Hope you are all well during this lockdown. Today I want to share with you the ten things I do every week to stay sane during this time of distancing and despair.
I live in a small student flat and spend my lockdown days working as an intern for a sports marketing agency from home. Additionally, I pursue social media/market analysis, as well as various private projects for university research. Altogether these work activities cover roughly 45 hours per week.
It is easy drowning in one’s work or entering an unhealthy lifestyle while sitting on your room all day. To remain healthy, balanced, and mentally sound, I devoted myself to the following habits and activities:
1. Start with passion
I like to start my quarantine days with breakfast, followed by blog-writing and platform building. Writing and building things that I feel genuinely passionate about always feels like the correct take-off. Life is too short to spend the entire day working on analytics and marketing reports, even while in lockdown.
2. Take regular and varied breaks from work
Allow for a wide variety of breaks; in my case, they are reading, walking, running, fitness, and cleaning. I would have a break after every 45 minutes of working. If I work longer than 45 minutes, I extend the break. Combining activities in one pause works well. I would, for example, walk past the Thames, read from twenty minutes, and call a friend as I walk back.
3. Facetime with friends, family, colleagues, and teachers at least twice a week
Use Facetime, Zoom, Skype, and other telecommunication apps to stay connected to society. On the one hand, these platforms offer the benefit of conference calls which facilitate corporate meetings during the lockdown. On the other hand, I use them as a tool to connect to society. Being able to conversate with family and friends lessen loneliness for me. You can even do a pub quiz with your best mates.
4. Refrain from drinking alcohol on weekdays
It may be tempting in the beginning, but I would not recommend drinking alcohol on weekdays. If I drink, it will solely on Saturday or Sunday. Since we are always at home now, this is the one way to differentiate the weekend from the workweek.
5. Fruit
The daily fruit break is vital for me. I eat two pieces of fruit at 4 pm. It’s is merely a consistent and healthy break from my work.
6. Expand, practice, and improve cooking skills
Developing your culinary capacity is, in my opinion, an opportunity since we spend much time at home these days. Also, I believe cooking should be an exciting aspect of student life anyway. It is part of becoming more independent from your parents.
7. Make sure not to look on the news too often
Keeping abreast of the latest lockdown measures implemented by the government is smart. But in the beginning, I was looking at the news the entire day. Keeping the bingo card of the number of deaths across the world is not beneficial in my experience, mainly because we can’t influence or control these figures at all.
8. Reading before sleeping
Reading helps me relax and thus sleep; I prefer to sleep at least 8 hours so that I can effectively work on my projects. It helps me raising productivity every day.
9. Roommate chats
I live in a house with three other students. We don’t get too close to each other because of the virus. However, in the common spaces, we daily see each other. Having short talks and making sure everyone is doing fine is a beautiful piece of conversation we still have.
10. Build something
No matter what it is. Just start building, designing, drawing, and conceptualizing ideas you never had the time for before. It helps me to stay sane and keeps my mind focused on things that I can control. As these newly built projects progress, you are going to start caring more and more about them. Consequently, investing your time in making your ideas a reality – regardless of the format (digital, physical), and whether it contributes to the COVID-19 climate – suddenly becomes worth your valuable time.
These were the ten things I do to stay sane during the Coronavirus lockdown. Please let me know in the comment box what you are doing to get through this unique time.
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