Quarantine Tips from a Pro
What does your quarantine look like? How’s it going? Do you need some tips? I can help you out. I am not new to this. After years of homeschool, working for myself and a severe chronic illness, I’ve been through periods of quarantine and just plain having to be on my own. I am not going to say it’s easy. Even though I’ve had to do this myself, it’s a very different situation with the whole world being in the same boat. I would like to share with you some tips that might help you make your situation better.
Stick with your routine. If you can, try to set yourself up for the day with the least amount of change in your routine as you can. Get up, get a shower, have your normal breakfast, prepare yourself for work.
Create a schedule. Give yourself a schedule for the day, adding in breaks as needed to take care of you. When I am working from home, I set a timer for 30 minutes to an hour for a task and then set a timer for a five minute break if needed or I set the work timer again. Once the break timer is up, I set the work timer again. This helps me to get things accomplished but also makes sure I get a break. This includes exercise. Make sure you put exercise in your schedule so you don’t skip it.
KEEP MOVING. I cannot stress this enough. Walking is great exercise but it is not enough when we are mostly stuck in our homes. Especially if you have participated in another type of exercise before like Pilates, TRX, barre, etc. We should add in walking to our normal exercise routine but try to keep going with the normal activity you have participated in. I have a group Pilates class Monday/Wednesday/Friday at noon CST geared toward happy hips. Sitting and stressing more can throw our hips out of wack causing pain and stiffness fast. Sign up for my class and I’ll help make sure your hips get strengthened and stretched so you feel great! You can sign up here.
Set goals. Having goals helps you get things accomplished. This does not mean your goal needs to be something giant like writing a book. I can tell you from experience that takes more than a few months. Knowing what you want to accomplish and setting goals and a timeframe will help make that happen. I am setting an overall goal for the month and breaking it down into weekly and daily goals. If your goal is to get your office clean and organized you can break it down into a section a week and smaller sections by day. Let one day be cleaning up your desk, the next day organizing the drawers and so on until your desk is clean and organized by the end of the week. That way you won’t get overwhelmed. Make sure you put time to work on your goal in your schedule each day.
Plan in advance. Planning things in advance takes some upfront time but will save you time later. This will be especially helpful planning your workouts and meals ahead of time. I’ve been using the app Paprika for a few years and I love it. You can save recipes, create a grocery list directly from the recipe and put together a meal plan with the click of a button. You can search the recipes also to find meals that fit what you currently have on hand. This app is paid (and no I don’t get paid for this, I truly love this app) but it is worth the $4.99 to be able to plug things in easily and get your grocery list, recipes and meal plan all in one place.
This is a tense time for sure. But we can get through it and get some things accomplished without overdoing it. Listen to your body and give it what it needs. Try to stick to your routine. Add in extra movement, you can even try online Pilates with me privately here. Set goals and plan ahead. You can do it! What are your quarantine tips? Let me know in the comments below!
Photo by Jennifer Gouge Photography
