All our grandparents fought in wars; coronavirus is OUR war. We will survive and we will come out the other side. In the interim, and because it is going to be tough I thought I would share some tips for making the best of the situation we all find ourselves in.
- Make your business as secure as you can for the shutdown. That means all manner of things; what you can do from home; what you need to do to look after key staff; how to keep in touch with them and keep them motivated; what you will be able to do for customers during the shutdown and how you can do that.
- Start your own home routine. Perhaps not a good idea to stay in your PJs all day. Get up have a shower, get dressed and have your first hour or so doing business related tasks. Even down to using the time to clean out your files and folders! Do something useful and productive to start your day.
- Don’t spend the day listening to bad news. By all means tune in at the start of the day, perhaps again at lunchtime and then one more time before evening. DON’T MAKE WATCHING THE NEWS THE LAST THING YOU DO BEFORE YOU GO TO BED. You won’t sleep.
- If you are at home with children, ditto, have a routine with them, let them play on their gadgets for an hour after breakfast but then organise some family time – get out those old board games.
- Use the time productively – get those jobs around the house done – that always makes me feel good to tick a few things off that to do list.
- Watch your stress levels. All of the tips above, from listening to an hourly diet of bad news; to not getting up and having a shower; to sitting around feeling sorry for yourself are all ways to attack your immune system. Try for an hour a day to watch something that makes you laugh. Laughter is the very best healer in the world for any situation and any condition.
- Eat normally. The tendency is to snack and snack and snack. Another really bad idea.
- There are four recognised stages of grief – and having to close your business down for the foreseeable future not knowing if you can even survive financially, is a grief episode times 10. The first stage of grief is denial (I can’t believe this is happening). The second stage is resistance (this isn’t fair; why me, why now?). The third stage is exploration (how can I use this time, what can I do to turn a negative into at least a slight positive). Acceptance – (shit happens; I can cope; we WILL get through this). The faster you get to acceptance, the faster your immune system reacts; the healthier you stay and the longer you will live. Even without a 15 year supply of toilet roll.
And to kick off your laugh for today – I picked up these tweets from two different people in the early days of being isolated …
Tweet 1:
Day 1 of quarantine: I’m going to take this as an opportunity to improve my health
Day 2 of quarantine: Due to personal reasons, I am eating a lasagna in my shower
Tweet 2:
me and me dad are sharing the dining room table working from home today. He’s an aerospace engineer on a conference call ordering fuselage prototypes and I’m drawing a duck
Stay sane, stay safe, be kind to yourself. This virus isn’t personal.