Guest Blog by Sarah B-Life in Lockdown

Sarahbhappy….Life in Lockdown

I have been in lockdown for nearly 10 weeks now; me, my daughters and my 3 cats.

Like everyone else, it has been a very difficult time adjusting to a new normal and I will readily
admit as a family and business owner we have had our fair share of challenges. As a business, I
was unable to carry out work for quite a while and personally I face the challenge of being a single
parent with three teenage daughters during an unprecedented time.

Emotions are high and it has been difficult trying to answer their questions whilst, feeling an overwhelming sense of worry and anxiety myself. But life has slowly begun to settle into a new routine.

To maintain focus at home I wrote down all the things I’d like to do as a business and personally
and used this list to create a structure for my day. I began working through my list whilst all the time
embracing new things like zoom coffee mornings with friends and family, theatre on YouTube and
zoom yoga classes.

My list for work started well. I updated my website, concentrated on improving my social media presence, learnt new skills such as Adobe Lightroom and Adobe Spark and
watched webinars to try and keep myself abreast of new developments in my industry.

I even tried a bit of networking. Being a designer and artist I also found myself painting and drawing a lot more and was quite content in my new routine until about two weeks ago. My motivation dropped off a cliff.

I had run out of steam trying to do it all. So for a week, I did nothing…I mean I really did nothing at
all, other than lie in the garden, binge watch an amazon series and read …and I gave in to it. At
the end of that week, I felt mentally rested and felt ready to start again.

I am trying to take life at a much slower pace, learning how to cut out all the noise and be less hard
on myself….we are after all in a global pandemic. So here is a little snapshot of what has helped
me..

• Consistency when possible
  Early to bed (For me only! The girls are fine but I need a good nights sleep)
  Eat well (which is fine until the kids bake)
  Read every day
  Stay connected with nature – gardening has been a revelation
  Daily walk – to walk off the cakes!
  Podcasts – I’m particularly loving How to Fail with Elizabeth Day
  Not watching the news or scrolling through too much social media
  Draw and paint
  Family time with my daughters is priority over everything
  Give in to the bad day and start again
  Regular video catch ups with family and friends
  Help other people – friends and family need you more than everBut most of all don’t try to do it all.

  I have stopped putting pressure on myself with the need to achieve during lockdown. Work has
  started to slowly pick up again but I have already reached my greatest achievement this year…
  round the dinner table, last week all of my daughters said they were happy …..

You can see more about Sarah on her website here