How many times in your adult life have you sighed and said, “If only I had more time, I’d write that book/learn to cook/get in shape/master riding the unicycle”? And now here we are with nothing but time and how many of us are squandering it watching Netflix in our pjs and eating our weight in pizza? Well, no more! Because today I’m going to teach you how to get your life together during quarantine.
There has been no greater time to turn your life upside down. To create a fabulous new you. To disappear into the cocoon of quarantine a disorganised mess and emerge a beautiful, kick-butt butterfly. After all, most of us are stuck indoors and, even for those who aren’t, our schedules aren’t nearly as full as they usually are. Now is the time for your own personal montage moment.
What is a Montage Moment?
A montage moment is the pivotal scene in any chick-flick where the heroine takes charge of her life and magically transforms every aspect of it with ease and grace…to music. You might not be able to condense the entire overhaul of your life into a minute and a half of well-lit yet cheesy film clips, but you can still create the same effect in your own, real life by following some simple steps.
Here’s how to get your life together during quarantine.
1. Set Your Goals
What do you actually want to achieve? What does your dream life look like and what steps can you start taking to get you there? There’s no one size fits all answer here.
Start by brainstorming. Get all your goals and dreams out of your head and down onto paper. Then, spend some time sorting things into categories and organising them into manageable chunks. Don’t bite off more than you can chew! Try to do too much at once and it might all come crashing down around you. Be realistic.
Gather all your ideas in one place that you can refer back to. You could make:
- A vision board
- A list
- A mindmap
- A combination of all of the above
Just make sure you’re clear on what you’re trying to achieve and what small acts you can put into practice right now to steer you in the right direction.
2. Create a Routine
Let me ask you a question: what day is it today?
If you don’t know the answer, you’re not alone.
When you’re stuck in quarantine and the outside world starts to become a distant memory, it’s easy to fall out of routine. To sleep until 10am. To eat cookie dough for breakfast. To not brush your hair for four days straight.
But if you really want to get your life together during quarantine then you need structure and routine in your life.
Things you can do to stay productive during quarantine:
- Set an alarm
- Get dressed into actual clothes
- Eat meals at regular meal times
- Keep up your everyday hygiene routine
- If you’re a control freak like me, create a daily schedule
Treat your time like it’s valuable…because it is!
3. Just Do It
I’m a perfectionist, which lots of people assume makes me an excellent worker. Those people are wrong. My natural instinct is to avoid tasks that I don’t feel like I can do perfectly the first time round.
“I can’t write that until I’ve done more research on the topic.”
“I can’t attempt to make a new meal until I’ve read 20 variations of the recipe on Pinterest first.”
“I can’t declutter my wardrobe until I’ve read The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up from cover to cover.”
Sound familiar?
It’s taken a lot for me to learn to stop wasting my own time and be more productive. But the most effective way to get stuff done…is to just do it!
Don’t wait for the perfect timing, until you feel like your most inspired self or until you’ve finished organising all the paperwork on your desk. A completed task done to a decent standard is better than an incomplete task with the potential to be perfect.
Just do it!
4. Stay on Track
They say that getting started is the hardest part, but not veering off track midway through can be pretty challenging too. When something is new and exciting and you’ve got all kinds adrenaline and motivation pumping through your veins, it’s easy to stay on task. But after a few days, it’s common to lose interest and find yourself wanting to get back under the covers to binge-watch your favourite tv series and shovel donuts into your mouth.
Stay the course! You can keep yourself motivated by:
- Reading motivational quotes
- Creating a kick-butt playlist to listen to when you start to get restless
- Writing motivational post-it notes and leaving them all over the house
- Looking at your vision board every morning and night
Don’t Know Where to Start?
So at this point maybe you’re pumped and ready to go, but have no idea where to begin. Maybe you don’t know exactly what it is you want to achieve or you’re uncertain about the kinds of goals you want to set for yourself. Use these ideas as a jumping off point and go from there:
- Learn to cook healthy meals
- Start a new project
- Get your finances together
- Learn a new language
- Improve your fitness levels
- Declutter your home
- Change your style
- Redecorate your home
- Find productive ways to spend your time during quarantine
Or Don’t
Look, quarantine is hard. And yes, we’re super privileged to be whiling away our time on our laptops in our warm, cosy houses. But even so, being away from loved ones, facing financial uncertainty, being confined to our homes – all these things are major stressors. And if you need to spend this time mentally unplugging and indulging in the things that make you happy then that’s what you should do.
You don’t need to spend this time overhauling your life. We don’t all have to emerge from this global crisis with a six-pack and a new language under our belts. If the best thing for your mental health is to watch every movie on Disney Plus and live in your onesie, that’s what you should focus on doing right now.
But for those of you who are wondering how to get you life together during quarantine and need a project to work on to help get you through, I hope you found my tips helpful.
And if you did, why not share them with a friend? Please and thank you!
