The crazy COVID situation has taught us many important lessons about negotiation—lessons that should make life negotiable whenever it returns to normal.

But COVID also holds at least one negotiation lesson that can make life negotiable now—one that, taken seriously and implemented immediately, could help us navigate this increasingly trying time: the power of bartering (trading the goods and services we have for the goods and service we need).

Immersed in a monetary economy, many of us scarcely consider bartering. When we need some toilet paper or flour, we pay some money to get them. When someone needs our labor or something else we have or produce, they hopefully pay us. So ingrained is the monetary approach to need satisfaction that even COVID is unlikely to change it soon.

Still, the following five features of the COVID situation do render the monetary approach marginally less relevant and bartering much more powerful than they were mere months ago. Now might be a good time to barter because:

1. Money is scarce: As industries dry up, layoffs set in, and salaries get slashed, many of us will find ourselves with fewer greenbacks in our wallets and bank accounts. So we will obviously need to supply the parties who can meet our needs with something else of value. The goods and services we have, when bartered, offer an alternative means of exchange.
2. Time is plentiful: Just as our bank accounts go empty, so do our calendars. Bereft of at least a few long commutes, unnecessary meetings, and social activities, many of us have at least a little more time on our hands. Whereas the absence of money is a liability, however, the absence of commitments is an asset, as it provides us with the additional free-time to put our diverse talents—from baking, to video-editing, to Etsy selling—to potentially marketable use.
3. It fits with family and community: As most of us spend much more time with our families and communities—and much less in a physical workplace—we need negotiation strategies suited to the setting. Our family members might be offended if we offered to sell them our bread; our neighbors might resent if we offered to rent their garden tools. But anthropological research as well as common sense suggest the bartering is more relational and thus more appropriate as a means of negotiating with family and friends. Fewer family members might get offended if we asked them to teach us video-editing after we shared our bread; fewer neighbors might resent our borrowing their tools if we emphasized they could borrow ours later. Oh, and since it’s more relational and less contentious, bartering may even offer a needed source of social connection.
4. Everything’s under- or over-supplied: As we all know, many traditional sources of TP, PPE, flour, and the like (i.e., stores) have become unreliable. Conversely, those of us who stocked ourselves up may find our shelves overflowing with reams of TP (or whatever else). In that world, where money-accepting stores are unreliable and friendly neighbors with TP deficiencies are cropping up everywhere, bartering may offer an alternative way of matching supply to demand.
5. It’s a better mindset for negotiation: Even if we weren’t living in a world with unreliable stores and widespread TP deficiencies, and even if we weren’t negotiating with friends and family instead of business partners, negotiators of all stripes may perform better when they treat their task as a bartering trade rather than a monetary transaction—even when their task involves money. Indeed, that’s the whole point of my book, The Bartering Mindset. So trying out bartering can make us a better negotiator now, and we might as well use our newfound free-time to give it a try.

In sum, for all the horrible aspects of the COVID situation, it holds some important and potentially helpful lessons about negotiation, few more urgent than the power of bartering. Happy trades to you!