Singapore will be starting a one-month circuit breaker (in other words, a lockdown) and as I prepare to stay in, I found these three posts/articles to be helpful.
Boundaries at Home (@SitWithWhit – Instagram)
For my family, staying at home comes with a heavily reduced workload since our work is tied to a factory. So we’re not very distracted during the day, which means that it’s even easier than ever to get on each other’s nerves. These suggestions on different boundaries we can set was something that got me thinking on how to make the extended stay at home more pleasant.
Maintaining Mental and Physical Health during COVID-19 (Psychology Today)
I thought that this article was a good refresher on things we should be doing right now, given the general mood of anxiety world wide. It’s stuff that I’ve heard before but the thing is, I need to hear things many times before I put it into practice. For something a bit more detailed, this article on How to Handle Excessive Worry Related to COVID-19 is also a good read.
Making Time for Rest and Work
It’s taken some time but I’ve settled into a routine using time boxing (a strategy from Indistractible by Nir Eyal) and it’s helped my weekdays feel a lot less purposeless. I’m writing, I’m studying, I’m exercising, it’s basically the life that I dream of when I’m at work.
As I was getting into the swing of things, I found Stop Trying to Be Productive (NY Times Article). It was a good reminder that I should not be applying my schedule to all seven days of the week. I’m used to having to work harder on writing and blogging on the weekends because those used to be my only free days, but now that I’m doing all that on the weekdays as well, I can afford to take the weekends off! So I did and it feels great!
I hope everyone is doing okay staying inside and social distancing! It’s been really weird cancelling all my dinners with friends to catch up (and playing on my fears that they were too happy to cancel because they didn’t want to talk to me rather than them being socially responsible) but I am making the effort to stay mentally and physically healthy. It’s hard but together, we can flatten the curve.
Great advice, and happy to hear that you’ve found a routine that works well for you! In Michigan, we’re entering our third stay-at-home week; it helps that the weather is getting nice so we can get outside and walk, at a distance from each other of course.
Going outside would be good! I never understood the appeal of walks until now :p
I’m glad you are finding ways to manage and stay sane! I don’t have a lot of people living in my house so I don’t have to set boundaries with others, but I have had to do schedules for myself. I’m also able to work from home and I have been working on using my office space only for work and staying out of there the rest of the time. Its been really helpful!
It must be nice to have a dedicated office space! I’m glad you can compartmentalize like that!
You offer some good advice and links here, Eustacia. My anxiety level has been extremely high–panic attacks, crying fits, all of it. I am still struggling, but have been doing better this week. I will be glad when this is all over and we can get back to some semblance of normal. Stay safe and well.
I normally love staying at home but this is so much harder than expected! I hope some of the tips in the links can help, Wendy. Sending you and your family lots of hugs and support!