Establishing new routines during distancing

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Since I have been living independently, I have always eaten dinner when I get home from work.

When I work from home, and at the weekends, I often forget to eat dinner (and lunch for that matter).

This week I worked from home for the last four days and it looks like I will for the next three months.

On the four days, I forgot to eat on Tuesday, I ordered takeaway at 9pm on Wednesday, I cooked properly on Thursday and on Friday I had my traditional pizza. Today I am at a loss. I know I should cook but I don’t have the routines to prompt it.

Next week I am probably going to have to get in the habit of cooking when I “stop working” which should be at about 4:30. Work is slowing down and is likely to stop altogether at some point so this might not be a viable strategy forever.

I could move back in with my parents until I can go back to the office. They do not have the same need for routine as I do. On the other hand, they are not as good at cooking as I am and I do not really want to put up with that for another three months. Never mind the other issues like privacy, convenience, work space, etc.

Those of you newly working from home, how are you coping with the need to establish new routines?

I would just make sure I follow my usual work schedule when I work from home.

Keep track of the time on your computer.

Maybe place reminders of your schedule on your fridge?

You are fortunate. My belly never forgets when it’s time to eat

I shower a lot more. Shower in the morning, shower when I get to work, shower when I leave work, shower between aerosolisation procedures at work, and when I get home. I work in a newly made ER for suspected COVID-19 that's isolated from the rest of the ER. I also wear a mask when I leave the house and buy everything including groceries online.

The most disruptive thing is that I am no longer seeing my family until this settles, so I'm calling my parents over the phone, which is not something I've done frequently prior.

I made a daily schedule for myself and put it up on the fridge.

I’m having the same problem as the op, and keep forgetting to eat, except it’s both breakfast and lunch. My routine is to get up an hour before I have to be at work, eat breakfast when I arrive, and then eat lunch with colleagues when they go around the office asking who’s ready for lunch. I can’t nail down a schedule at home for breakfast, and I forget to eat lunch without that reminder from colleagues :/ I’m not doing so well for dinner either, so I guess if this keeps going for awhile, I might end up losing a lot of weight :/

I wrote a schedule, but I don't stick to it. However, I am still making decent progress with my work regardless.

Evenings are spent in down time and personal projects. In the mornings I relax whilst getting ready for the day. Afternoons are my productive slot. I keep a journal near my bed to jot down late night ideas that I later use in the afternoon the next day.

For the most part, I go by themes. If I am making mobile icons to do with how fast something is during my work day, then I might draw a fast animal for my art blog in the evening. The theme in this case being speed.

My work day is essentially up to me since my teachers haven't set up any online classes. Instead, they have just uploaded materials that might help us.

So I am using them and any useful tutorials I find. In the future they might set up an online class. However, even if they don't I'll be alright. I guess I'll just teach myself thanks to the power of the Internet and email my tutors if I'm really stuck. First the university strikes and now a pandemic. Oh dear.

Excellent! You’re really productive!

You’re ahead of the curve.

@The_Walrus: I use the alarm function on my phone to remind me to do things I know I’ll forget, set it so it also brings up a word or short phrase that tells me what I should be doing on the screen.
Could you do the same?

Had to experiment with the sound selection to get the sweet spot between ‘alarming’ and ‘ignorable’...

I'm working remotely from home, so I eat breakfast before work at 8 and dinner after 4PM. So far it hasn't been to hard to remember lunch but with all the stress from the changes I've lost 2 lbs.

Breakfast isn't a problem for me as I always eat after getting dressed etc, but lunch and dinner are a little troublesome ones. Normally I eat lunch at work, just something small like sandwich and such since we don't have a fridge or anything to heat up food in at work, and dinner an hour or so after I've gotten home.

But now that I work from home, I've had to re-plan things. I still eat only a very small lunch, mostly so that my lunch break won't take too long because I've chosen that break time as the time to go for a walk as well (we don't have a total lock down here yet.) Then a bit after working I eat dinner, right away if the lunch was so small that I end up being really hungry, and watch TV or something so that my computer can cool down a little bit (I have to work using my personal computer.) After that though, my day settles on the normal routine.

Lucky you

Seriously....I have some leftover lasagna. You want some?