Tips for Quality Quaran-Time

Hey y'all! I hope everyone is finding good productive ways to fill your time whilst stuck at home. I am a person that loves lists, loves structure, and loves feeling like I've had a nice full day, so since our school told us we would not be allowed back to campus I have been genuinely stressed as to how the rest of this semester would go for me.

Being at home is so nice and relaxing and a great way to get your mind off of school. Which is the opposite of what I need to be doing at the moment. See how this is playing out?

In an effort to keep myself in check, and make some tangible changes to my at home quarantine-routine, I have made this list of things to do daily and weekly, to keep myself accountable and up to date on assignments and not feel like I'm going stir crazy!

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1. Time-block your days.

Having a planner that has an hourly schedule or gives you the ability to list out what to do throughout the day, whether it's meetings, class times, or built in free time, is important to keep your self accountable on paper with what you need to do. When you time block, you have to be super literal and kind of annoying by writing in when you plan to wake up, how long it usually takes you to get ready, where you have to be somewhere and how long you'll be traveling to and from the location. This tends to leave you without room to lose track of time! Which in my case is something I manage to do constantly. When you've allotted yourself a certain amount of time to do one task it also helps you to not feel too burned out with it. If I give myself two hours to get through notes for one of my classes it will help me to remove all distractions and get through it (hopefully) in those two hours. If not I know that in the future I can either set aside more time, or come back to it on a later day. This also helps you not to "binge" on one thing and feel burned out and not be able to focus on anything else.

2. Make Lists.

Getting to check things off of lists may be one of the more satisfying things productivity wise. Writing out all of my assignments, even as small as printing out power-points, to as big as completing an exam, helps me to prioritize all of the things I need to get done. Once I have that list down and I start to get things crosses off it helps me see that I have been doing a lot, and helps me to feel fairly accomplished. Sometimes it's easy to try and attack your work load, but other times it feel so daunting and overwhelming you just want to quit. Maybe it's just me but I definitely get so overwhelmed at times with what I need to do that I just procrastinate. Which is, ya know, counter productive. So when I make lists and can see that my list is getting smaller, it makes me feel like I can accomplish everything.

3. Set aside time for yourself

Getting all of your work done while in a different setting than usual is nice, but don't forget that when you got home from work or school you usually turned that part of your brain off for the night. Find a way to schedule into your days when you will "go home" so to speak and close the computer, the textbooks, the notes, and let yourself just relax. In the current climate there are too few reasons to not spend quality time with family or loved ones, especially if you are quarantined in the same place with them. This also helps us to not feel like we are stuck at home doing sometimes tedious work 24/7. When I was at my apartment at school I would set aside a day a week, or two if the week had a lighter work load, where I could catch up on YouTube videos, watch TV, go to the gym for longer, and hangout with friends without feeling like I needed to be doing something else. So while I am home and adapting my home schedule and school schedule, I am trying to ensure that for a little while each day I get to do something that makes me happy and feel like I got to have some nice "me time".

4. Exercise.

One of the biggest things I have been having to re-integrate into my daily schedule is working out. When I was at school I was really good about either going to the gym at 5:30 before my 8AMs, or after my lunch on days when I have later classes. I was doing fairly well for myself and was feeling really good and thought that when I came home for spring break I'd just be able to do some small at home workouts and then get back into the grove of things when I got back to campus. As I am sure you can guess, that did not at all happen. At all. I worked 10/13 days of my spring break and at the time was too tired when I got home do to much more than go on a couple walks. So I thought "that's okay I will just get back into it when I go back", wrong again. I was so naïve. So young. Anyways as I am sure you know most schools breaks got extended and then transitioned to online, so alas, I am still at home and trying to get back in the groove. I am happy to announce though that in the last week I have been doing much better. I am a huge advocate for social distancing, so I am not saying to call up 6 of your friends and go on hikes together. If you can however manage to go out and get some fresh air with a nice walk or jog in your neighborhood then I think it would really benefit you. If I have felt like I've been cooped up all day or have been sitting in the same spot for hours; getting up and raising my heart rate makes me feel more focused afterwards and better overall.

5. Match your snacking with your resting.

This may feel like the perfect time to just sleep all day and stay up to odd hours, or take a couple naps throughout the day, but it is still true to say that if you are not matching your activity to what you consume etc. you are not doing your body good. And I know that many of us have been snacking a lot more since we have been bored or just can't seem to get "full" so to speak and want to just keep eating. But when you do that and have been sleeping longer than usual it's no wonder that you continue to feel tired. And really, who wants to do anything for the rest of the day when you just want to snooze? So not only are you sleepy because your body's natural REM cycle has been disrupted but you aren't giving your system the proper and "healthier" energy it needs to consume to keep you awake and focused until your next meal.

I hope even a small bit of this helped you out! Thank you so much for reading my first ever blog post.

Love,

Nicki