What day is it today? Seriously, is it Friday? Are you reading this on a Monday? What month are we in now? Is every day looking the same for you too?
It seems to be a feature of the pandemic, and staying at home more, that many of us are losing track of the days. We wake up and have to search our brains to decide if we’re getting up early or having a Sunday lie-in. The winter, with its shorter days, didn’t help, and the clocks have just gone forward, losing us an hour. How confusing.
So how are you keeping track? Using mobile phone alerts can help. At least they remind us what we should be doing and when. But what can we do to make our days feel better, add some variety and stay connected?
We could plan something small to look forward to each day, then we might be thinking ‘great, it’s Wednesday and it’s my online quiz group’. Or ‘it’s Sunday, I’ve got that virtual exercise class this evening.’ Even trying a new tea flavour or virtual box set can feel like a fun treat.
National restrictions may be changing soon but it can feel hard to look forward when there’s still so much uncertainty. You might have already tried learning a new language. Or, maybe you’ve become a baking expert or are now growing your own vegetables. But as time has gone on it can feel harder to keep getting up each morning, feeling motivated. So it can help to keep making little plans each day, tiny goals or challenges, if we keep them fun and easy to do.
We can pin our ‘do a little something every day’ list up or put it on our mobile, somewhere we’ll see it. And we can treat ourselves with kindness as rules change and workplaces reopen. We all know we’re doing our best to stay well and keep the people around us safe, so having a few small plans in the works might just help us keep well until things are more certain.
Here are some places to find ideas:
If you have any tips or ideas for putting more interest in our days or keeping track, please share them with @MindWellLeeds on Twitter.