How to take care

It’s weird to admit that I’m sort of thriving in quarantine. Normally I have a lot of anxiety about things I should be doing and places I should be going. But when everything becomes limited to what I can do with what I have at home, life becomes a lot simpler and the FOMO disappears.

Five years of working from home has taught me a lot about being a successful homebody. Let me share what works for me to take care of myself, maintain my sanity, and enjoy some quality time at home.

Read that stack of books you’ve been avoiding. Somehow I’ve managed to collect a LOT of books that I never ended up reading. And now that my local library is closed, it’s the perfect time to get into it. It feels great to finally make a dent in that old collection. I’m finding new favorites and clearing out the duds from my shelves (making spaces for new reads!).

Take your vitamins. Yep, I’m another person here to tell you that CBD helps me get through the day. I love the brand Not Pot in particular because their gummies are vegan, they’re woman-owned, and (most importantly!) part of their mission includes criminal justice reform—each month they help pay someone’s bail. I start every day with my CBD gummies and daily vitamins from Ritual to help me feel like a healthy, well-adjusted human.

Spend a little time cleaning every day. Anyone out there recently started cooking at home more and is SHOCKED by the number of dishes you can dirty in a single day? This drove me crazy for a while when I first started working from home, until I instated a rule of cleaning the kitchen for 15 minutes each day. It even functions as a nice break to get you on your feet and move around a bit if you’ve been sitting on the couch or at your desk for too long.

Get some fresh air and take a nap. These are my two favorite self-care activities right now. I feel like it’s kind of a no-brainer that taking a walk or sitting outside for a few minutes each day can make you feel like a different person. Naps, however, seem to have a little bit of a bad reputation. Naps are for lazy, depressed people and babies, not healthy, functioning adults. I’d like to reclaim the nap for us all. A good nap can feel so luxurious and restorative. It can reset a bad day or be a healing mental break if you’re feeling scattered. When you nap, you’re exclusively focused on comfort and rest. I can’t think of a more complete act of self-care than that.

2020 goals check in pt. 1

Remember back in January when I posted a long list of goals I had for each month this year? Well, I’m delighted and surprised to announce that I’ve actually kept up with them. Aside from missing a couple days of yoga in January, I’ve actually done the rest of the goals every day each month. Here’s what I’ve been doing:

  • January: Do yoga every day
  • February: Meditate every day
  • March: Read every day
  • April: List to a podcast every day

Not only have I stuck to each monthly goal, but I’ve even kept them up in the following months. I wasn’t really planning to do that when I first thought this project up, but I’ve been enjoying having each of these things become part of my daily routine. I guess I unintentionally stumbled upon a great way to build good habits.

The next four months will be a little more challenging though:

  • May: Go for a walk every day
  • June: Wake up at 7am every day
  • July: No TV for the month
  • August: Talk to/text/message a friend/family member every day

I doubt I’ll end up adding this set of habits to my daily routine after the month commitment is up, but I guess we’ll see what happens!

So this is the new year

The last couple months were stressful. A family health scare consumed most of my time and energy, but things have leveled out now and I’m able to think more clearly again.

I took two weeks off of work for the holidays and to rest my brain. I returned yesterday, still a little unclear about my direction, so I spent most of the day thinking about goals for this year. They mainly revolve around making/saving more money to move to California, which isn’t all that exciting, so I decided to spice things up and create a new daily goal for each month of the year. Every January I do Yoga with Adriene’s 30 day yoga series which always adds a little excitement to the month. I was thinking about how to apply that new year energy to the rest of the year and came up with daily goals for the remaining months:

January: Do yoga every day

February: Meditate every day

March: Read every day

April: List to a podcast every day

May: Go for a walk every day

June: Wake up at 7am every day

July: No TV for the month

August: Talk to/text/message a friend/family member every day

September: Take 1 photo every day

October: Do some art every day

November: Write every day

December: Listen to 1 new album every day

Hoping I can build some new, good habits in the process and add some positive energy to each day. I tried to make all these habits really doable so I wouldn’t set myself up for failure. I’m a little nervous about June—my sleeping habits have always been pretty erratic—but waking up early is something I’ve been wanting to train myself to do for a long time, and this seems like the right opportunity to work on it. I’ll report back on how this all goes.