Now the Coronavirus outbreak is so severe that many public places have been closed to prevent people from gathering. In this situation, many people are also required to work from home just as they’ve imagined before.

It seems great that you can deal with work at home, eat and rest at home, without the need to get up early and spend a lot of time on the road, but after actually implementing for a while, many people find that it’s not as what they expected.

The truth is, working from home doesn’t mean relaxing. Without a clear distinction between work and leisure occasions, you may not be able to get work done efficiently, your boss may be calling you to complete tasks during non-work hours, and the warm environment of the home is easy to make a person become lazy. It is difficult to work as well as usual under such circumstances.

Therefore, I’d like to provide some tips about working from home under the coronavirus situation. They are based on my personal experience, and hopefully can be helpful to you guys.

1. Maintain regular routine

Maintaining a regular sleep schedule also helps the body’s immunity. Don’t allow yourself to burn the midnight oil just because you work from home. Otherwise not only your concentration and reactivity will be decreased, your body’s immunity will also be compromised, which can be detrimental to staying healthy during the Coronavirus outbreak.

2. Keep on doing exercise

We all know the benefits of exercise, especially during epidemics – a strong body and good immunity can reduce your risk of disease. But now that the gym is no longer the best place to work out in order to avoid crowds, do you still keep working out while working from home?

In fact, even if staying at home every day, you also have a lot of exercise methods. A few small fitness tools such as yoga mat, stretch belt, bubble shaft, dumbbell, jump rope etc. can come in handy at this time.

If you don’t have any equipment, you can still do some simple and safe exercises on your own, such as plank, squat, jumping jacks, sit-ups, etc. You don’t have to plan too much time each day to do this, just use the spare time to consciously exercise.

3. Nutritious and balance diet

The process of disease recovery is also the process of struggling between the disease and human’s immunity. Immunity is one of the determinants of the prognosis of viral infection, and nutrition is the basis of immunity. Good nutritional status can reduce the risk of disease and improve the prognosis. So it’s very important to have nutritious and balance meals especially during the coronavirus outbreak.

Dietary recommendations:

• Three meals a day, eat on time, reasonable distribution of energy
• Eat high protein foods every day, including fish, meat, eggs, milk, beans and nuts
• have more fruits and vegetables to take proper vitamin A and C supplements
• Adjust the intestinal flora to enhance the body’s disease resistance
• Less salt, less oil, less sugar, less alcohol and less fried foods
• Drink plenty of water, no less than 1500ml per day
• Chicken, duck, fish, eggs must be cooked to eat. The cutting boards and knives of handling raw food and cooked food must be separated, and don’t forget to wash hands after handling raw food
• Limit the amount of food you cook at each meal and try not to have leftovers to reduce the risk of cross contamination in the fridge. If you can’t avoid it, reheat leftovers thoroughly before serving

4. Be in a good mood

During the Coronavirus outbreak, you may learn a lot of heavy news through TV, related websites, social platforms, etc., and your mood will certainly be affected. It’s the human nature, and it’s indeed necessary to be sensitive to the news. But don’t indulge in it, your life goes on anyway. Working, playing, spending time with your family…you need to be in good state of mind to face all these things.

My advice is to plan a certain amount of time each day to deal with this kind of information, release and adjust your emotions. Other than that, maintain normal social and recreational activities (which you can do at home) and try to be optimistic and cheerful as far as possible.

5. Plan your time and tasks

Working from home can be a good thing for many people by deducting the commuting time and staying in familiar surroundings. But as you’ll see, it’s also a test of your control over yourself.

Not everyone is self-disciplined enough to get their work done efficiently without supervision, and a moment of slack can easily turn into a habit of slacking off and procrastinating, until you find the day rushing by with little progress.

Home is the most comfortable and familiar environment for everyone, you can easily find everything you want like snacks, PSP, comics, etc. In other words, it’s a place full of the inducement of distraction.

To be productive, you should first set a refined goal for yourself, such as what specific tasks need to be done by which time, and set a time for yourself to relax as well. Make a clear distinction between the two to ensure whether you are working or having fun, you devote all your heart.

If you find it difficult to follow your own custom rules, set up some warnings and rewards, such as alarm clocks for different time periods, self-rewards for successfully completing a task, self-penalties for not completing a task on time, etc.

Once you have a reasonable schedule and stick to it for a while, it will gradually become a habit, and you will find that your focus improves significantly.