Let me caveat this first by saying that what works for me, might not work for you. However, if you are a Total Piece of Human Trash™ that needs a little (read: a lot) of discipline to not succumb to the Doomsday Depression™ that threatens to envelop us—even when there’s not a global pandemic!—you might find something useful in here. And, if you do, could you please let me know about it.

Set an alarm

If you no longer have a commute, go ahead and get those hours of sleep back. Just make sure you’re staying consistent with your get-up time and your go-to-sleep time.

For me, I love—and I hope this doesn’t alienate you—getting up at 6am, even without my hour commute. Waking up to my alarm at a consistent hour every day helps me not feel like a Total Piece of Human Trash™. It holds my life together and still gives the weekend some special meaning. Which, when all your days start to blur together—and trust me, they will—is important.   

Wash your face and brush YOUR teeth

When I don’t Stick to My Normal Routine™ my whole world starts to disintegrate (much like the one around us) and everything loses all meaning and hope.

My routine totally hinges on washing my face and brushing my teeth. Even though I am dependent on coffee to not be an absolute foggy diaster, I will become a Total Piece of Human Trash™ if I don’t wash my face and brush my teeth.

That moment of “my life can’t be crumbling at the seams because my face and teeth are clean” is so critical to making sure the rest of my day feels like a real day and I feel like a real person.

Put some real clothes on

The first few days of WFH are great.

“You mean, I can work in my pajamas ALL day?”, you innocents think.

Sure, it starts off all cute. Maybe you even change pajamas at some point in the day to feel a little fresh. Then, one day, you wake up, get ready, sit down with your laptop, answer a few emails, and then look up and BOOM it’s 7pm and your Total Piece of Human Trash™ self hasn’t changed out of your nighttime clothes. And you think it’s fine, it’s just one day after all. BUT IT’S NOT. It’s a slippery slope that leads to feeling like a gross Total Piece of Human Trash™ because you’ve worn the same clothes for a week straight. And honestly, when was the last time you showered?

Get some of your real clothes that feel real comfortable and leave the PJs for the sleep time. Sometimes, these $30 Old Navy Jeggings are the only difference between my sleep-time wear and my day-time wear, but they are IMPORTANT.

Mostly because when I’m taking off my sleep shorts, I also remember that I need to change my underwear and my shirt. It cues the whole Rube Goldberg machine of getting dressed for the day. But, even I have my limits…the bra does not go on unless there’s a meeting.

Add a Lil Something Extra

If you’re really starting to feel like a Total Piece of Human Trash™ and all you want is to feel like a normal human being again goddamnit, I recommend doing something a lil extra to treat yourself or pay extra attention to getting ya goddamn self ready.

Take a shower, do some personal grooming, throw some makeup on, splash some perfume or cologne all around, paint your nails, put fresh clothes on—whatever it is that you do to feel a little extra put-together. Personally, when I have my nails painted and some mascara on I feel like Meghan Markle dismantling the British royal family. And when I tweeze my eyebrows? Unstoppable. But that’s harder and more painful so I rarely ever do it until it’s becoming what one might call “a visual obstruction”.

Make Your Bed

LISTEN. Before you start trying to close out of this post, just hear me out.

There’s a good chance you’re gonna work from your bed (see below) and you do NOT want your nasty ass work-butt sitting right where your comfy-sleep butt sits. Trust me, even if you’re “not a person who makes the bed” it provides a little degree of separation in the messy blending of work and life when WFH becomes “I live and sleep and eat and work in this bed”. Just make the bed. Or, at a bare minimum, straighten the covers. And speaking of working from your bed….

Don’t Work from Your Bed

As the old saying goes, “Don’t shit where you eat” or something like that.

The same concept applies here: Don’t work where you sleep. It will give you stress dreams about work and is that really how you want to spend the 6-9 blissful hours that sweet, sweet unconsciousness brings us from this neverending hell? Absolutely not.

Also, sometimes you live with roommates (like me) and you end up working from your bed (like me) out of necessity or courtesy. If you do have to work in your bed/room for personal, professional, or medical reasons, and you have the funds, consider ordering a lap desk to make yourself feel a little bit more like Kinda Business Professional™  instead of Total Piece of Human Trash™. If that’s not in your budget, try to orient yourself to the other side of your bed (the footsie side) to have a little separation between business and pleasure. This isn’t really backed by anything other than I just feel like it’s ~bad vibes man~ to be answering emails that make you want to die near the happy place where your brain finally gets a break from life by aimlessly scrolling through Twitter trending that also makes you want to die.

Eat normal meals at your normal meal times

My world revolves around food.

I need Breakfast Food to tell me it is morning (6-9am EST), Lunch Food to tell me it is day time (12-2pm EST), and Supper Food to tell me it is night time (6-8pm EST). And YES, I call it SUPPER. CAUSE I AM COUNTRY AF AND THAT’S WHAT WE CALL IT.

But, I am 100% the person that opens my cupboard and refrigerator 100 times a day and says WHAT’S NEW!? even though literally nothing is new because I do the grocery shopping and I certainly didn’t buy anything new in the last 20 minutes and I eat the same foods every day because I am LAZY AF.

Just don’t graze all day and inadvertently eat all your stockpiled watercress and Doritos (idk what people are stockpiling these days) in one day. Don’t drink coffee all day and then wonder why your Doomsday Depression (Now with Anxiety!)™ is off the charts. If you usually stop drinking coffee at a certain time of day, intentionally or unintentionally, stick to that schedule. (This is mostly a personal note to remind me, once again, to please stop drinking coffee after 11am, THANKS.)

Lastly, if you can, go outside.

In this day and age…who knows what going outside entails.

For me, sometimes it just means I stare outside the window of my third-floor walk-up like a total creep because I can’t go outside. Sometimes it means I make it down to the basement and back to do laundry. Sometimes it means the front stoop. Sometimes it means the block. Maybe you don’t live in a total trash city and have a nice backyard (aren’t you so lucky) and so going outside a lil bit doesn’t trigger your Doomsday Depression (now with Anxiety AND Panic Attacks!)™. Whatever the case may be for you, if you are physically and emotionally able to at least take a half-hearted peek out the window…or stand near it…or visualize it from the comfort of your work-kitchen-sleep bed, do it.