I’m sure, by now, everyone has an idea of what’s going on. Many of us are working from home if we can, choosing to stay home as much as possible, or in quarantine or lockdown.
I’ve seen an explosion of articles about how to cope with staying at home:
How to cope with being at home with your partner 24/7.
How to work from home.
How to work out from home.
How to be more productive.
How to be less productive.
How to accept being more/less productive.
It’s a difficult time for everybody, especially people who have never freelanced and never had to impose a structure into their own day. I was lying on my bed in a towel a few days ago, wrestling with (and losing to) the crushing ennui of all the empty hours I was facing. Here’s what I was thinking.
In the face of a pandemic, it becomes evident almost everything we do is optional. So why do anything?
Well, why DO we do anything?
The first reason that came to mind was ‘because we like it’. Because it’s pleasurable. But why else?
The Four Categories of Purpose
As I lay in my towel considering our motivations for doing things when nothing is important and everything is optional, I came up with 4 essential categories.
- Pleasure
- Achievement
- Connection
- Helpfulness
Note: most actions can fall into multiple categories and there’s no real objective way to sort things — it all depends on what that action means to you.
Calling a family member, for example, could fall under pleasure if you enjoy talking to them, connection if it provides that sense of connection, achievement if you’re working on improving that relationship, or helpfulness if you calling that person makes things easier for someone else!
Pleasure
This one’s easy. Do something that you find pleasurable- but be mindful about it. In a time when your options might be more limited than usual, taking the time to make something significant can make a big difference to your mindset.
Hopefully, you do more than one enjoyable thing in a day, but pause before one of them and tell yourself ‘this is my pleasurable thing for today’. Here some ideas:
- Talk to your loved ones on the phone
- Draw/paint/write/do something creative
- Do some type of physical activity
- Eat something delicious
- Rearrange your living room
Achievement
I have several friends who’ve had to leave their skilled jobs because of COVID-19 and are struggling with feeling ‘useless’. A sense of achievement plays a huge role in combatting the helplessness many of us are feeling, whether we’re still employed or not.
If you’re working from home, your work could be your ‘achievement’. If you’re not working or if work doesn’t satisfy this need, here are some other things you could achieve:
- Clean out a section of your house
- Work through a free online course
- Learn a new physical skill (PS— I teach online handstand conditioning classes if that’s your vibe. Join the Facebook Group if you’re interested.)
- Beat a video game or finish a book
- Work on a hobby or project or simply ‘get better’ at one of your current hobbies
Connection
Yes, we’re physically isolated at the moment. And for those of us who crave physical closeness with our loved ones, this time can be particularly difficult. All the more reason to be more intentional about creating a feeling of mental and emotional connection.
- Call someone you love on the phone or video chat
- Play a virtual game with a friend
- Join a Netflix Watch Party
The activities I’ve listed above can either be powerful tools for connection, or not. It all depends on how you approach them. Make a point to go deep on your ‘connection’ phone call. Be open and vulnerable and hold space for the other person to do the same. It can be scary, and it’s hard work, but you have to find a way to recreate the warmth you get from a hug — through the phone.
Remember, you only have to do this for one a day. You can gossip about your tv shows on all your other phone calls.
Helpfulness
No matter how deep and dark and helpless and God-awful our own lives get, doing something helpful to someone else is a quick way to lift our spirits. Helping someone else is often easier than helping ourselves, so why not use that as a method to boost your own mood and sense of purpose. I’ve tried to lost a few lockdown- specific examples and more general ones for you.
- Help someone with some paperwork. Government assistance, tax, applications, set up a new internet account, find a better phone plan etc.
- Practice active listening for someone in need
- Give someone something they need or donate to a charity
- Buy something from or help promote a small/local business
- Take on some extra chores around the house
- Help someone study or teach/ share your knowledge
(Want to read more about this idea of helpfulness/usefulness? Check out this article.)
If you’re stuck at home (or mostly at home) and you find yourself drowning in too much time and not enough ‘stuff’ to do, doing one thing that fits into each of these categories will provide you with a structure that’s defined yet gentle enough on your mental health.
I recommend writing down a list of activities that fall into each category so it’s easy to just glance at your lists and pick one to do that day.
