By now, most of the world are practicing social distancing. Many companies and organisations have adopted the Work From Home (WFH) arrangement or reduced the time for personnel to physically be at office to keep everyone safe from being infected and infecting others. It appears that social distancing will be a 2020 normal at least for a quarter of the year.
While our choice of activities outside our homes is temporarily limited, what we gain instead is time. Working from home, for instance, saves you from commuting be it by public transport or the comfort of your own cars. You gain, on average, an hour or two everyday. Even if you don’t work from home, you still have to cut down your activities outside drastically. For me, this is a good opportunity to take up the extra time at home and make good use of it for self-development. Here are some of the things that I want to do with the extra time I have. This is my 2020 Resolution while being at home. You may want to think about yours too!
- Cooking – I have always wanted to cook better. Perhaps I have been watching too much Masterchef. My usual recipes revolve around stir-fried vegetables with some shredded meat or baked fish. Over time, I have also become bored with my cooking. But you know the feeling of coming back from work and not wanting to cook anymore? Quite often, the hunger gets over me and I end up cooking something quick without paying much attention to taste, composition or ingredients that would enhance the taste of my dishes even further. Moreover, learning a new recipe takes time.
So this is the time. I can learn a new recipe from Youtube or I can just refine and put more efforts in the dishes I usually cook. - Finance Planning – I do have an extensive (and somewhat sophisticated) financial plan. But I only update it from time to time. So it’s not doing its job of advising me on the best course of action to take financially. So with some extra time, I am hoping to update it more often. Besides, the plunge in stocks around the world is a strong enough incentive for me to review some of my plans!
- Keeping fit – Due to the fact that I like to do many things in a day, I allocate exercise to about 3-4 times a week. With the extra time, I hope I can do something to be in good shape everyday. Also, my goal of running a full marathon within this year is still intact. And I am still hopeful that the situation with the coronavirus will ease towards the end of the year. So I am using this opportunity to do some core strengthening and get my body ready for the intensive trainings later when opportunity allows.
- Be organised – With work, travel plans, functions, gatherings, it is not easy to have a fifteen-minute sit down to declutter my life everyday let alone to ponder long into the future. This is no doubt a good time to organise and review a long term plan for my life.
- Learning – This sounds nerdy and cliché but as a firm believer in lifelong learning, I can’t help but reiterate this idea again. The world is changing at a more rapid speed. The cost from not learning is much higher as knowledge now makes a difference between life and death. A friend of mine once introduced me to online learning platform Coursera. I have not enrolled in any course yet but it may be something worth doing, perhaps on something finance-related!
- Writing – To be a good writer, as someone said to me, you have to continue to write – write everyday, he said. Thus, I am trying to get into the habit of coming up with something to write everyday. I am also working on my novel (written in Thai) and I hope to get it done by my 31st birthday.
What is your 2020 resolution while being at home?
Bagus mas pepe