What My COVID Routine Looks Like

6 min readMar 25, 2020

For us this is our third week of self-isolation. We live abroad, and getting help when we are sick is already challenging in normal times, so we want to avoid going through requiring medical help during this pandemic. We also believe that we can work from home and help keeping others safe in the case we become sick.

The first week was rough. We were working 12 hours a day, watching the news, developing guides for the teams to work remote without issues, issuing announcements and keeping everyone appraised of important developments, and also trying to get things done. For context, we are in charge of a research group of 25 people. So yes, the first week was rough.

The first weekend I decided that we were not going to be able to keep things like that for long before we get burned out, had a breakdown, or worse.

The second week we started building a strong routine. We polished it as days passed, and while exhausting at first, things worked out a little better.

I thought that amidst all this I would share what is working for me. Is not perfect and there are days that are just bad days. Here it is.

General routine

Wake up before 7:30
Start cooking at 11:30
Lunch from 12:00–13:00
Stop working by 18:00. No excuses.
Be in bed by 22:30
Work in 45 minutes slots, with 15 minute breaks every hour.
Check the news at fixed times: 9:00, 13:00, 18:00.

**45 minutes* of focused work**

*45 minutes is my maximum attention span right now.

When in the computer:

All notifications in the computer are muted, no popups, no sounds.
All notifications in the phone are muted, no popups, no sounds.
I have three applications opened: slack, terminal, browser
In the browser I’ve only open the tabs I need to do the work for those 45 minutes (no twitter, no facebook, no news).

Every 45 minutes time slot has a small concrete and clear goal, for instance: analyze all HTTP in a given PCAP, write 1 paragraph, review 1 page, make and share a list of X things in Y place. Small things.

15 minutes break every hour

I walk around the house. Yes. And sometimes with a wet napkin to clean things as I go.
Go to the balcony, breath fresh air, get some sun light.
Stretch: I do a stretching routine that helps me with back or neck pain.

These 15 minutes help me snap out of whatever I’m doing wrong (or right). This small break gives me time to do a small retrospective and re-shape my strategy for the day if needed, shuffle tasks around, re-plan.

Underlying organization

For a long time we follow the Productivity Ninja way of organization. It does help planning your week and day, even briefly. I understand as well that I need to be flexible, and just know that there will be more days that I’m not productive. For this, it helps having a list of no-brainer tasks to do when those days appear.

It also helped me realizing that not everything is urgent. At some point we reached this state where everything was urgent, but right now there are few things that really are. So pushing for a slow down not only helped me, but I think also helps others.

Healthy eating

This one is tricky because my home office desk is right next to the fridge. However:

I keep a bunch of fruits around to eat when I’m anxious.
I drink mate/coffee twice or three times a day, no more.
I eat warm meals twice a day, no more, no less.

Being at home means moving less so we try to have smaller portions and if we are hungry later, have some smoothies or fruits.

Water

Water and veggies are not my friends. However I have a water bottle and a glass in front of me to make sure I drink enough during the day.

Exercising

This one is even trickier, however, I bough a smart watch that makes me move and I try to reach a minimum of activity per day. When is possible we go for a social distancing walk, but it’s hard. I went from 10k steps a day to 300.

It takes 2

When you are living with someone else, a routine will never work unless you synchronize somehow. This has worked well, but it takes a joint effort to make it work.

Hope for the best, Prepare for the worst

In general, our third week is going well. Our flat looks more like a home, our plants are more alive than ever, and the place could not be more cleaner. This doesn’t mean things are great. Stress kicks in and small things are enough to make you upset. Not mentioning that if it weren’t for our awesome coworkers and friends translating the official announcements from Czech to English for us, it would be very hard to understand what is going on (no, Google Translate sometimes does not work). We miss friends, casual office talks, coffee breaks, and walking home looking at the sunset.

We hope for the best, that in a month or so things start getting back to normal. But we know this may take longer, and so maintaining our routine has never been more important.

Keep laughing. Be kind. Ask for help. Stay safe.

Update May 23rd, 2020: What has changed?

After almost two months since I wrote this post, I can say that this routine gave me stability in ways that I couldn’t have anticipated. There are challenging days of course, but in overall my days flow in the same way. Here are some reflexions, small changes, and challenges:

Defending and protecting our routine is hard, but is key. Two or three times per week I need to remind people that no, 11:30–13:00 is my cooking and lunch time and I cannot have meetings. No, I do not want to order food or eat later or eat faster or eat on the meeting. No, I do not want meetings at 19:00 or even at 18:30.
When you are more than one person in the household, sticking to the routine can be challenging. Every person has different needs. Respect and dialogue are the solution. I’m very lucky to have someone with me, because sticking to a routine alone for me is much harder.
The last months have been very busy, and one of the things I failed more at were taking breaks every hour. I tried. It’s hard.
When you are busy, it’s hard to stop working at 18:00. I started working earlier, but there are days that I still work 15 hours. Not as many as before, so things are improving.
My initial routine did not include time for exercising. I worked to change that. Now I have 1 hour afternoon break for training on an indoor bike, or taking outdoor walks. It cuts my day in half, but it’s proving to be good. When I’m back at the desk I feel more motivated to do things.
I barely check the news, only when there’s something important happening. It gave me back some time.
I allocated most of my free hours to studying and learning, whether is online lectures, webinars, or reading books.

You cannot tick all the boxes

My routine helped me keep it together so far, and I couldn’t have done it without it. Is not perfect, but is good enough. Good enough is good.

One important lesson that I learned in the past two months is that you cannot tick all the boxes. The day has a finite number of hours, and is very hard to do it all: meditate, eat healthy, stand up every hour, do focus work, be on the flow, cook, clean, read, study, exercise, talk to your friends, work, talk to your parents, check the news, take your vitamins, relax, walk X steps per day, etc. Keeping a healthy habit is sometimes choosing not to stand up every hour because you are in the flow and that gives you energy and self appreciation. Or not work one day because you went for a hiking trip.

Find your own balance. Be flexible. Be kind. Stay safe.