Y’all, I’m just trying to survive. I was going to write about how National Work From Home day is tomorrow (May 28, 2020), along with National Brisket day, National Hamburger day, and Shavuot, but the words simply aren’t flowing. Oh, how the writer has fallen during quarantine.
In all honesty, my schedule hasn’t changed that much since the pandemic started, considering my retail job. It’s just that I can’t go anywhere besides home and work. And can I tell you guys a secret? I trust you guys – it sucks ass. Excuse my language.
Anyway, the things I’ve been trying to do to get myself going and working during quarantine have been many. I mean, a lot. I’m sure whoever’s reading this has also come across this problem: the fact that in our current society, no one’s taught us how to set our own structure. It’s always an outside source. In school, we’d move from room to room for different lessons, thus making our brains shift in the right direction, and at work, my automatic default is that annoying customer service voice, simply because I’m trapped in a concrete box of a building.
I’ve always wanted to be able to work for myself, and I guess this quarantine has given me a test for that, but oh my god, how do freelancers do it? And how do I do it? Let me give you a few things I’ve tried to get myself rolling.
1. Giving myself a dedicated workspace.
It’s not perfect, but I’ve set up a little corner of my living room for my “office.” It’s by a lot of windows, so the light reflects awkwardly on my computer screens, but it’s fine, I don’t mind it. It’s honestly better than working in the dark. I enjoy the sun. I need more vitamin D in my life.
2. Giving myself a schedule.
This has… kind of worked? The schedule thing has been off and on, simply because when I’m home from my retail job, all I want to do is goof off (watching the last season of She-Ra has been the latest excuse to get out of work – btw, it’s amazing).
3. Giving myself accountability.
In my Why I’m Writing Every Day blog post, I mention that I have some accountability for working on my writing. That comes in the form of one of my friends, whom I send writing to.
It kind of feels like I’m reporting on an assignment, but it’s been working so far.
4. Getting rid of distractions.
Ok, so this one has been hard to do. Like, really hard. I’m a very distractable person. If there isn’t an obvious distraction, my mind will make one. My mind is great like that. But getting rid of distractions is necessary for getting work done. It’s helped that my family has been leaving me alone during my work hours. If I’m at my workstation during a certain time, most of them know that it’s not necessarily the best time to talk.
On the other hand, some family members haven’t been able to do this (my cat sat on me for so long today my butt went numb from being in the same position).
5. Letting myself take breaks.
This one has actually been the most important in my eyes. Just because I’ve been working at home doesn’t mean that I have to be working all the time. There have been studies that say that humans can only focus on the highest degree for certain increments of time, and so if you feel yourself slipping, it may be time for a break. The best thing I’ve found is to have specific times dedicated to taking breaks and getting away from my desk for 15 minutes. It feels good to let the brain detangle itself.
Overall:
I’m hoping that I can keep some of this up in the future, even without the pandemic – and maybe it will actually be easier, seeing as I could go on my breaks to somewhere that isn’t my house. I’d like that. I’d like that a lot.
Meagan Jones is a writer and artist from Southern Maine. She graduated in 2019 from the University of Maine at Farmington with a Creative Writing BFA and a Spanish minor. Check out her personal website at https://meaganljones.wordpress.com/ Follow her on Twitter @supernarra