Originally, I have posted this article on 21st March 2020. I posted on my other blog under my interior business’s website. Who knew it would still be relevant in September! These are my 6 things to do at home during this pandemic based on my own experience.
Working from home is not something new to me, or to most designers and content creators. For some, it could be very boring and annoying. I have done plenty of quarantines this year and I have been trying to be positive and grateful.
In early January, I was in China for a work project and had to evacuate to Hong Kong. I had my 14-day self-isolation in a cheap motel. Imagine being in a tiny motel by yourself? Thank God for fast wifi! Then I had to fly to Bali and got another 14-day of self-isolation. This one was quite miserable as I didn’t do well in hot and humid weather. On top of that, another self-isolation when I got back to Jakarta.
So let’s just keep calm and stay positive. Please don’t do panic buying every toilet paper and food like many Australian did in Melbourne, we could do something simple at home that would be beneficial for us! Here are the 6 things to do at home during this pandemic.
1. CLEAN YOU ENTIRE HOME + BE ORGANISED
We can start from cleaning our own space. Things that we touched the most and sometimes neglected, for example our door knobs, keys, every cabinet’s handles, curtain, and door mat.
We could try to do a bed vacuum as well to suck off those dust mites and dead skin cells. Personally, I clean my home every day and it always makes me feel good about myself. This time around, my cleaning has been more extreme and often with disinfectant products and more anti-bacterial spray all over my house.
COVID-19 is a virus and it won’t be prevented by anti-bacterial spray, but hey, we might as well use it and stay clean in our own space during this self-isolation! Clean space equals a clean mind.
2. LEARN NEW SKILLS
Yes, you read that correctly. Skills as in plural. In this digital era, there are so many things we could learn online! From language app, new cooking/baking recipes, videography, photography and even designing!
I have used Duolingo to practice my Mandarin for over a year now, it’s free and effective! Some other website such as Skillshare and Masterclass also offers plenty of lessons we could try (but you have to pay for a monthly subscription, and it’s so worth it to invest in ourselves!) Or, Youtube is always the answer for everything free and full of tutorials. I have learned how to apply to make-up by watching a lot of Youtube’s beauty gurus.
3. BINGE-WATCHING / READING / PODCASTING
Working from home means, we could be streaming a lot of TV shows or new movies into our schedule. I’m not a big book reader, I have stopped reading since I was in high school because I spent too much money on fiction novels and of course manga. But if you are a big reader, there’s plenty of book recommendations out there by your favourite influencers. Podcasting is another thing to binge, and the fun part of podcasting is you can do it anytime while multi-tasking. Perhaps we could do podcasting while cleaning the house? Hell yeah!
4. DIGITAL CATCH UP
There are so many online platforms that we can use to reach out to our friends and family! Let’s do a routine catch up by calling those friends you haven’t heard from, those elderly relatives you might have. I messaged, did video call, and DM quite a lot of friends and family since the beginning of March.
Just to make sure they are doing okay and healthy wherever they are. P.S, Do not text your exes! I did and it was okay for some ex because we have been friends anyway. But funny story, one ex actually blocked me when I reached out to him.
5. WORK OUT + EATING HEALTHY
Another important things to do at home during this pandemic is for sure to work out! If we only do cooking and eating, surely we would all gain some weight and invest in a bad habit. Light exercise at home is very recommended. Why light exercise? Because we can’t risk any injury to actually go and get the treatment. We can start looking at those of Youtube’s videos of exercise or some training images that are available on Instagram and Pinterest as well.
For those of you who don’t like to do exercise like me, we can start from a basic 10,000 steps a day. Don’t forget to wear your mask while doing steps outdoor! I used to go to the gym 5 times a week for 18 months until I found out a thing or two about my metabolism and the gym didn’t help much. I decided to stop going to the gym, and not only it saves me money every month but also gives me the freedom to choose the right exercise for my type of metabolism.
Eating healthy is one way to do it. I avoid junk foods and never was a fan of soft drinks but I do love potato chips, chocolate, and pies! Which are some of the dangerous things to eat for PCOS survivors. Know your body type and your nutrition intake while keep doing light exercise. For me, I lost 3 kg just by giving up rice for 1 month and lost another 2 kg from 2 weeks of morning hiking!
6. SUPPORT LOCAL BUSINESS
I am sure by now people have been doing shopping online extremely more than before. Online shopping is for sure is one of the things to do at home during this pandemic.
Thank God for food delivery! While staying at home and cook our own food, we would definitely crave something. In my case, I was craving sticky date pudding. It’s very easy to make but kind of hard to find dates in the supermarket. Luckily, some of the local cafes have sticky date pudding and they have food delivery!
During this uncertain time, local restaurants, cafes, and other small businesses are struggling. So keep in mind to help them while we can, we could order food from them but we need to make sure they have applied the health protocol in their outlets.
Simply check their website or Instagram account to see if they have made any announcement regarding the health protocol. To make sure none of their kitchen staff is sick or has any flu symptoms. Not only that we help them to still able to run their business, but we also help those online driver couriers to deliver our order.
I could write more about what things we could do while staying at home during this pandemic. From things that related to meditation, spiritual practice, sexual health activities or even doing side hustle to maintain passive income. But for the time being, let’s just focus on those things above! Stay healthy and stay calm! Don’t forget to wash your hands for at least 20 seconds as often as you can!
Leave a comment down below for your things to do at home!
