Being Quarantined Made Me Lazy

March 14 was the last day I worked in my office. Starting Monday, March 16, I begin working remotely. The first day I worked in bed in my pajamas. It happened the second and third day too. How convenient huh? My commute was extra short. :)

By the second week I knew I needed to do something different. I needed a routine. So I begin to get up, get dressed and I moved my bedroom office to my dining table. I set up my table as a desk. I loved being up front. I opened the curtains, let the sun shine in and I started feeling different.

I became more productive too. So what is the problem and how did I become lazy during quarantine?

Glad you asked. Well once I got the work situation taken care of, we were still on quarantine. Still not supposed to be outside. Still sheltering at home. So what's a girl to do? Well, I don't know about you, but I am not one of those women who clean all the time. Nope. Once I have done my general cleaning, I am done. I don't look for windows to wash, or drawers to clean out or none of the other stuff I have heard women say they have been doing since we have been on lockdown. Nope. Not me.

So once my cleaning for the day is done, I do nothing. Yep. NOTHING! I sit and I read, or I write, or I watch television, or I face time, or I sit on my balcony. But I am sitting. One day I checked my steps and I had done a whopping 300 steps..

Transparent moment. When I am not working it had become easy to slip back into the habit of doing things from my bed. I tried to justify it by saying that at least I had worked all day at the dining table. Right?

Well it was time for a change. If I continued down that road when the world opened up and we were allowed to live again, I would be lazy and not motivated to move.

So I created a daily routine that got me up and moving. I actually created a checklist of the things I needed to do every day. It feels good when I can check things off my list. One thing that helps me is to turn my television off. I can find myself getting caught up in a television show that I have seen so many times I know the whole script. You all know I love the oldies, Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, Brady Bunch etc. I can be doing something else, but if I walk into the bedroom and happen to get caught in the show, I sit down and before you know it I have watched the whole episode and whatever the next television show is. Yep...it was time for this new routine.

So here it is.. CJ's tips for the week to get you up and moving.

1. Get out of the bed and make it up. There is something about having my bed made up that I don't want to mess it up.

2. Get dressed. You are more inclined to do something when you are dressed. It is so easy to be lazy in your pajamas.

3. Create a list of things that you want to get accomplished that day. This helps me because I love checking the box as I complete an activity.

4. Make sure you add activities that get you moving.

5. Turn the television off.

That's it. Just making those small changes helped me. Now if I want to have a "do nothing" day, I don't feel guilty.