Cooped + Moving Up—How to Rise When You're Stuck Inside by Taylor Marshall

COOPED + MOVING UP HOW TO RISE WHEN YOU'RE STUCK INSIDE

TAKE THE LESSONS WITH YOU

MAY 2021

TAYLOR MARSHALL —PRODUCER + EDITOR

LETTER FROM THE EDITOR This magazine is something I created straight from my own heart and mind. As a graduating college student, having spent the last 3 semesters completing a ton of school work, an honors thesis, and three virtual internships, I am tired. Not only am I tired, but I am tired of being tired. Somewhere along the way—toward the beginning—I decided that I wasn't going to be a victim of the stay-at-home era. This is my life and my college experience, and I knew I had to make the decision to take the situation into my own hands. Over the last year+, I have mustered up every ounce of optimism, perseverance, and energy that I could. Through that process, I picked up a few lessons. My goal in this content is to share a few of those with you all. More than that, though, my goal is to make you feel less alone. If you're struggling, if your mind is weary, if your heart is heavy: you aren't alone. And you also weren't made to break. If you were born with the weakness to fall, then you were born with the strength to rise. I can only hope that Cooped + Moving Up—How to Rise When You're Stuck Inside can serve as a tiny little spark in your mind. A tiny spark is all it takes to start a much larger fire, and I invite you to enter this content with that sentiment in the forefront of your mine.

CONTENTS 4

WORKING FROM HOME, HOME FROM WORKING Learning from what's new – Ila McCracken

HEALTHY HABITS

CREATING AN EFFECTIVE MORNING ROUTINE Setting your day up for success

What you can do to feel like the best you

– Taylor Marshall

WORKING FROM HOME TIPS Tried-and-Tested Tips for Remote Work from Later – Jilllian Warren

3 WAYS TO LET MOVEMENT MOVE YOU Exercise as a catalyst to change – Taylor Marshall

A COLLECTION OF RESOURCES Some top resources for stayat-home success

WORKING FROM HOME, HOME FROM WORKING Written by I. Moriah McCracken In The Before times (1), I deliberately separated my home life from my work life. Having finally made peace with the 5:30 am alarm, coffee, shower, commute routine, I managed to make the most of a working breakfast at my office desk, sneaking into the day and tasks at hand before most folks even left the house. Parking at 7:00 am was easy enough, my building was usually empty, and buying myself non-work time when I would finally arrive back at home after 7:00 pm made the routine seem survivable, even worth it. And then everything shut down. For my husband, the transition to working from home was like riding a bike—one he’d voluntarily and enthusiastically given up—but after ten years of remote work, he knew the basics. So I watched, iterated, and modified, and while I will not think of this as advice or recommendations—because not only am I still learning and adapting but also because our DINK (2) reality isn’t what most people are facing in 2021—there are some things that have helped me find motivation and direction in this forced WFH adventure.

(1) After the first lockdown began, for me, on Friday, 13 March 2020, I turned to my podcasts for information, connection, and the bits of news I could still process. Staying In with Emily and Kumail was a lifesaver early on because they were naming thoughts and emotions for me. The greatest gift I received from their podcasts was the language to talk about what we were experiencing, The Weirds. More than a year later, I am not waiting for “normal” to return because I don’t want to forget any lessons I’ve learned in the last year, nor will I give up the tough conversations emerging from this tumultuous year. (2) Dual-Income, No Kids, or DINKS, is a phrase we use in our Marrieds group, which funnily enough includes non-marrieds and singles as well.

Dress Yourself before You Wreck Yourself As kids, we had “play” clothes and “school” clothes, and when you came home from school, the first thing you did was hang up school clothes in the closet and pull out play clothes from the dresser. (These play clothes were usually last year’s school clothes, but somehow that didn’t factor into or impact the mental shift that would happen in my childhood brain.) Wardrobe changes have always signaled a change in role for me, and they remained an important part of coming home from work in The Befores. So, for me, changing clothes became an important signal of going to work when the commute was eliminated. If working from home is about sending cues to our brains to get to thinking, then the clothes we wear are part of that chain of signals. Shoes, too, friends. Now, full disclosure here that my work uniform was and is jeans, a black top, and Chucks, so adapt as appropriate for your wardrobe. Just make sure your pants button and zip.

Listen to Virgina Woolf, and Make a Corner of Your Own You need a designated working space, and this cannot be where you eat, sleep, or relax. We are signaling to our brains, our selves, and anyone in our environment that the work has begun, and you need a place that lets you dive in. But designating your work zone is actually more about keeping work from taking over the spaces and places you refuel, relax, and connect with others. Work will take up as much time and energy as you let it, so don’t also give it all of your spaces.

Roll with the Punches, and Roll that To-Do List The COVID-19 pandemic gave me lots of gifts, but the greatest was the shattering of my illusion that to-do lists are ever done. This naïve hangover from ten years in college has been replaced by the understanding that there is always more to do than there are hours in the day. So, rather than making lists to check off at the end of the day, I am learning to prioritize tasks weekly, scheduling those tasks in blocks of time, and rolling over any work that remains undone to the next day. There is more planning involved each week, and I have really had to learn how long tasks take (versus how long I want them to take), but embracing focused, uninterrupted work time (no less than 15 minutes but no more than 2 hours) means I’m not attached to my phone or obsessively checking my email (most days). Book Your Time If you are doing any creative work, you need to reserve time in your day to refill your creative well, and this may mean starting each day with Morning Pages (3), getting all the garbage out of your head before you even drink your first cup of coffee or brush your teeth. There is no goal or objective for these, but what I’ve found is that getting all the worry, frustration, panic, and rage out of my head clears a bit of room for focus and concentration. But I don’t just book time for quiet writing each day; I also book my time for creative endeavors: walking with a podcast, embroidering a project, reading a book, watching a movie. There is time every day for whatever creative outlet I might need, and this has become the lure to remember that I am the timekeeper at work these days. Yes, I can just keep working because a project is nearly done, but increasingly, borrowing time late into the evening means there is nothing in the tank for the next day. This could be aging. This could be the pandemic and languishing. Whatever the reason, I cannot work until 10:00 pm and then pick right back up the next day at 7:00 am like I could during The Befores (4), and I am embracing the boundaries my body is demanding.

