Have you been working hard lately? Or do you feel like you haven’t been working hard enough? Either way, the COVID-19 pandemic has taken a huge toll on us in so many ways, and sometimes, it sadly makes ordinary days more exhausting than they should be. Without us even knowing, we succumb to burnout by crunching extra work hours or suffer from procrastination as a consequence of the lockdown.
If you’re working from home and you think you are suffering from a severe case of cabin fever or work fatigue, don’t lose hope because you’re in for a treat. We have curated just for you a list of seven practical ways you can care for yourself during the ongoing pandemic. Here we go!
1. Reward Yourself: Get Something You Can Use Every Day
You may be thinking that rewarding yourself must go last on the list, as the sweet cherry on top. Well, it has been an endless year into the pandemic and yet you’re still here! Isn’t that a good enough reason to be at the top of the list? It doesn’t matter if you feel undeserving, maybe because you have already been rewarding yourself loads of times recently.
Rewarding yourself is a healthy way of enjoying the fruits of your labor. This “positive reinforcement” you give yourself can help improve your work performance and even serve as a motivation to do better in achieving your goals. With that, if you’re a foodie then splurge and order in from that fancy restaurant. If you follow a TV show or worship a music artist, buy their merch. Rewarding yourself can look like a lot of things, but if you’d like to take the practical route, then spend your money on something that you love and that you can use every day.
Upgrade to a new phone or tablet. For your online meetings, buy that expensive makeup kit you’ve always been eyeing on. Better yet, get a classy Tissot watch to remind you of the value of hard work, and that you are the boss of your own time. If you are looking for a sign to reward yourself, this is it!
2. Schedule Your After-Work Activities
Believe it or not, planning your activities after work will make you feel fulfilled, and even productive, compared to having no plans at all. Regardless if it’s just a mundane activity like watching a movie, catching up on your favorite series, or as simple as cleaning your room. Listing down things you want to do after work, whether they are housework or leisure, will drive away any negative feelings of being unproductive, or from aimless and random spontaneity.
3. Set Work-Life Boundaries
Back in the office, work-life boundaries were usually set since distractions aren’t as visible as they are at home–including the freedom to check our devices anytime we want. The problem with working from home is that we sometimes mix the time for personal life with work. So, what are practical ways to remedy this? Here are some tips.
Do your best to finish everything so you wouldn’t need to cram things outside work hours. Second, eliminate online distractions before you begin your shift. You can do this by making sure to turn off notifications on all social media apps on your devices.
The same practice is equally important after work. When your shift is over, you may turn back on your social media notifications and then turn off work-related ones. That way, when you receive an email or message from your boss or a client, you won’t spend the extra time and energy until the next workday.
4. Find a New Hobby
It’s a no-brainer that hobbies and leisurely activities prevent you from being idle or help keep your mind off of work. It’s practically anything that you’re passionate about–but with the time you have at home, why not try out hobbies you’ve never done before like painting or sketching, building model airplanes, keeping ornamental plants, playing a new musical instrument, or even learning a new language!
In this pandemic, finding a new hobby can be a therapeutic way to express and exercise your inner genius. You’ll never know, you might enjoy it on the first try. On top of the fun, growing into a more well-rounded person is just a cool side-benefit!
5. Send a Random Friend Some Delivery Food
Does the saying “Those who refresh others refresh themselves” sound familiar? For some reason, there’s psychological wisdom behind this logic. When you send someone a picnic basket, a love gift, or some special delivery food, not only will the recipient feel happy–but so will you! Sending a random friend such a surprise will produce feel-good hormones in your body called endorphins, and most of all–it will help you build stronger relationships with others amidst the pandemic.
6. Teleparty: Make Time for Friends and Family
Now that you’re probably still in lockdown, there’s no excuse for you not to make time for friends and family. During pre-pandemic times, we didn’t have as much chance to spend time with loved ones as we do now. Call in a movie night, bake pastries, or initiate a unique bonding time you can spend together.
Even if you live alone or reside far from friends and loved ones, thanks to the Internet, there is still no room for excuses. When you’re hundreds or thousands of miles apart, here’s a way that you can spend time with each other:
- Ask your friends or family to download a Google Chrome plug-in called Teleparty.
- Once you all have downloaded the plug-in, open the movie or show that you want to watch together.
- Next, click on the plug-in located at the right side of the address bar and click “Start the Party.”
- Copy the TeleParty link, send it to your friends and family, and you will now be able to watch the film or show simultaneously.
NOTE: Teleparty works only with Google Chrome on laptops or desktop computers.
You or anyone on Teleparty can pause the show if someone needs to pee or get more food from the kitchen. You can also set a Teleparty while on a voice call so it would be like watching the show in the same room together. Self-care includes making sure that you don’t let isolation affect you or your mental health.
7. Journal Everyday
Journaling every day proves to be an effective way to ease anxiety and to unload troubling thoughts. Now that we’re in an ongoing pandemic, anything that you journal about during these crazy times might someday become historical artifacts or could be collected in museums–given that pandemics usually happen only once in a century.
If you don’t wish your journal to be read by others, maybe you can at least try to dedicate them to your future grandkids. Hopefully, they would someday read and know some stories about what it’s like to live in such a time as this.
The Bottom Line
Caring for yourself should always start with you, and as mentioned, there’s a heap of practical ways that you can do to make it happen. The pandemic may have caused us anxiety, languish, burnout, or even the feeling of isolation. Thankfully, even while under lockdown, we can always choose to reward ourselves, set healthy boundaries, build bridges, and stay connected with loved ones despite all that’s happening. And who would have thought that caring for yourself can be this holistic and communal!
We hope you enjoyed this post and that you’d choose not to beat yourself up! In these trying times, remember that you are not alone and you deserve all the self-care in the world.
