Coping at home
Melissa Kirsch spends her days thinking up activities for us to do at home in The Times’ At Home newsletter. She shared some of her own strategies for living well during an uncertain time.
Think about how I want to look back on this time. I find myself consciously trying to do things that will make me feel better about this experience in the future. That may mean reading more or cooking more or trying to be creative about the ways that I connect with other people — like writing letters or meeting people for walks in the cold. I don’t want this year to turn into a blur of Zoom chats and Netflix.
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Make exercise part of my “social” life. When my daily life is busy and chaotic, I often treat exercise as a solo activity. But I’ve started jogging without headphones, purposely trying to take advantage of the moments when I’m outside the house and around other people, even if I’m not deliberately interacting with them.
Create a tiny routine. These can be small pleasurable things. It can be deciding that you’re going to just have coffee on your stoop every morning or to walk your dog at 1 p.m. I make my bed each morning and do the crossword puzzle during lunch. These are pretty rudimentary elements of a day, but they’re two poles between which to hang the hours of the morning.
The New York Times
Me: I do the least possible in the most amount of time and have been doing so for the last 23 years – the start of my early retirement. Makes life wonderful and totally stress free.