Given the news recently, we are in a time where restaurants and bars are shut down other than for delivery orders. The streets are relatively empty and for the next month or so, we will have a situation where the country will more or less be on lockdown. For the typical reader who likes going out on weekends and enjoying the pleasures of drinking, partying, and chatting with women; this can be seen as a roadblock. I am here to ensure you that it is actually far from one, it is actually a time for you to prepare for what will happen when it has all passed.
What you do in the coming month and really moving forward from here will set the tone for how the rest of 2020 and potentially the rest of your life goes. Maybe I exaggerated the part about the rest of your life but you’ll see where I am coming from. Now with the amount of distractions being cut down, being able to work from home, and being able to get up earlier on weekends due to not getting wasted the night before; you have one of the most important resources at your disposal: time.
How do you make the most of it all?
Invest in your health and getting into shape.
I get it, the gyms are likely shut down where you live but instead of getting pizza every night, try to eat something healthier and work on counting macros. Go for a run, do pushups, find a home workout program, and get to it. Summer is right around the corner, all the more excuse to try and look your best for the pool parties that are to come. Even if this all lasts longer than usual, you are in prime position to put yourself into the best possible shape for the summer and the upcoming months.
Goes without saying, practice good hygiene so you do not get sick!
Address your gaps.
Sleeping in too much? I know I am. Not making the most of your day? I have not at times. Wish you could do more with your day and time than you are right now? You are not alone. Well, now is the time to address those gaps and to improve them. You have less distractions in your life, this is the time to see where you are weak at and to get better at it. Grab a journal!
Build up your pipeline online.
Hinge seems to be working the best for me right now but other dating apps are also going to experience some serious traffic as we all practice social distancing. If you are paying for a dating app, now is the time to consider using the boosts to see where that can get you. I have used Spotlight on Bumble and highly recommend it, even had a date yesterday walking around the relatively empty city as bad of a person as that may make me. Surprised to find the amount of old and middle-aged people that were out and about.
Learn new skills.
Learn the basics of personal finance (a lot of you need it, I needed it myself!), try to learn about the market, and do what you can to add skills to your resume. A lot of opportunities exist out there for you to learn skills online and add them to your resume, you might just find opportunities in the market. As of right now, anything dealing with logistics and enabling remote work is becoming more high in demand. I am not a career coach so that is about as much as I can say there.
It might just be time to get new photos for those dating apps!
Connect with your old friends.
My friends and I had a video meetup online, there was a total of about fifteen people I knew from various walks of life and some of their friends. We had some drinks and talked more and more about life during this situation. I found it to be a great way to not just catch up on the old times but also to speak to my friends about some of our future plans. We would have chats about what we would do once this has all boiled over and once things are back to normal.
Be grateful.
If you can pay for the WIFI to read this post and are still employed, be very very grateful. Chances are, there are people out there in the world who are hit hard by this very crisis, some harder than others. My friends who are bartenders and would make a lot of bank are now out of work as the bars have been shut down in the city. I have friends who now cannot pay rent for the coming months after having lived paycheck-to-paycheck. As much as I want some to see the light at the end of this tunnel, the truth of the matter is that it is a tough time and will go down as that in history.
Plan and envision ahead to what is coming.
We will likely have some kind of a recession as the result of all of this and we might even face some other social setbacks. The world as we know it will change in ways that are unrecognizable. I can only imagine how it will be like once the bars open back up, quite the sight to behold. Until then, see how you can best prepare your own life for what is to come financially, economically, and socially.
