Coronavirus. This virus is one of the most spoken topics of the world since the end of 2019, when it was discovered. This virus made the planet change completely and, in order to contain its dissemination, people start to adopt some new habits such as wear masks in public spaces and practice social distancing.
It was and still is very hard for people to adjust to this new system, since humans are social by nature and now everyone needs to stay at home until this global pandemic is eradicated. Of course, staying in quarantine may seem very nice at the beginning: you do not have to go out of your pajamas to complete your daily activities, and also you do not need to waste time on the transport to get to your work and can spend more time with your beloved ones. However, after some time, we all get bored of seeing the same exact people every day and not being able to have the opportunity to have some social activities such as going to a restaurant, a party or the movies. Life starts to feel the same without any experiences, since we are all stuck at home for a while.
That is why many of us have tried to spice our daily routine, in order to break this bubble of boredom. And one of the main strategies used is learning something by ourselves. That way, you get focused on a new hobby or in a challenging activity, making you try out something different to pass time and gain some knowledge while we are in quarantine. And the internet helps us to reach all of this! There are apps and sites for free, so everyone has the opportunity to learn a new language, play a musical instrument, follow a routine of exercises or just learn things that are going to be good for their curriculum.
Since many of us do not know where or how to begin, I talked to some people to inspire everyone to improve their productivity and have some quality time while we are locked at home. If you have some resources and will, everything is possible!
While improving her piano skills, Julia started to learn French too with the app Duolingo, practicing twice a week for two hours, she believes that today she can already know the basic sentences to have a simple dialogue with french speakers, such as her name, age and how to get to some places. Julia also wants to specialize in international law, so it is also a very useful language for her professional future. Besides being important to her career, she finds it a very pleasant language to learn and also helps to keep her productivity during this period without socializing.
However, for the student Victor Leroy, 21, it was not equally easy to learn a new hobby as it was for Julia. He started to do exercises at home at the beginning of the pandemic and, according to him, it was hard to put it in his daily routine and have the motivation to do it. But for him once your body gets used to it and you start to notice your evolution, you get more encouraged and it is easier to keep focus.
Practicing physical activities is very important for human health and we should not let quarantine suppress it, since it is possible to do it at home. Victor uses apps such as THENX and the website “Calistenia Brasil” to have some ideas for the exercises that he wants to do. Although he practices for one hour and a half, for him the most important part is not how much time he spends on the exercises, but how their quality is. He believes that “exercises make me feel more confident with myself, healthier and also makes me get more focused on my goals and more productive on my other daily activities. It helps me to keep myself busy while I cannot get out of home.”
There are also some people who were not expecting to enjoy some of the activities practiced at their quarantine time, but they were proved wrong. It is the case of Arthur Hansen, 20, who learned alone how to program computers. Helped by some YouTube videos, watching classes of 3 hours per week plus 8 hours practicing by himself, Arthur had a huge evolution. Today he can already do many small computer programs, such as calculators and have some automatic emails sent. Despite the fact that he started to distract himself from the boredom of staying at home, he found it very interesting and pleasant for his future career and also it helps him to save some time when necessary.
And finally, there are those who just found their home time very necessary to improve some useful skills. For Bruna Longatti, 20, the period at home was essential for her to learn how to cook properly, since at the beginning of the pandemic she could not feel useful in the kitchen, due to lack of time.
While observing her mother and watching some Youtube videos, she started to cook intending to make herself less dependent on others and spend less money at some restaurants in apps such as iFood. She also realized that making recipes was important to her mental health in quarantine, in order to distract herself from the global chaos. And also, since it was not an obligation, she can progress slowly and, as she practices weekly, she would get more used to it and more adapted to what she found out as a very useful life skill.
It is normal to do not get every recipe and to not be able to make a lot of food at the same time, it is just something that develops with practice. The main point is to always keep trying!
Wow, those were a lot of examples! Even though you feel down and unproductive, it is important to know the necessity of maintaining yourself mentally healthy, mostly at this period of time when we are not able to be social. That is why I hope you find those people inspiring to keep yourselves focused and aiming to use the quarantine moment to develop some new knowledge at something that interests you.
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The article above was edited by Isabella Gomes.
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