Hello everyone,

I hope you are all doing your best during these stressful days. We are all being tested lately by this virus. During my 23 years of life, I don’t remember seeing anything this effective and sadly killing. BUT this text is not about how bad this virus is (I don’t have such medical knowledge to talk about it) , it is about what we can do to spend these days as productive and positive as possible.

Just a piece of quick information about me, I have been living in Alicante, Spain for 6-7 months now. Here is a quick look into what I have been doing. When we started seeing COVID-19 in Italy, I kind of knew it wasn’t too far away from Spain. That’s why right after I finished IP Campus (the most important event of all time in EUIPO for the trainees (!)) on March 15th I left Alicante to go stay with my parents during these horrible days.

I know myself and I don’t do well with being all alone in an apartment without social contact and not being able to get out. Right now, I am writing this from Lahore, Pakistan where my parents live currently. I want to write this blog because I have been talking with many friends and kind of suggesting to them how they can spend these days or how I am spending these days. Not that I am an expert, but I believe working with a startup kind of taught me how to be productive from home and how to manage daily life during remote work. Plus, I would consider myself as a conscious person when it comes to mental health. So, let’s go:

Online courses

I don’t exactly remember when was the first time that I started taking online courses. I believe it was sometime during high school, it was probably mandatory back then. Although when I started working with RouteWhisperer, I needed to teach myself a lot of things because what I was doing is not what I studied at the uni.

The easiest way was to take online courses. Because it is kind of up to you to schedule studying hours. It is pretty autonomous, and I do love being the control of me. I believe learning is a never-ending process, one should always be learning, doesn’t matter if you are 20 or 50. There are always more to learn. That’s the reason I am doing some online courses every night from midnight to 2 AM, I work during the day with the Spanish time, so I start and finish a bit late thanks to 4 hours time difference. Some of the courses I bought them in advance because they were on sale before, but I am attaching some of the pages I use for online courses down here:

1. StackSkills  
2. Linkedin Learning (there are some very relevant free courses at the moment)
3. Coursera
4. Some Ivy League Offers
5. FutureLearn (UN uses this one) 
6. Udemy.com (even though I haven’t been using this one much)

Medium

I cannot do without reading. I read books but I also read many articles during the day. What I read about is quite diversified. That is the reason I subscribed to Medium. This is their exact selling point.

“Medium taps into the brains of the world’s most insightful writers, thinkers, and storytellers to bring you the smartest takes on topics that matter. So, whatever your interest, you can always find fresh thinking and unique perspectives.”

I have been using Medium free for a pretty long time, but then it hit me that they don’t ask much or what they offer, and they do offer quality content. So why not subscribe for it, and I did. I will highly suggest the same to you as well. 

Some other resources for articles &videos :

1. TED
2. The New York Times ( I would highly suggest a subscription to it as well, they offer a great deal + I love reading the “books” and “editorials” )
3. Economist
4. Lifehack
5. Brainpickings
6. HBR

Books

We all have those books that we bought way before but haven’t created the time to read them. However, this is the best time to go find those books and read them. Books might be one of the best ways to deal with self-isolation, it is going to sound cheesy but honestly, every book you read will take you to another World, another period. If there is an option that you can go be in a different period than this one and a World right now even for a short dreamy period, it does sound great to me.

Since we cannot all order books online at the moment, at least not me. Pakistan doesn’t have an Amazon. And my German Kindle kind of limited me with 5 books since this is not Europe and then the IP rights are different here (see I am learning few things from EUIPO) .

I am digging the bookshelves around the house and finding some books from my brother, some from my parents. I also found some books I have bought back in 2018, they somehow got packed and arrived in Lahore with the rest of the stuff we moved. Everything does happen for a reason. You can check my goodreads page to see what I have been reading this year. You can find it at the end of the page as well as here.

Staying active

I am one of those people who will go to the gym for 2 weeks in a row and stay away for another week. I have never been a constant member of the gym. But here at home, it is different. I have all the time I can ask for, and maybe too much time. That some of it I can spend on something else. There are so many Instagram accounts such as Lululemon, Oysho, Nike, Adidas and they are all offering free live yoga and workout sessions.

And this is not all, Nike and Adidas have their workout apps you can download and use for free, which are honestly effective. Time to time there are challenges or videos of celebrity workout sessions as well.

For me, I normally work out at 11 pm, which I know is pretty late for most people, but then I do study after midnight as well. I am a night owl so to say. So, for me, I try to stay awake till late hours and wake a bit later than people. But another reason why I enjoy working out late is that it tires me so I fall asleep easier than usual, which is normally hectic. I will leave this link from my Pinterest, some indoor meditation space ideas I have been collecting, maybe it will inspire you as well. Having a dedicated area for workout and meditation helps me to set the scene and somehow pushes me to find the time to use them 🙂

Remote working

This might be one of the most spoken topics of the COVID-19 remote working. This might be the first time for so many people to work remotely. And I know the first time is not that easy. It feels like a whole different process, which is actually. But it is also the future, well for some of us it has been going on for a while. I have been working remotely since 2017 part-time and with my apprenticeships, I have never met my team face-to-face before. All I can do is remote work with them. I will leave this link here these are free from LinkedIn and they are quite easy to follow and understand.

One of the most important things I happened to realise is that always have your boundaries. Know when you are working, plan it so you will be able to have your life-work balance. While working make sure you have your quiet space for it, do not get distracted with housework or with the household. I enjoy working on the floor somehow touching the floor calms me and keeps me awake.

Here is another link from Pinterest where I collect workspace inspirations, even looking at these photos fills me with joy and calms me down, I hope one day I will have mine as well (once I stop moving once in a year).

Staying away from distractions is not easy. These distractions also include the TV (Netflix, HBO, Youtube) but I must confess something, I do have something on the background playing which helps me to concentrate. If you feel the same way I do then maybe you should have what feels comfortable like me. Another important thing is to keep your social motivations in order, like call a friend on Skype for coffee or text them. Because we do have those coffee breaks at work. To spend that 15-20 minutes just unwinding for a while so we can get back to work with a full concentration. Do the same, try to stay in touch with work colleagues go for Skype coffee dates, maybe play some online game together, share some memes…

For now, I think this is all I am doing. I wouldn’t say these will work for you the same way they do for me. Although I can say these are the things that help me feel good about myself these days. I also try to spend some time with family. This might be the longest time I am staying with them in maybe 4 years. It is nice that we are spending some quality time together. But definetly a new rhytm we are learning.

Stay safe, stay self-isolated, we will survive all these together!