What I’ve learned from staying home during the Pandemic.
The Pandemic has altered my life in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. While the disease itself is horrific, the effects I have seen in my personal life have been somewhat positive. I talk about that a bit here in a piece I wrote in response to a challenge. Being forced to stay home has taught me that I can actually enjoy it. I might be going off the deep end a little bit, but I enjoyed the ten days that I had to stay home from work so much that I want to work from home now. Not as using a VPN to log into the organization’s server, but as in, working for myself. There is a tendency to want to take huge leaps, and I’m all for it. But, there is also a tendency to not think about everything that comes along with that leap if you are successful. So, I’ll be contemplating it for a while.
In the meantime, I thought I’d share a few things that I have learned. Some of them will be obvious to some people, to the point of having been second nature and never even considering it, but for me they are novel ideas.
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Working outside makes you feel better.
I enjoy trimming shrubs. I even enjoy loading the limbs etc. into the bed of the truck and taking them to the wood pile in the back. Now don’t get crazy; I don’t want to do this every day or every week even (though every week would be ideal for the maintenance of the yard), but I enjoy it.
I still don’t like TV. Staying at home has not changed that.
Working for small bits of time on different things is helpful. Write for thirty minutes, go put laundry in, fold the clothes. Write some more. Sit outside with the cat. Do dishes and clean kitchen. Take a learning tutorial. All in 30-minute chunks or so. You can even take naps; just don’t nap for longer than 30 minutes.
Lists are wonderful tools to keep me focused and help me get more done.
I don’t like mowing the yard. Okay, I knew this one, but it has been reinforced. While working outside has benefits, and I feel better for it, I don’t enjoy doing this particular one, and it would be one of the first things I’d outsource if I could. But I do, in fact, feel better after mowing.
A decluttered space really is more conducive to productivity.
My neighborhood is interesting. I do a lot of the work while sitting at the dining room table in front of windows, and I enjoy watching people, dogs, horses, John Deere tractors, and cars pass in front of the windows.
If you sit in a rocking chair with a cat, she will rub her face across the arms furiously. I do not know why, but this has been proven over and over by more than one cat and more than one rocking chair.
Drinking water is very fulfilling. Preferably with purchased ice, because the stuff made in home freezers tastes funny.
A clean kitchen makes me feel better.
I do not like wasps. I can live in harmony with honey bees, but wasps are aggressive and they prefer to live right by the doorways. They are evil and they must be destroyed. Plus, their tiny little waists make me feel bad about my life choices. I relate better to honey bees and their figures.
Rooms smell better if you clean the cat litter more than once in the morning and once in the evening.
The best ideas come in the shower and when driving. (I knew this already, but staying in place has really brought it home.) (So to speak.)
My cats respond well to me being around. I don’t have to be giving them attention 100% of the time; just being around make them happy.
Washing smaller loads of clothes and folding them straight out of the dryer makes an undesirable chore less undesirable.
If I don’t make time to read for pleasure, I will not read for pleasure Again, obvious, but I’ve done a lot of reading while sitting in coffee shops, which I cannot do at the moment. So, I have to carve out time at home to read, just as I would have carved out time to go to the coffee shop.
I am capable of being tidy.
I am capable of being productive.