Time Management During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Two months ago, our life routines were different. The working days, the weekends, going to a gym, hanging out with friends, etc., all these things are gone. In this period of social distancing, all we have left is time.

Theoretically, this means that there is more time for things people claim have no time for. Yet real life is not like that at all.

We have more time now, but still can’t get anything done, why?

During normal situations, maintaining a schedule is a helpful tool to create a greater sense of order. But under the current situations, having a schedule isn’t only helpful but very important and essential. It will help you be more productive and not let you lose sense of direction, and waste huge amounts of time each day.

Most people probably already have their own schedule or at least they are used to what they do every day and it’s become like a habit. But considering that everything drove their time have disappeared, now they need to construct new time structure to help them stay on track.

In order to help you align your time, several things should be considered:

1- Work: experts recommend keeping your work schedule close to what you used to do in the office, for example start and end your workday same as you did before the quarantine.

The reason behind this is that your mind is already set deeply to certain habits for long time so this will help you take advantage of already established ways of doing things, while creating new habits puts you at risk of becoming distracted.

2- Family: since you are forced to work from home and your kids are probably at home too, so you need to build new routines for you and your family. It’s better to split the time with your spouse or partner.

Try to make the most of your time before your kids wake up in the morning, before their nap times, or after they go to bed

3- Health: well the first thing to care about is the measures required to slow the spread of covid-19.

Since all the facilities are shut down, so you need to come up with new exercise plan from scratch to keep yourself fit and healthy.

You have the choice to be your worst enemy or your best friend, there are still ways you can, and should, use to stay active. Not only the exercise is great for your physique, it is a tremendous way to stay healthy and reduce stress.

Another thing you need to consider is your “sleep”. Since there are no commitments making you sleep or wake up early, you may find yourself staying up later than usual and this scenario should not become your reality. You must sleep properly because this will not only help you become more productive, but it will also boost your mood and immune system.

One last thing, take a break from the news and social media and give yourself time to recharge by listening to music, reading or praying, etc.

If you would like to create schedule and use quarantine time to achieve personal goals, a few strategies can help,

1- Keeping track of your time is the first step. Once you know where the time goes, you can make changes that will help you spend more time on the things that matter, and less on the things that don’t.

2- Learn how to prioritize

3- Break your activities down into categories, like sleeping, exercising, working, etc.

4- Make a spreadsheet and record everything you have been doing during the week.

There are 168 hours in the week, try to write down everything in as much details as you want for 168 hours.

5- Do that every week, try to figure out what how much time you spent on every category and find how you can change your schedule to get better.