With COVID-19 causing an abrupt stop to our daily lives as workers, college students, children, adults, and so on, I found that it also came in conflict with my daily schedule. I ended up going back home, while my university was closing, and the immense amount of free time I had was frustrating. I remember scrolling through Facebook and other social media apps seeing memes about this quarantine, and a few people comparing it to the Disney movie “Tangled.” I remembered the movie just well enough to know that Rapunzel had a daily schedule that she followed, keeping her isolated life in check. So, to gain back some kind of schedule in my life I thought, ‘”Why not try to follow a schedule similar to what Rapunzel had?” and to write my experience with it.
For a quick recap of the song: here is the link for the music video
Just to get some idea of the schedule she had, I decided to re-watch the movie before I began this journey, so I had some guidelines. Her schedule began with her waking up at seven in the morning and proceeded to do crafts. I was not able to wake up at seven in the morning, but I have the goal to wake up at eight and begin my “chores.” After breakfast, I try and occupy myself with a craft or art project, that way I still have my creative juices flowing when there’s free time rather than going and taking a nap. Since the song is very bland with timing details, I try to allow these crafts to take up about an hour to two hours, before it occupies too much time or begins to get boring overall. For different craft ideas for each day, I relied on Tik Toks or the O.G. Pinterest crafts with the supplies I had available at my house.
Furthermore, I have a goal to work out every day, following a three-to-one plan (where it’s three days of working out and one day as a rest day), always working on different parts of the body. These workouts happen right before lunch and, every time I have to do the workout set for the day, it takes about an hour or so to have it completely done. Following working out, my lunch is consistent with having something healthy, because I either bake something really sweet and good for the soul or I just relax after lunch. The afternoon is consistent within the song to relaxing, doing a fun activity, and having small active workouts.
Relaxing in my house relies on either reading, writing, or doing a puzzle (2000 pieces is good to kill time). Fun activities depend on who’s available – I tried following the song, where I play chess with someone or darts. I’ve been playing chess online when I’ve had no one to play with, and slowly my skills for that game have improved, but I don’t think it’ll either beat Pascals or Rapunzel’s skills. I drag my friends, who are just as free to play darts and pong with me through the Apple iMessage App of GamePiegon. Eventually, I found that there were other fun games including Battleship and even chess. As the day comes to an end, I finish off with doing some light reading, of books I’ve bought or had (which was me re-reading them).
What I learned during this week-long experience of having a free-time schedule, is that with some order and time-management included into a free day every day it would not only make the day appear to be going by faster, but it would also help keep the mind occupied from logging onto social media and freaking out over the news about COVID-19. Working out was one thing that I ended up keeping in my daily schedule even after the week of experimenting with a full schedule to keep the day busy. With quarantine and laws getting stricter and stricter, and with the news getting more intense and broad, I found myself enjoying and learning more about myself during this time alone. I wish everyone safety and healthiness during this time.