18 Things I learned during the difficult times of Covid to get my life on the right track (Part 1) !!

From the start of 2020 to the end of 2021 the whole world was fighting against the once-in-a-lifetime threat mankind had faced. It was definitely the worst time of our lives for almost everyone on earth. It had such an impact on so many of us, we lost many of our loved ones, people suffered so badly from Covid and its implications, so many people lost their jobs, financial losses, and couldn’t travel to meet their friends and family, etc.

Though it has impacted our lives negatively in so many ways, there are a few good things it has taught or made us learn to improve our lives and in a few cases get back on right track. So in this article we will go through the 6 from the list of 18 things I learned or started to do:

1. Waking up Early: I used to be an early riser for most of my student life and that’s the main reason I was very good at studies. But during my graduation, I became a night owl which continued till the start of covid I didn’t realise how badly it was affecting my life. It started to show during the start of Covid when we were working from home, always getting up late, tired, feeling sleepy again in the afternoon, stressed throughout the day, and feeling like not getting anything done even till the late evening. After watching multiple videos on YouTube to know how others are coping with this problem, I found one common thing which most people were doing is waking up early.

I thought of giving it a try as even I was an early riser before and know the benefits of it first hand. After just a couple of days of trying, I could feel the noticeable difference. Getting a lot of things done even before the start of my work, increased my focus throughout the day, and a significant decrease in my stress level and peace of mind in the evening. I would definitely recommend this to be tried even for people who think they are night owls.

2.Daily Planning: One of the most important habit of all from this list is the daily planning I started to do. As I struggled a lot in the initial few days of the WFH culture during the covid times, always felt guilty of nothing getting done at the end of the day. So I started to plan my day with the list of tasks I need to get done and schedule those tasks. Though I was not able to get all the tasks done from the list, at least I stuck to the schedule and made sure to complete the important ones which made me feel happy at the end of the day.

3. Exercise: For most of my life, I was always involved in one or the other physical activities, had gone to Gym now and then, maintained my physical shape, etc. But for some reason, just before the Covid, for almost a year or 2, I had struggled a lot with body pain, vitamin deficiencies, low confidence, and feeling weak and lethargic even before the mid-day.

Had so many physio sessions, changes in diet, etc but for no use as I was not doing the exercises instructed by the physio on a regular basis. But one day, I thought let me do these stretches and exercises every day for 2 weeks without missing out and see what happens. To my surprise, my body and joint pains have reduced by 75%, I was feeling way lot better than I used to. So from that time onwards, I do the exercises and go to the gym every day even though all my pains have almost disappeared now.

4. Memento Mori (remember that you die): This is one of the famous Stoic Phrases which says we all are going to die one day. Very trivial but when we think about this from different perspectives it gives a lot of learning. As we could see a lot of people couldn’t make it when they got Covid, even though they had a lot of money, fame, and all the success in the world. None of those came to their rescue, which made this phrase even more meaningful now.

No matter how successful. wealthy we are, we are going to die when the time comes so make sure we do as many good things as possible, start the things we planned right now, and do not put things off for someday. Make the most out of the good life we have.

5. Reading Books: This is the habit I developed from scratch during the Covid. I was never a reader and felt it to be one of the boring things anyone can do but when I was getting a lot of recommendations from friends as even they started it recently, I thought of giving it a try. Started reading for about 15–30 mins daily before going to bed and in a few days I could see I was sleeping far better than before and learning new things as well.

The first book I read was the famous Rich Dad Poor Dad, then many books such as Show You Work, Atomic Habits, Anything You Want, The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, etc. I was surprised to see my transition from hating to reading a book to completing one book every month or 2. You can even use the apps such as Blinkist and 12min to listen/read the summary of all the books you want.

6. Investing: Though I knew investing money is important to generate passive income, I never took it seriously for no reason. It’s been more than 14 years now I am earning money through my job but it’s only for the past 2 years I have been razor focused on investing. Mainly because of the information I got from books I read, finance videos I have watched on YouTube, and some suggestions from my friends.

Currently, I have invested money in some small businesses, real estates, a bit on crypto (which is rock bottom now but anyway it forms a very small percentage of my portfolio), in the stock market using apps like Trading 212, FreeTrade, and in stocks and shares ISA such as Nutmeg and Moneybox. I have had some decent profits even in today's market, so I would encourage everyone to take investing seriously if not done yet.

Hope it had given some inspiration for you to start some of the habits. I will cover the next set of things I learned in the next couple of articles, so stay tuned!!!