Anchors that set you free
It’s been more than a year, most of us stuck in this odd work life — all remote. Those in India are finding their way out of the surge in covid, managing office and virtual schools with practically everyone learning as they spend another day. During this time, we found if we make certain hard commitments and get bound to them, they can practically liberate us.
We are a creature of habits, and whatever we may say, habits keep us sane.
Pandemic brought a lot of chaos and changes, thereby teaching us few lessons. In school and college learnt a fascinating concept — a measure of disorder — Entropy. It wasn’t until now I understood the devastating impact of the disorder on physical and mental health.
Scheduling lunch hour on your calendar and sticking to it as a family is the best ever thing I have done in my remote working life
With the entire work remote and all communication shifting to zoom, meetings were just a ping away. Days were stretching and becoming random. I shared this with my mother, who used to work in an establishment that had fixed lunchtime from 3 to 3:30 pm, and it was pretty clear what we were missing. While I can’t understand the timing part, we decided to set the lunchtime. We communicated it through a busy block on the calendar. To my surprise, it has worked reasonably well so far.
Saturday evening activity can be very rejuvenating.
Weekends were different after long working days and limited outside activity. Fortunately, we were not alone. We formed our covid bubble. We simply started going on the terrace with another family and followed that with a tea. It became quite an excellent stress-buster routine for us. With time it evolved into a bit of nearby walk, hill climb — all within the covid bubble.
Identify a thing to engage or learn and follow it through consistently.
Learning something unrelated is a hugely rewarding activity. It probably activates a different part of the brain than what we usually use for regular work. (I guess) . We started a home composting and gardening. This gave us a reason to look forward to something different every day. It brought in activities like watering the plant and sorting & dumping in the composter daily.
Exercise — whatever time you could give, have milestones and track them.
Exercising is the most coveted habit of our generation. Pre-Corona days, gyms made a profit because of people who would subscribe and wouldn’t turn up. I was one of them once. During my few visits to the gym, I learned from the manager that if every member becomes regular, the gym would have to at least quadruple everything. The gym would make huge losses. Regardless, Covid has made us realise health is real wealth — both physical and mental. Find your rhythm and just get going, day by day, week by week, and this can be the most important anchor one can lay down in their lives ever.
Imagine a ship sailing through the middle of the ocean with no land in sight. These anchors serve as a compass to this ship, suggesting that we get the bearing right for the desired destination. I found having such definitive anchors giving the sense of direction and are liberating in a usually stretched and zoomed life. Carefully set daily anchors ensure many things are taken care of with relative ease.
