Stay Home Feeling Anxious?: Super Practical Things To Do During COVID-19

A little bit of background and I’ll then cut right to the chase.

In my country, I have been in the second row of the battle with COVID-19 — just right behind the medical practitioners. Over the past 3 months, I have been introducing and implementing digital tools to alleviate the negative impact of COVID-19.

To do so, I needed to determine what (digital tools) people really need. So, I interviewed hundreds of people. What I find to be the most troubling thing for them is dealing with uncertainty brought about by the abrupt change. Such uncertainty affects the deepest sense of how they maintain our sense of livelihood.

Based on professional consultations I have given to hundreds of people across the globe, here are the 3 super practical things to do now:

1. Take this time to do an inventory of your household objects and finance

Although many of us get to stay at and work from home, most of us are actually stay home and feel anxious rather than be productive. That’s because we have too much time on our hand — the time that we usually spend socializing water cooler-side. It’s hard, of course, as although we humans are resilient we are wired to socialize.

When you feel anxious and could no longer sit at your work-from-home desk, the most sensible thing to do is to take this very special time to do an inventory of your house — honestly deciding what you want to keep and what to throw out, give away or donate.

Organizing and tidying up doesn’t require you to be focused all the time. In fact, you could also listen to your favorite podcast, radio, audiobook, or music while doing it. It doesn’t have to be as extreme as Marie Kondo’s Netflix show, but the philosophy of only keeping what sparks joy is a good start. Apart from the house and food, you may be surprised that most people come down to just a piece of checked luggage that actually need in their life. The rest can go, probably slowly, since we humans are also built to hoard.

Do the same with your finance. Extra credit cards that you never use, cancel them. Duplicate media subscriptions that you don’t have time to watch or read them all, cut it down to the single most important one.

Do that ruthlessly as if you’re Julius Ceasar — I come, I cut, I conquer.

2. Learn Something

I’ll be upfront: I am now a big fan of online learning.

This is the best time to learn something new because you can no longer give yourself a lame excuse (as I often did) of “not having the time.”

We are moving into the new era where knowledge is becoming completely democratized. It may not come as a surprise to you that such a process isn’t quite as difficult as anyone may have thought. Well, the way we teach (how a professor “professes” to the students) hasn’t changed much over the last hundred years. There are so many free online courses that you can take right now that will help you learn new skills that you may either need to tackle new career challenges or simply want to learn to keep your mind too busy to feel anxious (and it neurologically works!) I recommend choosing something that you have always wanted to learn. I just started a bunch including Korean 101 on Coursera which I always wanted to learn because my best pal is Korean.

How about those books you picked up from a bookstore a while ago serving as a statue of your lack of will?

Start reading them.

3. Give, Give, and Give

The next best thing you can do is to appreciate giving. We are all living in the world that applauds competition, where selfishness is sometimes just and is held as the critical element of success. There are hundreds of self-help books and gurus out there who are telling you to “say no” to achieve. In other words, if you want to be successful, be selfish with your time.

But the fact that gurus have to tell you to “say no” is because our nature is not to do so. This is a time when stopping is good, when staying home t is an act of kindness, when not competing is saving lives. This is the time to let go out of your sense of having to be selfish to protect your opportunity. This is the time to regain your sense of generosity.

Start with whatever you don’t need, hand them over to someone else who may need them. If your personal finance allows, donating to a good cause is most effective. You can also volunteer your time. Blood donation is also a good idea. Leaving behind what you no longer need frees up your cognitive ability to appreciate things more clearly. The appreciation of giving, as a bonus, reinforces your sense of social responsibility that in turn elevates your sense of self-esteem and therefore well-being.

Within a week, you’ll be less anxious, happier and more grateful that, at least, we are in this together.