Working from home and staying sane: Staying Well

Today is about the other side of the work-life balance scales: staying well. As mentioned before, a radical change in routines can be hard to deal with, so how can you make it easier on yourself when you’re suddenly home all the time?

First, a note of caution: if like me you start by thinking “haha, now I can do ALL THE THINGS!”, please stop now. Yes, you may, given enough time, be able to tackle those projects you always think you might like to do, from decluttering or redecorating your home to finally doing that art / craft project or reading that giant pile of books. But it won’t happen today, or even tomorrow: you are better off planning to do it in small stages. And, most of all, not punishing yourself if you don’t get it all done right away!

What can you do if you wake up in a funk, can’t make yourself do much of anything at all, then get super stressed later on because you’re feeling unproductive?

Routines to the rescue! Especially and explicitly, morning routines. You already have one – whatever it looks like, from a calm hour with meditation and breakfast, to a mad dash to catch that bus – so now is a good time to think about whether you want to change anything about it. However long your office will be closed is how long you have to settle into a new routine! Again, with caution: changing every aspect at once may be a bit much to cope with… or just the change you need.

Everybody – from Marie Claire to Forbes and Buffer – has already published articles on morning routines, and it really cannot be overstated how effective they are in getting you started on the things that are most important to you. So, by all means take some inspiration from others, but also don’t get stuck in planning the “perfect” one: better to add one small thing and do it consistently, than try for too many hard things at once. You will give up and feel bad about yourself if you’re anything like me. That said, before I got serious about my meditation practice again, I got a lot out of Gala Darling’s approach to Sacred Mornings (or check out the Girlboss version) – good if you’re an entrepreneur and/or into the Law of Attraction / manifesting your dream life.

My personal morning routine doesn’t happen at a fixed time – lots of people like regular slots, it drives me utterly batty – but I do have a sequence that I stick to most of the time:

1. feed my cat and make coffee
2. toilette/ablutions/purifications… whatever you want to call it
3. meditation, 30-60 minutes
4. dress, make my bed

The second tool that helps me with routines is Habitica, which is… well, your life as an RPG:

“Habitica is a video game to help you improve real life habits. It “gamifies” your life by turning all your tasks (habits, dailies, and to-dos) into little monsters you have to conquer. The better you are at this, the more you progress in the game. If you slip up in life, your character starts backsliding in the game.”

For some reason I am unable to fully explain, making sure I drink my water and eat proper meals and check my bank accounts every so often is something I struggle to do for myself, but as soon as a little cartoon avatar is involved that receives imaginary damage when I don’t do what I’ve decided I want to do, it’s a whole different game. Anyway, if RPGs are your thing and you’re the sort of person who enjoyed getting gold stars for menial tasks, check it out.

I’ve touched a little on what kinds of things I construct routines around, so let’s go more into that:

• Water: everyone knows you must drink your water, there are apps, go do the thing.
• Food: I am gonna guess we all know about food, and it’s too contentious an issue for me to get into specific recommendations here. Do your thing. I will add, though, that those ideals I had of three home-made meals a day? Yeah, nope, ain’t nobody got time for that! If you know how to pre-cook in batches and all that, I salute you, pls teach me yr ways. I use Huel for one or two meals a day and then really look forward to the other one/s. And yes, I do give myself a gold star every day I manage the full three meals… this is genuinely hard for me!
• Exercise: the main thing I do is walk! No cost, little effort, no extra gear… I’m in. If you have a dog, you’re streets ahead already! That said, if you usually go to the gym and now need to self-isolate, I have recommendations of what to try: my favourite place to go for exercise plans and community, and which BTW is FREE (and takes donations), is Darebee: every level from totally inactive to Super Saiyan, a lot of bodyweight-only plans, video instruction, gamified exercise,… and all for FREE, did I mention that? Amazing resource!
  Adriene from Yoga with Adriene (YouTube channel) is well-known for beginner and intermediate yoga, if that’s something you want to try; “pop Pilates” and HIIT at Blogilates (YouTube) or in their app. There’s a stack of other options because online training is the New Hot Thing in exercise.
• Sleep and rest: very important!! I’ve had bouts of insomnia all my life and am perhaps not the best person to advise here, so let me just ask this: if your working life to date has featured too little sleep and too much stress, could not going to the office for a few weeks maybe offer an opportunity to catch up and settle into a lower-stress, more restful life? Also: naps are great!
• Mental health: changes in routine + pandemic anxiety sounds like they could impact anyone’s mental health, so perhaps this is a good time to see what virtual support options are available to you. When I moved from the UK to Germany, I had weekly Skype sessions with my therapist to ease me through the transition and found it massively helpful. Other practices that are good for me: journaling; gratitude practices, art or craft practices, spiritual practices. I enjoy good mental health generally, so I probably don’t know much about your specific situation, which you are of course best placed to manage. I would only suggest that you consider what sort of support you need and how to get it when you’re staying home.
• Leisure: let’s not forget that being at home might mean more time to re-engage with your hobbies! Again, you know yourself best – my only tip is to balance online working with things that are off-line, physical, possibly creative. Maybe if you’re staring at screens all day, you could aim for something different than Netflix in your relaxation time?

Phew. I hope this is somewhat useful! Today is honestly a bit of a struggle around here, which is also why this post is up much later than I’d intended. If you want more info on anything I mentioned, let me know in the comments or on social media… and the “social” in social media is also my next topic, which I plan to publish tomorrow.

Back to the overview post.