James Da Costa runs a social enterprise and was due to be in Rwanda for the Commonwealth Youth Council.
He is co-founder of the Mandala Group – specialising in building accessible mobile applications in disconnected areas of India and Kenya.
But with lockdown in place, all his travel has been cancelled and instead he is staying at home in his flat in London.
For someone always on the go, lockdown has been a real challenge.
He is getting through it with long walks, an online course and lots of video calls.
For My Quarantine Routine, he explains how he spent Saturday May 9.
8 am
Up and at it for the day (after a snooze or two). Step one is drink a pint of water, step two is get coffee.
Today, I’m having Grumpy Mule coffee from Rwanda. It reminds me that I was actually planning to be in Rwanda next week for the Commonwealth Youth Council, somewhat of a distant memory.
Today is a Saturday but I try to not sleep in too much at weekends to keep a bit of a routine.
8:30 am
Once I’m fully caffeinated, I normally try and meditate each day at 8:30 am. I have a reminder on my phone for 10 minutes of Headspace. I mostly hit my target of doing my 10 minutes but I’m often not as mindful as I should be during the guided meditations and if I haven’t had a coffee first, I sometimes doze off.
The 10 minutes of headspace has helped me keep grounded during lockdown. Overall, I’ve got less productive in lockdown, exercised less and not taken up any new hobbies with the theoretical extra time… so this 10 minutes just reminds me to give myself a break. After my 10 minutes, I’m out the door and off for a walk.
I am based just by Shepherd’s Bush, so lots of London parks to choose from. Today I head towards Holland Park and since it’s still early, no one is around. I don’t even have to be mindful of social distancing as there is no one to distance from.
10 am
Over the past few weeks I’ve been taking an online course with some friends on Coursera. The lectures are 45 minutes per week in quick video format so it’s definitely not too big a lift.
The back end of my walk was spent catching up on the content of the lecture on 1.5x speed because I didn’t manage to fit this in. It’s somewhat ironic taking this science of wellbeing course during lockdown since we’re living in such strange times but for that reason, I do think it’s a good time to understand your brain a little more.
It’s a nice break to catch-up with friends around an interesting topic. The call was planned for an hour but runs for two. Since my phone is running on 1% and I’ve been outside for several hours on my one (long) walk of the day, I head back inside.
12 pm
For lunch, I make a Huel – a meal replacement shake which is popular with young professionals and start-up folks. I like it because it helps me track my calories and means one less task for the day where I may be tempted to Deliveroo.
This is also my first meal of the day since I do intermittent fasting (only eating in an eight hour window each day)
12:30 pm
I have another call with a youth community I am part of – Global Shapers, an initiative of the World Economic Forum. The community brings together young people to drive local action in their city. I am part of the Manchester Hub, since I grew up in Sheffield, and there is no hub in Sheffield.
We’re launching and building a new website to connect local businesses who can provide wellbeing services to people in Manchester at this time, whilst also hopefully promoting local business revenue.
This time it’s another meeting platform Jitsi.
2 pm
Feeling a little impulsive and wondering where my Saturday has gone having spent several hours on video calls, I decide to act on a BBC article I read the night before about how to cut your hair in lockdown.
It ends surprisingly well, although it didn’t necessarily look that way when I was halfway through.
3 pm
With no sign of gym’s opening this side of summer, I invested in an exercise bike through monthly instalments to help keep me fit during lockdown.
Because of this, I do feel the need to use it wherever possible. Today is no different!
4 pm
With all the calls for work during the week, I often put off speaking to friends until the weekends but that has meant my weekends are full of calls too.
I give my parents a call (who are back in Sheffield) to find out how things are going on with them and then check-in with a couple of friends.
5 pm
Time to jump on the sofa and pick up a couple of jobs I’ve been meaning to get round too all week. One of which is writing a Podcast questionnaire for a community Podcast I am launching.
I’m also working on open-sourcing the code to one of the mobile apps I helped to build in the past to help schools/ nurseries through Covid. All these little jobs add up and take up my mind space so I’m starting to feel quite tired at this point
I decide to call it a day and chill out for the evening! I was meant to join an online pub quiz but decide not to join today. Note to self – make days less busy and take on less commitments (especially during lockdown)
6 pm
Before logging off, I do check-in on my daily habits. I’ve been trying to make sure I do 10,000 steps a day, sleep eight hours a day and drink two litres of water. I’m good for all except hydrating so I drink another big glass of water and call it a success.
6:30 pm
Before lockdown, I went vegan and I’m enjoying increasing my culinary skills while we’re all stuck at home. Today is vegan fajitas with chick’n and a non-alcoholic beer. I’ve stopped drinking completely through lockdown and considering keeping it up going forward.
I do realise at this point I sound like a complete health craze but it is something that has helped me keep a control of my anxiety during lockdown and hacking my habits with a healthy spin.
8 pm
After watching the highlights of the daily UK Covid-19 briefing, I put on a Netflix documentary and tune out.
10 pm
Strangely enough I don’t feel myself with the desire to go on social media anymore, however, that usual instinct is matched by a need to find out what is going on with the world in lockdown.
I Google cases and the news in the U.S., Europe and Africa. This has become a bit of a ritual.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/20/quarantine-routine-2-3-12730592/
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