Don’t just survive – our tips to normalize your life during the quarantine
Nobody disagrees that COVID-19 is something from our worst nightmares – there’s nothing fun about full hospitals and people losing their jobs and life savings. We should all do our part by staying at home and minimizing all social interactions. However, this doesn’t have to be boring or mentally burdening – in fact, you can keep most of your daily routines with fairly minor tweaks, not to mention finally getting those things done that you always wanted to but never got around to doing until now. Read some tips below and share yours in social media to help others!
Socializing while social distancing
Meeting your friends, extended family or connecting with lonely elderly people has never been this easy – no need to fix your schedules weeks in advance, travel or think of a reason to call someone you normally wouldn’t. During the quarantine it’s completely acceptable to suggest a video call to that relative or neighbor of yours you never normally talk to and the call doesn’t have to take more than 5 minutes to delight the both of you. Technically it’s no more difficult than having a normal phone call – for example with Microsoft Teams you can do neat video calls with others, and it’s available for any mobile device for free.
Going online can level up even those meetings you have with your best friends or closest colleagues! Take a quick game session in the afternoon to boost your energy levels before the last work tasks of the day. For example, Pictionary and other drawing games can be played with the white board feature of Teams and you can enjoy Trivial Pursuit with polls.
Also, watching reality shows and commenting them online is a surprisingly fun way to spend your evening with friends. Even house-warming parties and baby showers have been proven to work, with just a little bit of creativity.
Personal development
Have you always wanted to read more, join a book club, accomplish a certificate or two or perhaps start meditating? So have I! Now’s your perfect chance to make room for any goal in your daily schedule – that’s actually all it takes. Decide to go for a walk every morning, evening or during your lunch break and listed to an audio book, or start your every working day with 10 minutes of meditation. There are plenty of mobile apps available for both of these routines. You can make reading even more fun and motivating by setting up a monthly online book club meeting with your friends.
It goes without saying that during these times most seminars and trainings have also gone online, and now you can even participate in that one training that would have otherwise been too far away from you in terms of distance. Some of these might even be available for free now due to savings on venue, food etc.
Exercising and sports
Now that all the gyms are closed, you can save money and travel time by doing home exercises. Most gyms offer online classes for free or against a small fee. It’s super easy to arrange and join one also with Microsoft Teams and there’s practically no limit on the number of participants. Personally I have now fallen to yoga and mobility online, which I normally neglect in real life.
There are also numerous super cool apps and services available for specific sports online, like Zwift for running and cycling and Peloton for any cardio. And don’t forget about keeping it simple by walking and running outdoors!
Have a date night with your special one
One could easily assume that all the days are the same at home, but you can even arrange a date night with gigs, live music and fine dining without physically moving a meter. For instance, Helsingin Sanomat offers live ballet, opera and concerts online and your can party at Berliner underground clubs from the comfort of your couch.
Keep your local restaurants afloat and save yourself from cooking by ordering food for your date night. Even the nicest fine-dining restaurants now serve multi-course meals with home delivery to be enjoyed in candle light – and this can also be done online in case your date is in another location.
Smooth transition from Tinder to Teams
For singles, the quarantine can be harder or at least lonelier than for people surrounded by family or roommates. Just the thought of chatting in dating apps for months without meeting your promising candidate may sound quite burdening. But hey, not to worry! This can also be turned to your advantage by immediately suggesting an online date instead of just conversing in writing. This way you can more quickly see who really has the potential and is worth the wait throughout the quarantine.
To sum this up, there is practically nothing in real life you can’t keep on doing online. And you should, for the sake of your own mental health, for people around you, for economy and the whole society. See a clip from a Pictionary game we had with colleagues. The game was played in a Teams meeting using Whiteboard-function.