I want to acknowledge that I'm very lucky, I didn't lose my job. I live with my partner and 3 kids so I haven't been lonely! We are homebodies, so it wasn't a big change to stay mostly at home. In the NT we've had only 30 cases of coronavirus and no deaths (so far, who knows what will happen when the borders re-open).
But I've been worried about my mum who lives alone in England, and I wonder how long it will be until I can visit her. I've been worried for my twins who are in their final year of school, how much harder it's going to be for them to find a job at the end of the year.
I don't usually look at the news, but as the situation blew up through March and into April I started checking the news several times a day. As soon as I realised the May craft fair wouldn't go ahead I dropped all the things I was working on for that - stopped making art altogether for a while. I spent more time than ever on instagram and felt a bit jealous of people in lockdown who were producing beautiful artwork, baking, crafting, and more. And I felt overwhelmed by all the free online content that was suddenly on offer, I didn't have time for any of it.
By good luck I reread Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport in April, and decided to have a digital detox in May. No more looking at news apps, no instagram except for half an hour at the weekends. I checked my emails morning and evening and tried to keep off other than that - only going on to check specific things, how to get somewhere on google maps, how to deal with ants on the veggie plants, etc. I don't do facebook, pinterest, or twitter, so they weren't a problem.
Overall, I stuck to it pretty well and it made a huge difference to how much I could get done on my days off - more gardening, more baking and more art. The pictures in this blogpost are artworks I made in May.
In the last week I've been less strict and have been going on YouTube and listening to some podcasts. I think I get bored of the same stuff that goes round and round in my head, and sometimes I do need a distraction and to just chill out and watch an art or gardening video!
I noticed that spending time clicking about online makes my energy and motivation drop. If I get up in the morning and have my brekkie and then get on with something, whether it's gardening or getting the paints out, I'll get so much more done with my day than if I get up and go online. I think to myself I'll just go on instagram for 5 minutes, and an hour later I'm still there checking somebody's blog, or some course that I'm never going to do. And then I feel bad that I've wasted the best bit of the day, and everything goes downhill from there...
So even though it's June tomorrow I won't be going back to my old habits. I think restricting my time online is a way I can take care of myself through the stresses of the coming months.
I hope you're finding ways to be kind to yourself. Best wishes everyone and stay safe.
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