Businesses, schools, restaurants, gyms, and other public spaces around the United States have closed down in the effort to help contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.
What does this mean? Parents and children are staying home along while practicing social distancing to protect themselves and to help to avoid spreading the virus.
During this time, it’s essential to create a daily routine while staying healthy following the CDC Coronavirus Guidelines.
Below we have listed some tips on how to manage your time while still enjoying your family while practicing social distancing.
- Take Care of Yourself
- Start Your Day with a To-do List
- Create a Temporary Home Office
- Create a Work Schedule
- Create a TV Schedule
- Set Aside Time for Family
- Learn to Say No
1. Take Care of Yourself
Make sure you monitor yourself and don’t neglect your mental and physical health. Allow yourself to take time out of the day to stay active. Whether that’s taking a brisk walk outside, enjoying an indoor exercise class, yoga, or meditation. Over time, you’ll get on a schedule and discover what works best for you, all while helping your mind and body.
2. Start Your Day with a To-do List
This is one of the best ways to manage your time at home while on quarantine. Waking up without a plan of your activities is a recipe for confusion and boredom. Make sure that you create a list of all the tasks scheduled throughout the day. Your list can include your work schedule, children’s school schedule, activity breaks, meal prepping, and evening family time.
Making a to-do list will not only help you become organized, but it also enables you to prioritize essential activities. Take time to discuss the schedule with your family members and children. Ask them what they would like to include in the daily routine. When everyone is on the same page, it can help prevent idleness and unnecessary disturbances at home.
3. Create a Temporary Home Office
Working from home can be a challenge especially if it’s something new to you. Look over your options to determine a quiet place/room where you can concentrate and work. It doesn’t matter whether it is in your garage, guestroom or any other place as long as it is free from frequent interruptions.
Resource: 6 Steps to Create the Perfect Workspace at Home
There are specific tasks that need maximum concentration, and it won’t be easy to carry them out in the presence of an active environment. This also goes for children. If your children are currently engaged in school, make sure each one of them has a quiet room for reading and studying. Also, create a timetable and a secluded place to conduct their studies.
4. Create a Work Schedule
While at home it is often easy to get distracted because the current setup is totally different from an office environment. Similar to your daily schedule, decide how often you will work. What will your hours be? If you are unable to grasp your schedule, it will ultimately control you and your day. A flexible schedule can be a good thing or potentially a curse.
5. Create a TV Schedule
When you and your children are home, it’s easy to take advantage of distractions you may not have in the regular workspace or classroom. The general rule is the TV and other digital distractions must always be turned off. However, if someone wants to watch TV, the best way is to find a secluded area where you are not affected by the sound in the house.
Try to keep your family from spending a lot of their time watching TV and interacting on their digital device. Instead, make sure that they follow their study time tables and only watch after they are through with their important activities.
6. Set Aside Time for Family
COVID-19 has affected our everyday life and regular activities. Sometimes we get caught up in the everyday hustle-and-bustle and lose focus of well-needed family time. It’s crucial to take this time and spend time with the most important people in our lives.
Take advantage of this quarantine time to bond with your family. The best way to do this is by creating enough time with everyone. Be creative. Come up with some fun and interesting activities that will help you to bond.
Resource: 23 Fun Activities to do with Kids Using Everyday Home Items
7. Learn to Say No
One of the main challenges of working from home is the ability to stay organized and remain organized. There’s always the temptation of abandoning your schedule for other less important activities.
It is also easy to be swayed by suggestions from friends and families to do things that you had not planned for. The best way to avoid this is to have a strict and organized work plan.
Everyday activity will get back to normal sooner than you think. In the meantime, it’s best to take advantage of the situation and make the most of it!
Additional Resources:
- 5 Ways to Reach Customers During COVID-19:
With an ever-changing environment during the Coronavirus, we’ve created a list of 5 ways your business can reach customers. - 7 Benefits of Working from Home with Pets:
We all know that working from home offers plenty of benefits, but are you aware that there are just as many benefits working from home as a pet-owner? - Importance of Direct Mail & Postcards During COVID-19:
Creating a Direct Mail and EDDM® Postcard campaign can be an effective way to get your company’s message in front of customers during the Coronavirus.
