By now, we are all, in one way or another, realising the ripple effects caused by the COVID-19 situation.
Measures are constantly being tightened around the world to deal with the current pandemic. Businesses are offering alternative work arrangements to minimise social physical interaction and business contingency plans are being put in place to ensure business carries on as usual.
This effect will inevitably trickle down to affect people on the individual level. Personal daily routines need to be adjusted to fit the requirements set by the local governments. Social distancing is the buzz word around town and nobody really knows when life can go back on as usual.
However, we should not allow COVID-19 or safe distancing measures to ruin the quality of our lives even if we are to stay home as much as possible. That is why we have gathered some tips for you on how to continue leading a productive, healthy and happy life despite the need for self-isolation.
For Productivity: Segmenting Time At Home For Maximum Productivity
It is easy to lose track of time when you’re working from home. There will be different types of distractions that will disrupt your focus while you’re working.
It is important to get work done. It is also impossible to stay focused throughout 8 hours in a day. And one way to ensure you stay focused while doing your work is to segment your time in the day realistically.
Dedicate shorter work-focused durations, such as 1 hour of intensive focus on your task, while absolutely ignoring all distractions from things like push notifications on your phone. Then reward yourself with a short 3-5 minutes of screen time to catch up on your phone apps.
There are many ways to segment your time at home for maximum productivity. You may even throw in other activities into the mix such as house chores or meditation, as you spread your working hours a little longer throughout the day to get more things and obligations done. Come up with a day-to-day schedule that works for you and your attention span and the most important thing is to be realistic with it, so you can actually go through with your plan.
A helpful way to ensure you stay on track with focus is to use available tools and apps that are already out there in the market. Apps can help you set timers to segment your time, block out distracting sites that are not helping your productivity, and track your productivity to find areas of improvement for tomorrow.
For Staying Active: At Home Exercises and Work Outs For Boosting Immunity Against COVID-19
In your day-to-day schedule, you may even want to finally start throwing in that 30 minute daily exercise into your routine. If it has been hard to get into the habit of exercising because of your strict office hours, this work-from-home arrangement could finally be the start of your exercising journey. Besides, it is important to keep your health up in this period to boost your immunity against the COVID-19 disease.
Why would now be a good time to start than any? Take for example, in the time that you take daily to commute to or from work, you can now replace that with a short at-home exercise to either start the day energised, or wind down after a hard day’s work.
After all, one of the things that many successful CEOs do is exercise first thing in the morning before they start their day. It has been scientifically linked to improve cognitive performance in decision-making. As it is often seen as one of the “harder” things to complete in a day, getting over this big hurdle first thing in the morning will keep you motivated to achieve more throughout the rest of the day.
In lieu of the situation, many gyms and fitness gurus all over the world are now offering online classes, both free and paid. ClassPass fitness app platform now offers free digital workout videos on their app for people to follow at home. A quick YouTube search for “At Home Workout” gives you access to plenty of workouts to follow from depending on your specific pace or level of fitness and availability of equipment (hint: you can even use household items as weights!).
Now would be a better time than any to finally start embarking on your exercise journey.
For Wellness: Read That Book You’ve Put Off Reading Since 3 Months Ago, and Check In With Someone To Make Sure They Are Okay
Remember that book you’ve always wanted to read but never seemed to have the time to? Since social distancing means we have less time to spend hanging out with friends outside, now would be the perfect timing to have quiet evenings at home with a book, winding down after a long productive day.
There are many good books to read for different purposes. A good book for well-being can improve your state of mind and thus, your health. Interesting general non-fiction reads about history can feed the interest of any curious minds. Or since we are all unable to travel in this COVID-19 period, we can explore the world through someone else’s experience in their words and photographs.
In today’s times of necessary isolation, it is also important that you check in with your friends and families, especially those who are living alone, to ensure that they are taking care of their own health and well-being too. Social distancing may not sit well with everyone, and it is important to intentionally reach out to one another to show that we are there for each other despite the physical separation and distance.
Tough Times Don’t Last, And Neither Will COVID-19
It is a trying time for the world today. And it is important, even more so now than ever, that we take care of our own personal lives, while ensuring that we do the best we can for our work despite the pandemic situation that’s widely affecting the economy.
It is essential to stay healthy both mentally and physically in order to emerge the situation together as stronger people. Remember that tough times don’t last, tough people do.
StrengthsAsia is a corporate learning and development partner. We partner our Clients throughout Asia to build stronger leaders, stronger managers, and stronger teams together.
Aly is StrengthsAsia’s marketing and communications guru and lead editor. She's over the top inquisitive and everyone in the company knows her as “The Googler” as she practically googles everything. Honestly, we all worry for her… She is also the Principal Trainer for our one of a kind ice cream team building workshops in Asia.