My time is in my hands for the time being.
It's true what they say about time, you know. It can be a great healer or teacher.
I've discovered that being forced to stay at home can be truly difficult for types like me who love to manage our time, love to be focused and get a kick out of ticking things off our to-do lists. Well, that doesn't flow so smoothly these days being confronted with a global virus threat.
Being on lock down has put our lives on pause and challenges us to accept the status quo and keep our frustrations in check when we are faced with a kink in the most mundane acts that should be so effortless to achieve. Don't even begin to discuss the important stuff.
Yes, pause teaches patience. And on the other hand, it also made me realize just how important keeping a schedule is right now in order to not feel like life is going down the tubes at an incredible crawl.
Oh yeah, having a routine for my day also proves to fight the temptation of procrastination. It's so easy to fall into a mindset of "Oh, I have more than enough time to do this or that now since I don't have a job anymore" or my personal favorite "AAH, I can do that tomorrow..."
Mmmm...let's rather not. Applying a bit of daily routine in order to feel less lost; like the week has just become an entire string of same ol', same ol', within the same space of four walls, can be of tremendous mental and psychological help.
"Ok, so what exactly do you mean by "routine', EJ?" I hear you ask. Well to me it just means using time as an indicator to plan my week and still feel like I've achieved things without being too strict about it. It adds a certain kind of normalcy to life in these abnormal times.
So I set the alarm and wake up each day at the same time. Therefore also trying to stick to the same bedtime, but varying it out by an hour or so for some entertainment :) I'm not a square, I'm just trying to be in control of the parts of my life that I still have a grip on.
Breakfast and lunchtime is a healthy normal - between 09.00 - 09.30 and 13.00-15.00 respectively. And cooking dinner between 18.30 and 19.30. I am of course more flexible during the weekend to allow for R&R activities.
Then let's get to the less boring sounding part, which is the content of my day. Starting off with a nice hot shower and afterwards ticking off the to-list. The to-do list can consist of any number of things in varied order from day to day, but I try to at least make a point of doing the official grown up stuff first. Things like doing my taxes (omg yeah I do those), finding business opportunities, making dreaded phone calls, doing research on how to do better business, general admin duties; personal and business related etc, you name it! Grown up stuff.
As long as I make time to play, be creative, fix things around the apartment or whatever, it proves never to be one 6 day string of same ol'.
I try to keep watching TV to an absolute minimum. There are enough books to read in the world, new music to discover, friends and family to face call and encourage, exercise, and everyday can be filled with a new learning experience of some kind. Something I've put off for way too long that I feel there is ample time for now.
And variety is the spice of life, so varying things up from time to time works for me. Allowing myself to be on the clock is what I need right now for sanity's sake.
My time is in my hands for the time being.
Love y'all.