Believe it or not but we, the people across the world have been forced to maintain social distancing and most of us are staying home without much choice. Although we always enjoy the company of family and long to get enough time with them, we never imagined to get into such a situation, where too much availability for each other in the family can get stressful sometimes. Maybe, we are missing to get missed, we are probably missing that personal space? Someone has rightly said, “We always want to work from home but never asked for so much work from home”.
Being a social creature and then getting confined to the four walls, sometimes get to the nerves. However, when we do not have a choice to change the situation around, the question arises how to adapt? I would say create a change, a positive change in you and your surroundings.
We can utilise our pandemic time productively in the following ways, without stepping out of our homes:
1. Learn one new technical skill – You don’t need to be a perfectionist or a subject matter expert but learning a new skill will keep your mind fresh and keep you motivated. This is the best way to manage this stressful time.
2. Join a reading challenge on Goodreads. Set reading goals , it does not matter how small this goal is. Go for it! You can track a reading target on Goodreads and connect to many like minded readers. You can read a book of a genre of your taste.
3. Get into someone else’s shoe. Try to understand what your spouse or parents do during the day. What is their skill set? Learn and spend some time with them to understand their pain area and success story. This will help you to understand someone else’s perspective.
4. Make a note and organise your work. Prepare a to-do list for the next day. Keep a track of all those minor activities like insurance premium payment, electricity bill payment, Internet payment etc so that you don’t miss anything important. Cultivate this habit which is extremely important to lead a disciplined life.
5. Workout at home – Even if you hate doing work out, it’s important to do some light exercise or yoga during this time. You can refer to any yoga tutorials or exercise on YouTube. It’s the best way to get relief from stress and it keeps your nerves calm. It will also build your immunity.
6. Learn cooking – You know the best part to learn cooking is that you are always more independent than most of those who hate even preparing tea or cooking Maggi noodles. Believe me if you love food you will love cooking and pampering your taste buds.
7. Help the needy – Extend your support to those who are struggling during this pandemic time. You can support them financially and emotionally.
8. Be active socially – Be in touch with your loved ones through frequent calls, messages and video chat. Stay connected. Share your thoughts with them and speak out.
9. Keep your surroundings clean – This could be a most boring suggestion but it’s very important to keep ourselves and surroundings clean and stay away from getting infected. This is the utmost need of the hour. If you still feel uninterested repeat the mantra, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness”.
10. Make a plan for the future. Discuss and make a plan to travel or a plan for your professional growth or something like that which you can do as soon as things get normal.
Remember, we have to maintain social-distancing and fight COVID-19 with best of our capacity.
Cheers!
Subrat Saurabh
Writing - A never ending journey 