We got you fam! Here’s to staying positive during a pandemic
While many of us bide our time at home and COVID continues to reshape our world, the stresses of quarantine life become more real each day. So we asked our community what tactics, tricks, and tips they have about staying positive and productive.
Creating a routine
Quarantine life can make your days feel like they all blend together. With no outside obligations, we can get stuck in an endless loop of waking up whenever, sleeping whenever, eating erratically and feeling bad about not being productive.
To combat those feelings, routines can help us have things to look forward to, and actions and events our mind can focus on. Try to create a schedule and stick to it.
It doesn’t have to be as rigid as a regular schedule during “normal times” would be, but it can if you’re more comfortable with that. If you’d like to still take it easy, don’t schedule up every hour but rather every 2-3 hrs. This lets you still focus without stressing. Which leads us to our next recommendation.
Setting some goals
One of our members recommended setting a small goal to achieve, like learning new skills, working out, or whatever can give you have something to do. Perhaps having 2-3 small tasks you’d like to complete each day.
This can be household chores like cleaning your room or data organization on your electronic devices like clearing storage space.
Breaking up your big tasks
Try to keep your larger tasks to one or two a day so that you don’t burn out. When focusing on a task, break it up into blocks.
Twenty-five minutes of straight focus, followed by five minutes of getting up, stretching, walking, push-ups, snacking, or whatever floats your boat. Then repeat for the next half hour block. This works best to keep your mind fresh without neglecting your body when you’re working from home especially.
Good slump habits
When you’re working from home, or doing your own specified creative activity like learning a new skill, you can hit slumps. These are pretty low points, where things just don’t seem appealing or interesting.
You might decide it’s time for a break and try to eat or watch something, but more and more entertainment fatigue is catching up with you. Fight that fatigue with some good idle habits.
Jumpstart your mental focus by doing some exercise, even if it’s for five minutes. Or better yet follow some guided meditation or yoga, it can help to have someone telling you what to do during a time where you feel discouraged because you can do anything you want.
Self-care is still key.
Positive content
Meditative audio tracks and yoga can sometimes feel like work when all you need is some boost in morale.
Look up some positive content. Standups on YouTube or fail compilations can help you chuckle a bit and let loose. Stay away from the news, and try to limit your social feed scrolling if it’s very Rona focused to once or twice a day.
Videocall a friend or a family member, you’ve got plenty of time to be alone and they’ll probably be thankful you hit them up too.