So we’re now in official lockdown, and only at the beginning of it. Day 4 and if you’re not a key worker, you may already be starting to get a bit stir crazy.
Working from home, having limits on leaving the house, having your children at home full time, and all of the other new realities are forcing us to create new routines and habits – whether we acknowledge that or not. It’s better to get on top of these at this early stage, before you’ve developed new negative habits without realising.
With holidays, festivals, parties, weddings and other social occasions being cancelled people are likely to lose motivation with their goals, but this is really not the time for that: right now those goals are more important than ever. Having a goal gives you something to keep working towards, keeps your brain active and engaged, and is something positive to focus some energy towards during this uncertain time.
Whether your goals are health & fitness related, learning a new skill or language, working on your house or making more time for your friends and family – this is the perfect time to do all of these things. If you find yourself working from home at the moment, you probably have a lot of extra time: you aren’t commuting to work, you aren’t going to get coffee and chat multiple times per day, you aren’t wasting time in supermarkets daily, and your probably not browsing online shopping – because do we really need much at the moment?
With that extra time in mind, and acknowledging the need to set up some good habits/routine from home, here’s our top tips for making the most of the current situation:
1) Have a morning routine – wake up at the same time you would if you were going to work. You may not have the commute anymore but you can use this time to go for a good walk, get a home workout done, do some stretches, read a few pages of a book, listen to a podcast or audiobook, write your to do list, or spend some time with the family before work. Waking up, making your bed, and doing something positive for yourself, or working towards your goals, is a great way to set up your day.
2) Write a to do list – whether you do this first thing in the morning or at the end of each day, if you give yourself some boxes to tick this is a great way of setting up some new habits. This isn’t just a work to do list either, this is everything – including your habits. Write in the time you’re going to get up, the stretches/exercise or steps you’re going to do, write in the times you’re going to eat your meals, put in the time you’re going to set aside to work on your personal goals, get it all down. The sense of achievement from ticking those little things off, as well as your work tasks, is huge and will keep you doing them.
3) Keep moving – being at home all day it can be super easy to move very little. Setting a step goal and trying to achieve it, or giving yourself 5 minutes of every hour to get up and walk around the house, garden, or do some bodyweight exercises is a great way to keep on top of this. There are 1000s of home workouts online for free right now so there’s very little excuse for not knowing what to do, and if you do know what you’re doing then there’s really no excuse.
4) Get a little extra sleep – there’s really not a lot to stay up late for right now and good night sleep can help with stress, hunger levels and mood. This is an unprecedented time, take advantage of these small positives.
While there’s not a lot we can’t control right now, we can control what we do with the time we have under the circumstances that we’re in. If you look back at the end of this on wasted time spend at home watching Netflix, we promise you’ll really not enjoy the conversations you have with the people who decided to do what they could to achieve something instead. Your goals really have never been more important, for your mind if nothing else.
