Ways To Help Increase Productivity And Decrease Anxiety During COVID-19

Are you finding it difficult to remain motivated and accomplish tasks that have been on your to-do list for months? Are other people’s posts about their accomplishments on social media making you feel sad and defeated? Our minds are always working, it does not stop in times of uncertainty. During these difficult times, our brains are more likely to process “what-if” scenarios. These types of scenarios make it difficult to relax or remain calm. Our brain is processing two key thoughts: 

1. “Everything is different.” Many, many things ARE different. Many people are working from home and learning how to adjust. Children are using distance learning in the home. Many leisure activities we once engaged in are now closed. Many people have lost their jobs and are worried about their financial security. What can we do to calm our minds? The answer is to re-write the narrative you have playing in your mind. Focusing on our values and what is important to us will help adjust our thinking. Being at home means being safe. Learning to adjust to working from home means the likelihood of being a carrier of the virus is reduced. Use the time to bond together as a family and spend quality time together or focus on physical health. Try to find areas of control that are meaningful to you. 

2. “I need to do things perfectly.” Do you have a list a mile long of tasks you would put off for when you had the time? Suddenly, you have the time, but have no energy to do those tasks? That is perfectly okay. When dealing with the uncertainty, as we are now, it begins to become harder to focus. Routines are changed, behaviors are changed and we can sometimes be more irritable. We end up spending so much time adjusting to the new tasks that we never make it to the actual work. We need to allow ourselves to be less than perfect and be ok if we leave some tasks undone. We can only do our best at any moment. 

Ways To Help Increase Productivity And Decrease Anxiety:

1. Set aside time for yourself every day. Do not allow work or others to interrupt that time. That time is for you to work on your goals for the day. Identify what is important to you that day. 
2. Remind yourself that you have made it through challenging times in the past.  Identify ways in which you successfully navigated those situations and utilize those skills to help you in the current difficult time.
3. Work on shifting your mind from completing tasks perfectly to getting a few priority tasks accomplished. Accomplishing small “wins” helps to overcome anxiety because we show ourselves, we have some degree of control.