People all around the world are suddenly finding themselves at home for a while and practicing safe social distancing. Below are some things you can do during an extended period at home that will provide significant financial, professional, and personal benefits without much – if any – additional cost.
Create a dedicated working space inside your home
If you’re working from home right now, it can be helpful to designate an area in your home that is used exclusively for work. By creating a separate work space, it helps to mentally and physically identify a place to work outside of sitting on your sofa or working at your kitchen island. If you’re able to isolate the space by either closing a door or drawing a curtain, this can help you find balance between work and home life.
Get organized
Everyone works a little differently, but whether it’s a list on the fridge, a whiteboard in the office, or a simple task management tool that works on your phone – having a schedule is essential. While working or staying at home, even when you find yourself with extra time it can be especially difficult to get everything accomplished during the day.
Get started by putting every action item in your life into that system – schedule appointments, set bill reminders, add birthdays, etc. As you’re doing this, create a daily habit of looking through your organizational system and start identifying what items you need to get done each day.
Another great habit is to start writing anything down that comes to mind, that you will need to remember or follow up with later. Then, a few times a day, go through your notes and add them to your organizational tool or calendar. By establishing these routines now, you’ll find that this new system might help you stay more organized once you return to an office environment.
Test out some new recipes
Just because you’re eating at home, doesn’t mean that you have to stick to making your usual go-to meals! Since you’ve cut out commute time by staying at home, now is the perfect time to try a new recipe or expand your culinary palette.
Using a recipe as a guide can be very helpful, especially if cooking isn’t your specialty. However, don’t be afraid to make the meal unique to you, by adding in your own twist to the recipe. Snacks are a great way to start cooking, since they’re small and typically simple to make!
Keep your children academically engaged
In addition to staying organized yourself, you should also come up with a daily schedule that you hang up for the kids to see. Just like at school, there should be some sort of schedule to help keep kids on track and to stay away from too much screen time. It’s nice to maintain structure and learning, while keeping everyone on task.
Depending on how long your kids are home from school, it can be fun to add in special spirit days during the week, such as “pirate day” or “up in space day”. This is such a creative and educational activity to do with your kids, so the sky is the limit!
Indulge in self-care
Just because you can’t go to the hair salon or get your nails done, doesn’t mean you can’t handle some of those things on your own! If you’re looking for ideas on how to accomplish great results on your own, YouTube is filled with tutorials. Take advantage of having a little extra time, and the joy of no longer commuting, by practicing a little self-care. Whether you enjoy taking a long bath, putting on a face mask, or listening to music, make sure to take some time to relax.
While you may not be able to go to the gym, now is a fantastic time to try out a new at-home workout routine. Try yoga, or a beginner’s HIIT (High-Intensity Interval Training) workout, or even simply walking around your home. Staying active is important to maintaining a healthy lifestyle, so find something that motivates you.
Virtually tour a museum, aquarium, or zoo
Many museums and cultural institutions around the world are inspiring people by offering free virtual tours, exhibits, and performances for people to enjoy from the comfort of their own homes.
Google Arts & Culture has teamed up with over 2000 leading museums and galleries all across the globe to provide virtual tours and online exhibits. This is such a fun and interactive way to view famous artwork, and step inside other worlds – all from your home.
You can even virtually visit local Nashville exhibits through Google Arts & Culture, like the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in downtown, and Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage in Hermitage, TN.
Many zoos around the world feature live and archived videos of pandas, polar bears, penguins, elephants, and other animals on their websites. This is such a fun way to teach your children about animals, or explore the animal kingdom from your living room!
