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It's been two months now since I started working from home. I am very grateful to my boss for allowing me to work from home instead of me fully resigning from work. Perhaps I had been a good employee, after all, that's why he offered me such thing.
Getting to an office and working from home are two different situations. While on the former, some hours are being spent traveling, the latter won't even spend a second which will actually save up some hours and can be used for another productive stuff.
Video credits: Jodie Fox via YouTube
However, there are many cases of bored home-based workers who at some point gave up being at home because they eventually got bored for not seeing the outside world if that makes sense so, for myself, I had a plan on my daily activities and possibly other little things that will help me overcome the blues of staying at home.
1. Make Time for your Hobby
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This is what I do almost every single day. I have a lot of hobbies but the main ones which I usually do lately are calligraphy, lettering, and journaling.
Aside from being able to enhance my creativity, it also gives me time to be offline and rest my eyes on looking at the monitor. Plus, it also gives me ideas on what to blog. Like the journal and calligraphy or lettering blogs which I had posted several weeks or months ago.
But most importantly, it also gives me time to make happy and encouraging words in a paper to uplift other person's moods and even give it as a gift to online and offline friends and family members!
Hobbies are endless, there are a lot of them around, perhaps gardening can be one, I do keep a little mint garden on my terrace because I like my tea with mint. So last week, I also had planted more pots with mint so they can propagate and perhaps I can give them to friends too in the future once they had grown!
2. Set Aside an Active Schedule
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Exercise is one of the best icebreakers! For me, since I started working from home, I have set my 5-7 PM as my exercise time. I have sets of YouTube videos to follow these exercises routine.
For the past weeks, I have been following XHIT's videos on shaping up my shoulders, biceps, and triceps. I am using my two and three pounds weight for these exercises and so far, I am loving the easy yet challenging. Aside from that, I am also doing planks and squats.
Video credits: XHIT Daily via YouTube
I feel really alive every single day in fact, I added a new one from FitnessBlender's Tank Top Arms Workout - Shoulders, Arms & Upper Back Workout on top of XHIT's. If you want to also have formed shoulders especially the ladies out there, I highly suggest you follow them!
It only takes 30 minutes to an hour for these workouts to be completed so you can definitely designate a time for that.
3. Walk Outside and See the World
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Another thing I do before I perform exercises is walking outside our neighborhood. In this area of Cebu, we are a little bit away from the city, it is overlooking it and I love to walk around the mountain behind our village.
Unfortunately, since a new project is currently under construction, I am not anymore walking on green grasses and weeds, instead, it has been cemented and dust is all that I am stepping upon. Still a good please to walk around, the same view from below but its a whole different mountain now.
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The walk is steep though so it is good for my knees. I walk around thirty minutes where I meet the construction workers, the security guards and even the neighboring kids who would tease me about joining them play the traditional Filipino "Patintero". I would smile at them and after few unsuccessful attempts, they stopped asking me.
4. Go Out to Coffee Shops to Work
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When I started working home-based, I had one goal in mind aside from just sitting at the house. And that is to explore coffee shops and cafes around Cebu City. I know of shops who allow all day use in exchange for some food orders or multiple cups of coffee. And I want to experience that because I didn't really have that chance before when I was still studying. Most students nowadays would spend numerous hours in cafes because they say they are studying. Call me ignorant but I want to encounter how it feels to be at a cafe with strangers around me while working.
Truth is, I had only visited two Bo's Coffee shops for the past two months and although the experience was okay because those shops are not crowded, I aspire to visit more in the future so I can compare them.
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What's good about spending time in a cafe is the fact that I get to see new things, I can also blog about them and perhaps even meet new friends or old ones if they happen to stumble at the same cafe.
Soon, I want to go to Starbucks or perhaps the Cat Cafe in SM SeaSide where there are cats around! Sounds like a plan for me but I know its hard to move from the house to another location just to work that's why I had only visited two, however, this is going to be my new challenge and of course, I have to limit my caffeine and sugar intake while inside the cafe because I am trying to lose weight. Good luck to me!
5. Travel Once in a While
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But on top of the list, the best way to entertain me is through traveling. Since I work from home, I get to research more about new locations, new spots and new resorts perhaps around us, within or outside Cebu.
While it is hard to move out of Cebu these past weeks because of my husband James' busyness at work, we still had the chance to go out and explore the world on weekends where we could spend time with each other just within Cebu.
The last one was when we went to Balamban during the long weekend and spent our time being with nature, eating good food and even sweating out when trekking and climbing a mountain peak. It was one of a kind experience and I totally love the spontaneity we had on that weekend.
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I look forward to each weekend and during my spare time which I do have a lot lately, I would often look for new places to explore. I can even arrange a time for me to check airline seat sales more than ever!
Traveling resets everything. I can't deny the fact that when I am stuck at home, I get this feeling of being captured in a four-cornered room. After working, I felt like I have been seeing the same things, from my bed to the art table to my computer table, but when we travel, there's a longingness of those things occurring, true enough, the cliche that states:
"No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow." by Lin Yutang
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There are far more ways to get ourselves free from the blues of working at home, those who are like me surely can relate to this. Remember, feelings are only temporary, they change perhaps in an instant or later but the fact that it is temporary, you can do something about it, influence the mind and the body will follow!
This blog entry was written and published by Jean Beltran-Figues for bitlanders.com.
