Creating "Normalcy" Through Digital Communities
/No doubt in the past few weeks we’ve all been spending a lot of time at home, practicing social-distancing. Looking to our electronic devices to stay connected with our loved ones has changed the way we maintain our communities.
I’ve found a few ways to restore normalcy in my life by continuing to nurture my relationships through digital communities and respecting natural breaks during work hours.
Exercise. There are a lot of great ways to exercise while practicing social distancing, but finding the motivation when you’re spending your day transitioning between your bedroom, kitchen and living room somehow seems harder. Activities that were part of my core identity began to fall out of my daily routine. It wasn’t until a friend passed along a link to a barre studio, Barreroom, that I finally got going. The first time I checked in for a workout, I only did half a class during my lunch break. Somehow that seemed to be the tiny push I needed. Mentally allowing myself to do small workouts instead of keeping a standard of hours of trail running or mountain biking made me realize that during these times we need to listen to our bodies and let them adjust as well. I needed that small digital community to see that other people were finding time to allow their bodies to take priority, even if it was only for 30 minutes.
Set your breaks. Working from home can be brutal if you take the literal sense of 9-5 by your desk. During our regular work days, we socialize when we put our lunch away in the kitchen, we catch up with colleagues when we pass by their desks, and we take time to move from meetings. So what does that look like when we’re at home and our lunch is in our kitchen and our meetings are at our desks? I decided that I would respect the natural flow of my “normal” work day and try to incorporate it in my current routine. My partner and I have started using Cuckoo Timer, where we set a 25 minute work period and get a 5 minute break. During those 5 minutes we catch up, grab a snack and share great dog videos. We sync our breaks so we feel connected and aren’t distracting each other when we’re needing to focus. While respecting those natural breaks, I’ve also continued to foster my relationships by scheduling daily lunchtime video chats with friends. I would normally eat with my colleagues and while working from home I miss that interaction. Taking those 30 minutes to connect with another human has kept me sane and my personal relationships stronger.
Mindless Eating. I’m a snacker. I’ve always been a snacker and may always be, but eating a family-sized bag of Mini Eggs in two days definitely made me realize that I’m not equipped to work beside a fully stocked kitchen, much less a kitchen stocked with my favourite chocolate and chips. After seeing a few Instagram posts about the struggles chronic snackers were having, I decided it was time to do something about it. Instagram kept me connected to all the delicious snacks my friends were making while social distancing and it inspired me to get some healthier snacks at hand. Which leads me to these amazing cookies, Cosmic Cookies. Although constantly snacking may be an issue regardless of the “healthy status” of the snacks, at least I have my Cuckoo timer, my workouts and my friends on video chat during lunch to keep me from snacking because I’m bored.
Blog post by Lina Gomez. Lina is YWiB Vancouver’s VP Events. You can almost always find her outdoors snowboarding, mountain biking, or trail running.