What do I do under quarantine lock-down?
Oscillating between different activities
I try something for a while, for instance solving some problem or reading a chapter of a book. Sooner or later, it will become too boring/difficult to continue. So, I'll switch to another activity that I think I should be doing. Repeatedly cycling through different activities I should be doing, I end up "clocking in" lots of time doing productive stuff.
- Workout (e.g. pushup sets, crunches)
- Foreign language study (e.g. read some news in Chinese, review some Spanish grammar)
- Fuss with some Linux config
- Browse over the documentation for some programing language (mostly Node, Golang, bash these days)
- Try to solve some fussy CSS problem
- Writing blog posts (like this one)
- Playing some Étude on some musical instrument
Each of the individual activities above often is not the most fun thing in the world to do. But the variety of being able to cycle through them means lots of little sessions of intense focus. I lower my expectations for myself by only expecting to concentrate for like 20 minutes at a time. Workout bursts are even shorter.
By sundown I'm usually adequately tired (or interested in something) that I don't need to ask myself about what to do next. If I feel like sleeping at 9 PM, sure, I'll go to sleep. If I wanna stay up reading about how Arab Nationalism didn't work, sure I'll go do that.
Welcomed Interruptions
Punctuating the above routine with sending/receiving a message or two, looking at the whatever noise I heard outside, flipping through some book, etc. keeps me feeling "in the loop".
Something something flow like water uhh... zen... yeah!
Further Reading
For more on productivity stuff, see the Pomodoro Technique for something easy to get started with. Or, my personal favorite system, "Getthing Things Done", the choice of many business people and programer types alike.