I feel strangely prepared for working from home right now. You see, last summer, I spent 10 weeks working from my basement (which, while above ground and better lit than most basements, is still, well, a basement). My family had just moved 3,000 miles across the country, I had no friends, and no real need to leave the house. I also found myself in central North Carolina, which boasts summer temperatures of 270 degrees and 10,000% humidity – just slightly different than the temperate environs of the Bay Area, where it is 68 degrees practically year round. Add in two toddlers to wrangle and my chances of joining a local running club or heading to trivia night at a bar were slim to none.

As a result, my days nearly all had the same routine:

8:30 am to 5 pm: Cry over Excel spreadsheets because I hadn’t understood in the job interview process just how much I really needed to know vlookup; zone out during 60-person Zoom conference calls where “introductions” seemed to take up an inordinately long amount of time; heat up a frozen DiGiorno square green pepper and mushroom pizza, and proceed to eat the ENTIRE thing directly from the pan; attempt to throw in a load of laundry and fail to complete the task because vlookup.

5 pm to 7 pm: Drive the kids to McDonald’s, procure 2 Happy Meals, and watch the Chicken McNuggets slowly congeal into the backseat of the car; visit Target recreationally, hoping the employees didn’t recognize us from the day before and read Paw Patrol anthologies on the floor of the men’s clearance section.

8 pm to 8:20 pm: I’ll spare you the saga of the kids’ “bedtime routine” and skip ahead to my 1.25 mile walk around the path near my house. I’d return absolutely drenched in sweat, having seen 2 minutes of daylight the ENTIRE day, and be mentally exhausted but just barely tired from the lack of exercise.

This routine went on, without much variation, for the next 70 days.

Eventually, I realized that I needed to make a change. I was depressed. And I was incredibly fortunate to have the resources and support to make a change. I quit the job, found a new one, and learned the following lessons:

1. Get dressed.

Even if it’s switching from your nighttime sweatpants to your daytime sweatpants, that’s totally fine!! The act of changing clothes is strangely civilizing. Bonus points for semi-frequent showers (note: a full wipe-down with your kids’ Kirkland Signature Baby Wipes counts, too! Seriously, I’m not one to judge.)

2. See humans.

Speaking of civilizing, the act of saying thank you to the person bagging your groceries, saying good morning to the nearby jogger, and waving at the delivery driver remind us that there are other people out there. People with lives both better off and worse off than yours. People with their own worries, and struggles, and heartaches. Oh and real, live humans > social media humans EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Maybe quit social media while you’re at it, but I’ll omit preaching on that point for now.

3. Go outside.

Stop reading this (you’re 80% done anyway) and go outside. Look at the leaves on the trees, smell the air, listen to the sounds – birds, cars driving by, whatever. You are not alone, the mundane aspects of life continue on, and will continue on, long after we are on this planet. There’s something powerful about remembering that you are just a tiny part of this grand experiment of planet Earth that helps soothe the nerves.

4. Get a hobby.

My eventual “hobby” took the form of angrily ripping up the invasive ivy off the shrubs in my front yard. It required no skill, worked up a sweat, and helped me channel some frustration into a more productive direction. That said, my husband and I *did* have creative differences when it came to my approach to pruning, so make sure your hobby is objectively productive, or maybe pick something less destructive.

5. Have a mantra.

Pick a few things that you are grateful for and make it into a catchy phrase that you can repeat to yourself when you are feeling low. You don’t have to tell anyone what those things are, and you certainly don’t have to judge yourself if they don’t seem “lofty” enough. My gratitude mantra includes peanut butter.

6. Do something that makes you slightly (or moderately) suffer for the greater good.

This suggestion has greater significance now during COVID times than it possibly might’ve in the past. Though I’d argue that this is a good practice to continue long after our world is hopefully recovered from this pandemic. I have an appointment to donate blood next Wednesday. I HATE needles sticking into my forearms and have previously used a dubious diagnosis of “anemia” to get out of this. Well, guess what? Too bad for me. There are people out there that need blood and I’m just going to have to suck it up and have a needle sticking into my forearm for 15 minutes. I will be breathing deeply and intoning the phrase “peanut butter” and hoping for the best.