Hello, Hive (Peakd). Before we get into it, I just want to say thanks to everyone who made this transition so easy. Onwards and upwards!
Social distancing is an interesting concept. For many, it goes against the norm but it's actually something I've fallen into accidentally over the last decade.
It's not like I'm a complete hermit but a lot of the things I enjoy, I can do from home. I work from home, practice playing the guitar at home, play videogames at home, watch films at home, and work on my side-projects from home.
There are a few reasons for me to leave my apartment but the main one is going to watch Liverpool play at the weekend. Now that the Premier League fixtures have all been postponed, there's hardly any reason for me to leave at all. And that's probably a good thing with all the virus stuff going on.
It got me thinking about how best to make use of this time. In truth, things aren't great in the business department at the moment. I'm a freelance worker and the work has dried up a lot over the last couple of weeks. It's understandable. Other businesses aren't looking to pay out on things at the moment and the pressure of that is felt all the way down the chain.
Nevertheless, I am lucky because I can survive like this for quite some time. Yet, I want to make the most of this time. As such, I found myself going down the rabbit hole of videos about self-improvement and landed on one that caught my eye. It was about decluttering your life in as many ways as possible to make it easier to cancel out the background noise and focus on your goals.
'Sounds goods', I thought. So I started. First up, I did a huge clean of the apartment. The kind of clean you do at the end of a tenancy when you don't want to lose your deposit. I went through the cupboards and drawers, throwing out anything that I had no use for.
Next up was the digital declutter. This involved deleting all the useless screenshots on my phone, tidying up files on my computer, and cancelling any digital subscriptions I no longer needed.
Finally, we got to the mental decluttering. I sat down and thought about the things that I want to achieve. And then it dawned on me that now is the perfect time to get stuff done. I'm self-isolating for the next couple of months, work is slow, I have no vacations planned, no events to go to, no meetings of family or friends to attend.
For the last few months, I've been building a website that I hope will provide me with a long-term source of passive income. The only problem is that I've been adding content to it sporadically because it's on the backburner to my regular job and life's other distractions.
I've made the decision to go full time on my new website for the next month or so. It's not paying out anything at the moment but I could get all of the content up if I dedicate my time to it. With nothing else to do, it seems like the perfect time.
I'm also looking to drop quite a bit of weight. What better time to do this than when you're stuck in the house? I've pre-ordered all of the meals I need to complete this and am stocked up for the next 6 weeks. It seems like the perfect opportunity to come out of this awful global situation as an improved man.
I guess the point of this post was to encourage people to try to find positives in these difficult times. Being in isolation doesn't always have to be seen as a bad thing. Perhaps there's something you've been putting off for a while that you can now focus your time on?