Dabbl

              Today marks Edition #40 of the Quarantine Times series. It was an experimental series that covered a range of topics that came along with the coronavirus without talking directly about the coronavirus. Since I’m sure you’ve heard plenty about COVID just in your everyday life, I wanted to look past that and provide insight into topics that ran parallel with the pandemic. Topics like being efficient while working from home, immunity health, workouts from home, cooking for yourself, and so on. I hoped these topics helped give yourself an idea of how to make the most out of not just this quarantine, but with every headwind that life throws at us. I wanted to push myself to see the positive in this whole situation and help some people gain perspective along the way.

              This is the last edition of the Quarantine Times series. However, normal topics will resume tomorrow with the same good content that everyone craves. And as a sendoff to this series, I wanted to give my final thoughts of the pandemic and list the Top 5 Quarantine Times articles to read at the end of this article.

              This pandemic showed many of us who we are. A number of people, including myself, gained experience working from home, exercising from home, cooking every meal, and finding new and creative ways to push yourself in areas you normally didn’t have time for.

              First and foremost, working from home taught me that discipline is everything. I abused the freedom for the first few days and it set me back. Once I adapted to the new lifestyle, I was able to be productive and learned how to deal with my big distractions. Distractions like Instagram or Netflix that kept me from doing what I needed to get done.

              The other large benefit to this freedom of working from home is the time to stop and think. This is difficult to come by when working in an office. The power of taking a moment to stop and examine your thoughts was one of the biggest takeaways that I discovered during this pandemic. This time to myself will be missed although I am going to make it more of a priority as I go back to work in the office. Self-reflection is so important for everyone. It helps us clear our heads and come up with new ideas. We think about what’s important in our life and prioritize what we truly want.

              To tag along onto time for myself, the next and final best thing was the time to be entrepreneurial. Sure, people can do this on a daily basis during their normal job, but it’s not the same. Having the time set aside each day to simply come up with new ideas was amazing. After a while, I felt ideas coming easier and easier as well as more naturally rather than forcing an idea. I learned to listen to my emotions and create a product around a customer and not myself. I became an idea machine and it’s difficult to do that when you’re back in the office with distractions and people asking you for things. That is why that after work, I will make it a priority to have time for myself just to think and come up with new ideas. This is a muscle that can be trained and I noticed that for the first time get better and stronger. I also started an entrepreneur class online that I took seriously and learned important principles like validation and testing your product first.

Exercise efficiency was another big takeaway for me during this time. With the lack of fitness centers and equipment, our bodies are limited to what we are able to do. For me, this means that I had to get super creative to come up with the best workout for me. I’ve never been big into cardio or body weight exercises. However, this pandemic gave me the opportunity to run more miles than I have ever before. It also gave me the opportunity to utilize body weight exercises to mimic the effect of heavy lifting. It took a long time to discover this new method. Doing pushups over and over drove me crazy, so I came up with a new method that helped me put on mass instead of just toning my body. And I utilized this new method in other areas of my body such as my back, shoulders, and legs. With the new method I came up with, I would be much sorer the next day as opposed to just doing normal body weight exercises, which is a good indicator of an effective workout. And the best part is that I would exercise no longer than 30 minutes a day (unless I was running). Greater effectiveness with half the time. Sounds like a win/win to me. This ideology is something that I’ll be transferring over to my normal gym routine when fitness centers open up.

               All in all, the pandemic was actually pretty good for me and I consider myself very lucky and grateful for that. My heart goes out to anyone that was negatively affected in any way. I was lucky to be able to collect a paycheck during this time and I was lucky to have the freedom to work from home for 3 months. I learned a lot during my time at home and as a bonus, I got even closer to my girlfriend in the best of ways. So, if there’s only just one takeaway from the pandemic that I could provide, then it would be to take a negative and find a way to turn it into a positive. If you become fluent in this one skill alone, then the sky is the limit for you. I hope you enjoyed this series as much as I did. But now it’s time to get back to the usual. Hope to see you here tomorrow.

              Here is the list of the Top 5 Articles from The Quarantine Times series as voted on by the readers:

1. The Quarantine Times 24 – Success Stems From Struggle
2. The Quarantine Times 11 – It Takes 10 Years to Become an Overnight Success
3. The Quarantine Times 26 – The Power of Investing In Yourself
4. The Quarantine Times 17 – “Sometimes you have to be a lion to be the lamb you really are.”
5. The Quarantine Times 23 – New Meditation Technique That I’m Excited About