How to Get Ahead in Life and Career Under Quarantine

The coronavirus outbreak has managed to grind the wheels of the global economy into a halt, lock down cities, and place a great portion of the world’s population under quarantine stuck between four walls. Such a situation is sure to breed distress among most of us and in the process we could succumb to negativity and stop pursuing our goals that now seem out of reach far more than ever before.

However, the good news is that while being under a quarantine substantially limits your freedom, it can open up new doors of opportunity that help you get ahead in your life and career. My name is Daniel Molgan and in this blog post, I will show you how to make the most of the time while under quarantine by offering you ten tips on how to do just that:

1- Take a good look at your life and come up with short-term, medium-term, and long-term goals for your life and career

The modern world has compelled most of us to rush through life without ever finding sufficient time to sit quietly and reflect on our lives. The coronavirus pandemic and the quarantines set in place as a result of it can be used to finally take the time and think about your life until today. Your likes and dislikes, the things you want to achieve in life that you had postponed to a later date, and the quality of your relationships with other people are but a few of the issues that you can think about while stuck at home under quarantine. The answers to such questions can then help you come up with goals assigned with short-term deadlines of a few days to a few weeks, medium-term deadlines of a few months to a few years, and long-term deadlines that are five or more years down the line.

2- Plan each day, set a to do list, and create a daily schedule

Your daily routine is now taken away from you as work places, schools, universities, and stores have been closed. Most of us rely on these routines to go through our days but without them we fall pray to boredom, irritability, and negativity. By taking the time to plan each day and designing a schedule, ideally using the calendar of your phone, you can give each day a sense of order. Also writing a daily to do list can help you stay focused on the tasks that need to be done and avoid unnecessary distractions.

3- Reduce exposure to the news media as much as possible

As most industries are hit hard by the pandemic, the news media find themselves in an ideal situation that makes them quite the exception. As far as the news media is concerned this is their moment to cash in advertisement money and the best way to do so is by scaring their viewers so that they cannot help but to keep following up with the news to see when it all ends. The fact of the matter is that you will be aware of the end of this crisis once it happens without ever following the news because people around you are already doing that for you. Additionally, being under quarantine means you cannot do much about the events that are unfolding anyways so why bother getting upset by the headlines announcing the latest number of deaths or the other problems that arise in a pandemic? You can instead briefly go through the headlines every now and then instead of being glued to the TV or live streams of the news on your phone and keep abreast of the latest without constantly stressing over the latest headlines!

4- Avoid time wasters

Randomly surfing on social media, binge watching on Netflix, playing mindless online games, over drinking, doing drugs of any kind legal or illegal as a means of dealing with boredom, being down and negative, trolling on the internet, starting fights with the people around you, making useless TikTok videos, sharing irrelevant content with your contacts online, and even holding your phone in your hand without a purpose are but a few of the examples of time wasters that you need to replace with productive and constructive goals so that this crisis does not waste your precious life.

5- Take care of your body and diet

Being at home all the time can make anyone lazy and could lead to abandoning physical activities, obesity, and poor nutritional intake. That is why you need to make sure that you get enough exercise be it yoga, stretching, lifting weight, or simply walking around in your home as you listen to music or podcasts. Also be cautious of your calorie intake as overeating as a means of dealing with boredom is unfortunately quite common in times of quarantine.

6- Take care of your mind and emotional state

Happiness is defined as the state of mind dubbed flow, the feeling of being absorbed in the moment and fully engaged with what we do. The state of flow is the sweet spot in between stress and boredom and in times of social isolation spent within the confines of one’s home it is so much easier to get more of the boredom and stress but no so much of the flow! That is precisely why you need to be aware of your emotional state and try to remain as positive and engaged with tasks that are meaningful to you as possible.

7- Take your career online

The majority of work that we do can be done online, almost all communication based professions such as consultants, lawyers, advisers, managers, salespeople, educators, and journalists can continue working remotely. Small business owners can take their business online and offer their products via home delivery. Students can take part in sessions via Zoom or Skype, even photographers can use FaceTime to take excellent photos from their clients. Turn your home into an office and go to work online. This is the one advantage that people did not have in previous centuries when they had to deal with their own plagues so be grateful for the technology and make good use of it.

8- Go on intense learning

While learning in groups is proven to be more effective than learning alone that by no means reduces the efficiency, if not necessity of learning and studying alone. Hence, social distancing does not hinder your ability to begin intensive study in your field of activity and develop your skills and abilities. Many online resources offer free courses to anyone wishing to become more knowledgeable. After all, to earn more you need to learn more!

9- Create alone time for all members of your family

Did you know that divorce, domestic violence, and fights all dramatically increase during mandatory quarantines? One of the biggest reasons for this phenomenon is that couples and families don’t arrange for alone times so that they could be away from each other for a few hours each day and mimic time away at work during normal days. Simply assign different rooms or parts of the house to different members of the family and give each alone time to substantially reduce the likelihood of arguments or fights.

10- See this as a once in a life time opportunity to get ahead of the competition

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow once said: “the heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they, while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” Understand that the coronavirus pandemic and the quarantines associated with it have put billions of people into sleep marked by degradation, laziness, and loss of motivation. That means that it does not matter what your field might be, the majority of your competitors have dropped the towel and given up, this is your moment to get ahead of the competition by outworking them. For the achievers, this is the moment of the truth, the once in a life time opportunity to get so much ahead of the competition that they can never catch up with you long after the crisis is over!

The coronavirus pandemic will be over but the time that it takes until we get there will never be returned back to you which is why it is my sincere hope that reading this post acts as the first step to help you get ahead in life and career under quarantine! Feel free to reach me here or on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter in case you had any questions or if I could be of assistance in any way. Live with no inner limits or outer borders!