People say nothing's impossible, but I do nothing every day
-Winnie The Pooh
We all agree being productive can be hard, but it can harder when you are stuck during a lockdown. The latter might be an unpopular opinion, but getting the motivation to be productive while being stuck at home is a tedious task to initiate. Trying a new hobby or trying to pick up a new skill requires heavy commitment, and most importantly consistency. So we have curated a list with generic activities which you will find in any other blog, but there is a twist. Instead of giving you a basic introduction with 'How-to-do-it' instructions, we'll tell you actual candid reasons for trying these activities to increase your productivity. So here's a list, unlike
1. Re-learn an old instrument
Let's be honest many of you have that one guitar, violin, Keyboard, Percussion, Harmonium hidden in a corner of the house covered with dust and shame because you didn't/couldn't pursue learning it further for whatever reason in the past. The same instrument you always got reminded of whenever you attended a music festival and concert. Do yourself a favor, clear the dust and give that bad boy one more shot, and this time seriously. Challenge yourself to practise every day. With a bit of discipline, you'll be to live your childhood dream of covering that one song by your favourite artist because it means a lot to you. Maybe you can even dazzle your friends with a surprise performance on your next Goa vacation.
2. Read Books
There is going to be two kinds of reaction to this suggestion "More books? are you insane?" or "I am doing that already". If you fall in the latter group, skip this one. When something is not enforced on us we are likely to like it, and that is the case with books. But here is a different reason why you should make a reading habit, reading greatly magnifies our imagination power and concentration. That might seem like not that strong of a reason to start until you realize, this in turn, makes you more productive in almost all aspect of your life. You might hate your job and just want to get done with the mundane work fast, or simply a student struggling with math's, having a reading habit is like to help in most domains. And we haven't even started with normal benefits science links with reading, like improving vocabulary, gaining knowledge, and comprehending things faster. You might not be able to go on a vacation right now or go partying in the hotels of Mumbai, but you surely dive into the world of fantasy of your choice. Also this time you won't be forced into reading science.
3. Try learning cooking
This one goes out to everyone who doesn't know how to cook. Not gonna sugar coat this one, everyone should know how to make their own meal. We all have a craving for a delicious meal on command, but considering ordering from nearby hotels and restaurants will put a hole in our pocket (not to mention the limited availability of delivery services due to the lockdown). So it's a good time to start leering to cook and no better time to start than the time you have the best teacher (points towards moms) available 24/7 due to lockdown. The satisfaction to able to cook your food whenever you wish is unmatched, no matter how much salary you earn. Not being dependent on someone to make food, isn't only self-empowering, it can greatly save money, and opens a huge array of food items you can try with whatever customization you want.
4. Clean your Digital devices
Most likely you own a Personal computer or a smartphone. Digital devices have made their way from being a luxury to a necessity. Everywhere you go, from the simplest Kirana shops in metro cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore or even the street vendors in these cities are digitized. We use our phone and laptops for doing most of our monetary transaction from booking rooms in Hotels, Flights, Trains to paying our electricity bills. Even a simple task like ordering food from a nearby hotel or restaurants is done on our digital devices. Yet we barely seem to take care of these devices. Computer and phones store a lot of important data like bank details, social security numbers, classified data from the workplace, but they also consist of a lot of trash. From random images from WhatsApp groups to random apps you have no memory of downloading. With cybersecurity, a big concern these days, cleaning your digital devices like computer, phones, laptop, tablet can be a very productive thing to do, which you normally don't get the time to. Even putting the security issues aside, having a clean device greatly improves the functionality and makes them more optimized for giving a presentation on the go, or simply increase the lifespan of the device by a year.
5. Work on you weakness
Everyone has weaknesses. Many might not acknowledge it, or think it isn't that big of a deal but they surely pull us down. While we can work on our weakness, they normally require a huge amount of time and commitment, which in the rat race of life many of us can't afford. So unless it is something detrimental, we live on with the weakness. One thing this lockdown provides us is ample time. Ample time to think over and identify our weakness and most importantly accept them. Don't work on your weakness to impress others or to flaunt, work on them to become a better person. Let it be anger issues that have ruined vacations, speech disability that made people laugh in public or simply that one subject you struggle because you never truly understood the core basics of it. It's never too late, to give it another shot.
While not in the list, the biggest productive thing you can do during the quarantine is self-care. If you are working from home (WHM) don't let your working hours get blurred with personal time. Take breaks in-between long session, especially work in front of screens. Don't burden yourself with too many goals to meet post quarantine. You don't need to come out this quarantine as this completely changed person with multiple new set of skills. It's fine to be the same person after the lockdown, because you survived, stayed home and made a change.