How I am keeping sane “WFH” during COVID

The first few weeks were exciting: more time to enjoy with my family, staying up late, sleeping in, staying in pyjamas all day… Week 7, I am desperately ready to go back to the “normal” world. This is how I am keeping it all together:

1. Be in the present

COVID has definitely brought fear, anxiety and uncertainty to me. So, focusing on my mind has been a very important part of my journey. Practicing Mindfulness helps you to stay positive, optimistic and grateful, which is critical for our mental, emotional, spiritual and physical well being. Here are some mindfulness apps:

• Insight Timer  has over 25,000 free guided meditations
• Smiling Mind 
• If meditation isn’t for you, try doing an everyday activity in a mindful way

2. Staying Active

The first few days when working from home, I made the mistake to stay in most of my days, sitting at my desk behind a screen without much movement. Very quickly, I realised that this wasn’t sustainable: at the end of each day, my eyes, head and body were hurting.

Besides taking regular breaks and stepping away from your desk, keeping active when we don’t move as much as usual is critical to our health. Every day at 7:45am, I am doing a 15min workout through the 7 minute working app (iOS  and  Android) either with the team via Zoom (great way of motivating you) or on my own. Here are some other apps you can use:

• Yoga with Adriene : yoga classes lasting from five minutes through to an hour
• Nike Training Club  : heaps of free workouts you can do from home.

3. Stay socially connected

Even being an introvert myself, after 7 weeks being isolated from everyone I am starting to miss people. Here are some different ideas so you stay in “virtual touch”:

• Daily team catch up
• Have a virtual lunch with a colleague, friend or your recruiter :-)
• Organise Friday team fun activities: we have been doing trivia each Friday arvo, Beer catch ups or online fun team activities (MarcoPolo, Letsdrawit, Houseparty)
• Morning work outs – great way of staying socially connected

4. It is okay not to feel okay

This is a very tough time for most of us and it is okay to be down or not be yourself. In these circumstances, reach out and don’t deal with it alone, after all we are all on the same boat.

On that, I am making myself available every Monday morning from 9:30 am to 10:30am for anyone who would like “free” advice on resume writing, career planning, or just “staying socially connected” – You can reach me on 0416 460 683.

Finally guys, this is a great time to reconnect with what it is truly important to us, take a step back from the business and focus more on you.