The 4 Best Habits To Implement In Lockdown

I know some states are getting to come out of lockdown, but my state is not one of them. As our stay-at-home order continues and I am stuck at home due to working completely non-essential retail, I am thankful for a few things.

One, I am being paid (less than normal, but still paid) for a certain time period to stay home, and I know this is not the case for most people. Two, I am very thankful that I moved in with family, living with my sister who already works from home and has a home office. Three, I moved right before lockdown happened, meaning that I had a brand new environment.

This means that I had the advantage of fresh surroundings (great for habit-building), a home office with space for me to work, and some form of income. I have been home since March 23rd, which brings me to my 6th week as of today. It took a while for me to get into my routines, but I am well into my third week now and have formed this post as a way to share what habits I have focused on, why, and how they have improved my life. 

The best part is that all of them can be done from home and have relatively no cost options. 

1.     Time Management

While this sounds like more of a skill, it really is something you need to practice as a habit. My daily schedule is way more organized than it used to be, and I can honestly say I have something of a routine because I have been working on managing my time. 

On the right is my typical workday schedule right now, with Wednesdays and weekends varying slightly.

On Wednesdays I go grocery shopping and take the day off from working on the blog, on Saturdays I do not do any work at all except for a treadmill workout and reading, and on Sundays I can do whatever I want with no obligations, because we all need a rest day.

2.     Learning every day

For me this can take a lot of different forms. I have schoolwork for another couple of months (and then I am officially done with my MBA, yay!), but I do not like to count this as my daily learning because I think it’s important to focus on learning something for joy more than because I have to.

 Instead, I am learning photoshop through online videos or focusing my reading on books that revolve around personal finance, investing, health and wellness, or other lessons that can help in all aspects of life. It’s an easy way to take my mind off of the things going on outside of our walls while also still improving myself and my wellbeing.

3.     Mindfulness

It’s a buzzword that’s been hovering around for years, but it really does make a difference, and it means so much more than just meditating. While I enjoy meditating as a way of grounding myself when my head is a little overrun, there are other ways to become more mindful. 

One of my favorites is stream-of-consciousness journaling, which I try to fit into my personal time every day that I do not write for the website. I also regularly (at least once a week or every other week) brain dump into my journal, creating a mess of everything I need to do and want to accomplish in the near future. 

Another way to do this is to focus on your sensory input for just five minutes while you perform any everyday action (for example, washing your face or folding clothes). Go through the five senses in your mind while you do something in your everyday life and absorb the moment. Take your time. 

Practicing mindfulness every day has a multitude of benefits from better concentration to a general mood boost, and right now we can all use a little bit of that. 

4.     Focusing on my health 

Before I moved, my health was in a deep decline and that downward spiral continued for a while even after I moved, but I have been trying to fix that little by little. I had no healthy habits in place for a long time that has led to a lot of weight gain and unhealthy side effects. In order to fix that, I have been focused on healing my relationship with myself and taking small sustainable steps in the right direction.

The things I have done to start to heal my body are:

·      Using Equilibrium Nutrition’s shake (not sponsored) as a meal replacement for breakfast every morning to ensure I get all of my daily vegetables and vitamins

·      Walking every day at a moderate-to-high incline

·      Getting between 7-8 hours of sleep every night

·      Increasing my knowledge of science-based research and maintaining an increased focus on mental blocks so that I can overcome them in order to eat intuitively

These four habits in my life continue to have a trickle effect that slowly increases my wellbeing as much as possible while in lockdown, and will hopefully allow for continued improvement after I inevitably have to go back to working full-time. 

What habits have you been practicing while you have a little extra time? Leave them in the comments below, and subscribe to see the organizational and book haul posts in the future.