.

 

Tackling projects that have been on the backburner. Despite the lack of rain here in Northern California, those rainy-day projects finally got started, progress was made, and projects were completed. Bookshelves were organized, kitchens were rearranged to be more efficient, tech debt was chipped away at, writing projects got started, art projects got attention, and on and on.

 

Reassessing priorities. There’s nothing quite like a global pandemic to sharpen the senses. We found that we became laser-focused on what was (and what wasn’t) important in our work lives and personal lives.

 

Learning new things. This could probably take up an entire post of its own, but for starters, we took philosophy classes, learned how to meditate and knit, and grew an avocado plant from seed. On the work front, we explored tools for design and email marketing and took the revamped Google Analytics for a spin.

 

Slowing down. We were all forced to take our foot off the accelerator this year and learn how to slow down and enjoy time at home. During the early lockdowns, we enjoyed watching our plants grow, appreciated the house finches singing on our fire escapes, and learned how to have gratitude for small things in our lives.

 

Connecting with the community. One member of our team lives along a newly-designated “Slow Street” in San Francisco and was thrilled to see families take over the street with kids learning how to bicycle and grandparents walking hand-in-hand down the middle of the road. The local community showed up to defend the street from cars by placing their own homemade barriers along the route to keep the street safe, filling the gap left by the city’s lackluster signage.

 

Sailing the bay. If you spend any time with my co-founder, Keyvan, you know he’s a nut about sailing. He got to log hundreds of hours on the bay and enjoy California life to the fullest.

This is a quick list of our unexpected joys during this crazy year. What about you? Drop us a line and let us know how you’ve been pleasantly surprised by 2020.

LET’S MAKE SOMETHING FAB