How To Stay Productive With COVID-Brain

COVID-brain: unfocused, unstimulated by the sameness of each workday, unproductive.

I don’t know about all of you, but working from home without any outside contact has been hard for my productivity. I am usually very productive when I’m checked into work, but that has all gone out the window now that I can’t work out of my workspace anymore.

I am feeling all the symptoms of what I call COVID-brain — I am unfocused, unstimulated by the sameness of each workday, and unproductive. I am overwhelmed by the amount of time I have and find myself protesting by not using that time productively.

Even though I have all the time I need to work on my business right now, I am repelled by the abundance of it. I spent a few weeks at the beginning of my quarantine aimlessly scrolling through social media and the news, and once I was done circulating through those apps, I’d just start again from the beginning and check what had been updated since my last cycle.

I truly felt absurd that I wasn’t able to control my lack of focus during the beginning of my quarantine, so I decided to take some strong steps to rein in my focus and productivity.

Here are some of the steps and tools I’ve used to get myself back on track, as best I can with COVID-brain.

Social Media & News Check-Ins

I stole this concept after reading Digital Minimalism. I forget the specific terminology in the book, but Newport talks about creating a structured schedule for when you can check-in on social media.

I’ve had to implement this not only for social media, but also the news because I found myself obsessively checking both for new coronavirus commentary and the like. I have a set schedule of only checking my phone for social media & news at 9AM, 12PM, 4PM, and 9PM. I hope to remove more check-in times as I get stronger at doing this.

This schedule has helped me regulate my actions that don’t hold much purpose other than to soothe my anxiety. Instead of reaching for my phone, I grab a book or just sit and stare at something in silence (isn’t it weird that something that humans used to do pre-smartphone now just sounds creepy?)

Brain Music

I’m not an affiliate for Brain.fm, but I should be because boy do I love this technology and talk about it a lot.

Brain.fm creates functional music created in collaboration with musicians, developers, and scientists that help steer you to a desired mental state, like productivity.

Their music drops you into a focus state within 15 minutes — I turn Brain.fm on as soon as I’m ready to work. This has been a savior for me these past few weeks and it works surprisingly well.

Minute-To-Minute Work Schedule

This sounds obsessive, but it’s working so well for me right now. I have been scheduling my workdays down to the minute, without allowing for any unstructured time.

Scheduling my day minute by minute offers me a false (yet effective) sense of having a super-packed, busy day. I am more productive when I’m in a time crunch vs. when I have 8 hours to do a 1-hour task.

This tight scheduling is putting me in a work sprint state, which is sparking more productivity and allowing me to get a lot done in a short period of time. I have been able to end my work week early on Thursday or Friday in the past few weeks, so this structure has been helpful in not only keeping me focused but also productive enough to end work early.

Daily Documentation

At the beginning of my quarantine, I had no idea what day it was, ever. I also didn’t remember what I did the day before, or the last time I showered.

I dropped one of my earbuds below a bridge one morning and totally forgot about it until I saw it written down. Something that would’ve pissed me off and been constantly on my mind in another time completely vanished from my memory during quarantine. Short term memory got really bad for me.

Let me tell you, there’s nothing more harrowing and scary to a human being than being confronted with the reality that each day doesn’t matter if you can’t even remember it. I had a sobering existential moment of the value of my days and decided this was no bueno for my mental health.

I need to remember, even the mundane moments of my life for my sanity. To help me with this, I started writing down a list of what I do every day.

I write down things like the workout I did that day, how many miles I walked my dog, if I cooked dinner that night, who I had a Zoom call with, if I exfoliated — pretty much everything.

This documentation has helped me stay grounded, differentiate one day from another, and remember the value of each day.

What are some of the things you’ve done to keep yourself productive with COVID-brain? Let me know in the comments.

Screw dreams. Set Big Hairy Goals that scare you. We’ll help by rooting you on from your inbox.