(3) I encountered these in passing several times before someone attributed them to Julia Cameron and The Artist’s Way. (4) This is the term offered in a recent NYTimes newsletter about the previously unnamed fog we are all feeling, something between flourishing and depression.

HEALTHY HABITS To keep yourself feeling the best you can, there are habits you can maintain + actions you can take.

Practice journaling & positive

Reach out to friends & loved ones

affirmations in order to keep

daily to keep a sense of connection

your mind on the good. You

at the forefront of your mind. Love

can journal to empty your

+ support is there for you, but you

mind, or to fill it.

have to reach out and grab it.

Adequate sleep allows you to

time can leave a lot of tension

approach the day with as much

behind. Stretching out your

energy that you can, which will

muscles can bring a fresh

sky-rocket your motivation

sense of life to your body.

levels.. Aim for 6-9 hours.

Releasing endorphins through

Getting outside provides a sense

movement & sweat will

of grounding, connection, and

change your brain chemistry

clarity. Go for a walk, open your

entirely. Aim for some kind of

windows + doors, or even go for a

exercise every day.

drive—let nature refresh your mind.

Written by Taylor Marshall

Sitting for long periods of

Tips for working from home from Later, found at https://later.com/blog/working-from-home/.

3 WAYS TO LET MOVEMENT MOVE YOU Written by Taylor Marshall If you think you are too busy to workout, you’re wrong. Yes, we are taking the tough love approach today, and I promise it will be worth it. The truth is, as students, we cruise on the idea that our schedules are jam-packed. And that’s because they are! Often, we use this to push out things that are vital to our well-being, such as eating meals, drinking water, or exercising, saying that we just simply do not have time. I’m here to tell you that this isn’t the way to live.

Where to Start The best way to tackle something is one little bite at a time, so today, I’m gonna start with the exercise factor. First of all, let’s forget about the word “exercise,” shall we? And let’s replace it with movement. If you think in terms of movement, exercise becomes a lot less daunting, because sure, you can’t “exercise” at any point of your day, but you can go after movement a lot more easily. To keep things upbeat and doable, I’m going to give you 5 ways to chase movement in your daily, wildly busy schedule, that won’t require any skipped homework or 5 a.m. wake-up calls.

Think of movement as stress relief

Make your movement your you-time

POV: It’s 1 a.m. and you’ve been knee-deep in a

I’m sure you know by now that having time to

research paper since 7 o’clock. Let me be the

yourself is important. You are your own most

bearer of bad news: whatever you crank out

reliable companion, so spending time with

from that point on is going to be mediocre at

yourself is essential. What if you did this

best.

through making time for movement? No revolutionary ideas are going to come to

Go on a walk, a jog, a yoga class, the gym…

you when you are overworked. So what if you

whatever is your favorite way to sweat. And let

could find time to move as a way to refresh

it be your time. No one else owns that time—

your mind? A yoga class or even a walk around

not homework, or your mom, or a professor.

the block may create just enough space in your

Just you.

head for the perfect conclusion paragraph to come to you.

Set your alarm early for a sweaty morning If you’re not a morning person, or not willing to try to be, maybe disregard this tip… Set your alarm an hour earlier! Sweating and moving before the rest of the world is awake is the best feeling. Maybe chase the sunrise on a little jog or hit the weights while your body wakes up for the day.

CRAFTING AN EFFECTIVE MORNING ROUTINE The morning is a powerful time of day—it is the part of your day that sets the tone for all the rest. If you're a morning person or the furthest thing from being one, you can still maximize this time of day to set yourself up for what you need the rest of the day to look like for you. Try to meet these four areas to create a well-rounded and effective morning routine. Water detoxes our system

yourself when you wake up

and awakens our brain, so

and express gratitude for the

giving your system water

gift of breath that we can use

before you give it anything

to move things in and out of

else is like clearing out the

our body and mind.

old to get ready for the new.

HYDRATE

While you sip your coffee, walk

Increasing your heart rate sends

around and see what you can pick

more oxygen to the brain, which

up. Cleaning up can make your

improves brain function. Not to

space feel like a clean slate for a

mention the happy hormones

new day, and will also create

that are released during exercise!

peace at the end of the day.

TIDY

Written by Taylor Marshall

BREATHE

Take a few moments for

MOVE

A COLLECTION OF RESOURCES Tuning in to the voices of people who inspire you is a good way to get out of your own head and feel a part of the collective. Below, find a collection of the best podcasts, Instagram accounts, books, and more to help you learn, grow, & thrive during this time of working from home.

THE MINDSET MENTOR PODCAST A podcast focused on self-improvement and growth

MINDBODYGREEN.COM Website/blog full of wellness-related resources and information | also great to follow on Instagram

@WFHFITS ON INSTAGRAM A work-from-home outfit inspo that gained crazy popularity throughout COVID season

UNLOCKING US PODCAST A podcast focused on interview inspiring & influential individuals

10% HAPPIER BY DAN HARRIS A book all about burnout and mindfulness