Staying at home is the new going out, while we’re all in Cov-isolation. As a Freelancer, I’ve pretty much spent the last six years sat at home, occasionally emerging for conventions (not anymore though, for a while anyways) so for what it’s worth, here’s a few tips on staying sane when you have to spend most of your time trapped indoors.
I say a few tips. One tip –
Compartmentalise your day.
Split your day into manageable chunks. You don’t necessarily have to get bogged down with an hourly schedule, but don’t do the same thing for long periods of time, say more than a few hours. Ever. Not working, not watching TV, not surfing the internet, not snacking, not video gaming and definitely not rocking back and forth in a foetal position in the corner worrying.
It’s so easy to just sit on the sofa and multiscreen, watch the news, swipe through social media. All. Day. Long. This way madness lies. The internet is a wonderful thing, but when you are staying at home all of the time, it’s just as important to disconnect as it is to connect.
Compartmentalising works if you're working from home, or just stuck at home. And I’m not saying you can’t work most of the day if you need to, but take a good long break and do something completely removed in between the chunks of work. General advice seems to be taking a 15 minute break every 90 minutes. Ignore that, if you want an hour's break, or a two hour break to watch a movie, commit to it and do it, you'll be more productive when you do go back to work, and you're your own boss, so your boss isn't going to mind.
Think of some things you enjoy, or some new things you want to try, write them down in a list, stick it on the fridge, and concentrate on doing them. One at a time. Just doing them and nothing else.
Focus on the moment.
Here’s a few obvious suggestions to get you going-
Reading. (right there there’s a whole bunch of subsets- fact, fiction, comics, poetry, I’m not counting the bitesize internet memeverse, read something on paper if you can)
Writing (see previous subsets, you could even start a blog.).
Listening to music.
Making music.
Organising your belongings.
Decorating.
Looking through old photos.
Making a scrapbook.
Watching the birds.
Learning a new skill.
Talking to a friend on the phone.
Talking to the people you live with.
Talking to someone you haven’t contacted in while.
Talking to yourself.
Exercising.
Gardening (you can do indoor gardening too, make some potted plants).
Drawing.
Painting.
Doing a puzzle – Jigsaw, Crossword, Sudoku, whatever.
Baking.
Cleaning up the mess you made baking.
Throwing away the thing you baked when you realise it's inedible.
Playing a board game.
Making a list of things you’d really like to do when you finally can leave the house.
But whatever you do. Commit to it. Just do that and if possible remove any other distractions.
They don't even all have to be things you enjoy. Washing the dishes. Vacuuming. Cleaning. Slip them into your list and treat them the same way.
If you’re going to compartmentalise, take positive, definite steps to make yourself do it. Force your hand. If it’s not online, then leave your phone/laptop in another room. Ignore notifications. Move around the house, take yourself to a new space. Go in the garden (if you have one) to read, in the box room to exercise or in a cupboard to talk to yourself. Isolate the one activity you have decided to do, and just do that.
There you go. Nothing ground-breaking, but if you’re not used to spending all your time at home, then spending it all sat down on your phone is not healthy. It might sound great, but after a week you'll be miserable. Don’t do it. Compartmentalise.
Turn off, tune in
If you're really struggling with the enormity of things. Try turning the internet off for a whole day. Have an internet holiday. I know people who don't have the internet, and on the whole, they seem a lot happier right now, ignorance can be bliss. turn it back on though, so you can do essential things like read my blog or buy a copy of The Ramifications of Felix.
It also helps if you live with people whose company you actually enjoy. And I do. So, I’m going to follow my own advice now, turn off my devices and watch a movie with my wife.
Stay safe, stay healthy, stay home.
