Lockdown Lessons: Sleep on it

After a pretty miserable day on Tuesday, I’m happy to report that yesterday was a much better day. There’s no magic ingredient, except a healthy cocktail of time and sleep.

The passing of time meant that I could put all my ‘woes’ into context, while some sleep enabled me to better manage my emotional turmoil and be more like the person I want to be.

Simply put: It’s not my job to police the parks and tell others what they should be doing. It’s not my job to run the country and make life or death decisions. It’s my job to look after me (and TheFrankFlyer) and be as socially responsible as possible to help ‘flatten the curve’.

I was a lot more human yesterday.

I was productive too! I ran a webinar, wrote some new content for my work website, signed up some new clients for a coaching programme and agreed to run a wellbeing webinar for a major global consultancy.

I also took care of me.

I made sure I had a decent breakfast before cracking on with the day. I had prepped some overnight oats the evening before and was very thankful to my past self for the investment! Oats, Greek yoghurt, desiccated coconut, honey and banana – all topped with some fresh blueberries.

I skipped my morning run and instead did some lovely yoga in the evening as my main exercise. It was much more relaxing for my mind and didn’t expose me to any ‘social distancing cowboys’ in the parks or on the street.

I didn’t watch any news, but instead sat in front of a steady stream of The Simpsons, courtesy of Disney+.

And I spent some time out on the balcony, despite the building site across the street. I just used my Bose noise-cancelling earphones to listen to a podcast as I lay in the sun. I’ll be honest: I thought they were truly magical, until I took a break and realised that the drilling had actually stopped.

Excellent learning point: the builders take their break between 12pm and 1pm, so I can guarantee some peace and quiet then.

Today, my schedule is a desert, except for a single client call. And I’m delighted by that! I’m going to do some morning yoga shortly (after some more coffee), then tackle some admin I’ve been ignoring and then take a couple of hours out on the balcony for some sunbathing.

Each new day of this pandemic brings opportunities as well as challenges. I’m trying to navigate them as best as I can, but none of them are disasters. I’m not perfect, I just need to focus on what really matters.