Tips for enduring the lockdown - from my experience of being at home even earlier

In May 2019, I moved to Bombay to pursue my lifelong bucket-list dream of making films that empower and impact.

After 13 years of working across 3 organisations, this was the first time I would be working from home, without a set of colleagues, without a set routine, without a stable income and without enforced pressure from above. It has been 10.5 months and this has been a painfully satisfying journey.

Moreover, I believe that the greatest battles are the ones within. If we can conquer the demons within, we won’t need to battle the ones outside. At a time when a lot of us are involuntarily but rightly confined to our homes, I felt like sharing some tips, largely linked to mental health and productivity, that have helped me retain my sanity during this ‘Work from home’ adventure (with inputs from my friend Mehul):

In your home, have a designated working spot. Don’t do anything but work there. And this work-spot CANNOT be your bed.
Resist the urge to not bathe in the morning. Bathe and preferably dress in non-home clothes. Even if not entirely formal work attire, wear something midway, basically something that’s not a nightdress.
Exercise in the morning. Give your body that. It deserves it. And your mind and body are interconnected.
When we’re in offices, we generally try and avoid work. When we’re at home, each moment we avoid work makes us feel guilty. If you’re honest enough to work for a designated set of hours, take a break and don’t feel guilty. Find something that entertains you, something that makes you happy and do it regularly. You earned it. Remember the going late to office and elongated lunch breaks and elongated chai-kitli breaks and sneaking in social media/phone calls between work and the early winding up? This is better than that. Work when you work and enjoy when you enjoy.
While working at home, your body posture can go from alert to slumped to slept. Be aware of that. Sit erect and stand for a bit every hour.
The more you stay at home, the less you’ll feel like interacting with others. You may occasionally get bouts of being flooded amongst a crowd but otherwise you’ll want to be alone. It’s counter-intuitive, maybe a coping mechanism. Gradually your idle mind will turn into a devil’s workshop. You can’t go out thanks to Covid-19, so call people, video-call them, chat with them, feel and stay connected.
If your home happens to be on the road or ideally facing some greenery, stand in the balcony/window in the mornings/evenings, the colour green with the colour blue and sometimes even the chaos outside feel strangely calming.
Resist eating very late breakfast or lunch. But especially avoid eating too heavy a dinner and sleeping too late at night. That affects how and when you wake up and hence your mood and body the entire next day.
Devices are addictive but even more so when you don’t have as much pressure around you. Keep experimenting on how to reduce the time spent ‘in’ your devices. For example, Apple has something called Screentime where except a few apps, you can lock all others at fixed hours. Allocate one browser for work and a separate one for everything else. Find what works for you.
I’ve found that blocking my ears to the outside world and allowing only very-specific sounds programmed for concentration, really helps. Vocals distract me but music soothes me. White noise apps can help you. For Mac, there’s an app called ‘Noizio’ that plays the sounds of sea-waves or rivers or rains or campfires or trees. It works wonders for me.
Constantly reading the news, especially in such desperate times, can affect you. Be aware of what’s out there, do your bit to help, do your bit to protect yourself and people around you. But beyond that, don’t let it get to you, all the doom and gloom can push you into never-ending quicksand.
We tend to procrastinate when what is ahead of us appears too difficult or makes us uncomfortable. At work, people and processes exert pressure and hence we can’t afford to dilly-dally too much, at home we will. Fight the first urge to procrastinate you feel, count to 10 and hopefully your rationality will take over, observe where the urges come from and systemically reduce the room afforded to them.
If you live with someone/talk to someone regularly, a day spent at home can sometimes make you feel miserable. Multiple days can make you feel even worse. There will be an urge to offload your bad moods onto them. Be aware of that, they aren’t at fault here, you are, circumstances are. Accept that, have that humility and they’ll help you snap out of it.
If you’re feeling down, accept it. Articulate it to yourself and then to your partner, friends and family. They’ll help, they’re feeling similarly, you’ll feel lighter together. Ask for help, offer help. If you took in-person therapy, switch to Skype but don’t stop it.
If you’re not in a regular job, this phase can be extra disappointing and scary since you’ll worry about when things will return to normalcy, when you’ll get work, when you’ll make money. If you’re in the kind of field where it is possible, try and use this time to ready your own material so that by the time things get back to normal, you’re loaded with content and set to go. Then, this phase will appear to have been a boon for your professional life (not to be insensitive or tone-deaf to the suffering out there).
Some of you may feel this post is gold and be all charged up on how this will transform your life from tomorrow. It won’t. It’ll work a few days and then fizzle out. I'm myself not able to follow these regularly. But be aware of the problem and keep trying. Eventually, you’ll find what works for you and try streaking successful days together. Keep iterating and evolving. There is no one-size-fits-all perfect solution. Just don’t stop trying.

Wish you all health, happiness and peace 😊.