Well, happy quarantine everybody. We are now preparing ourselves for a long stretch with four boys ages 10, 12, 15 and 16 to start working from home. I wanted to share a couple of things that we’re doing that I think you’ll find very helpful; and I’ll tell you where I got the ideas from—I got them from the Navy. If you talk to anybody that served on any ship, they’ll tell you it’s an active quarantine.

In particular, let me tell you about the ship that I spent a lot of time on, so when I tell you about some of these techniques, you’ll understand that they’re grounded in experience and they work. The ship that I served on was the James K. Polk—a 420-foot-long ballistic nuclear submarine—I did two SEAL platoons on its mini-sub.

Do you know what keeps a sub running routine? It’s all about routine—morning, noon, and night, there is what’s called a plan of the day. It’s created the day before that walks you through everything from what time you’re waking up, when you’re eating, when you’re doing your work, when you’re working out, when you get your free time, and when you’re going to bed. It’s a revolving plan of the day that happens every single day. There is always a daytime and nighttime on a submarine. My longest stretch on the sub was 50 days—33 of those days were underwater with no sunlight. The good news is we don’t have any of that in our quarantine.

Routine keeps us focused—No routine, no focus; No focus, we become reactionary. The way we’re going to do this quarantine is we’re going to create a routine where everybody gets up at a certain time, everybody does their online learning, they get their breaks, they get told when they get to eat, they get their time when to work out, they get their time to socialize, and they get their time to just have fun and chill-out.

Use routine for this quarantine. Routine will help you not only keep your sanity while we go through this together, but more importantly, you’ll find that you’ll slingshot out of the quarantine way ahead of the game.

Read more: Positive Practice Strategies for Your COVID-19 Quarantine Routine

Join me on Tuesday, April 7 as I share strategies for Thriving in a Quarantine. All proceeds from this Pay What You Can Webinar Fundraiser will go to The Guardsmen to help at-risk Bay Area youth.

Sign up here: https://lnkd.in/evtAgpJ Hope to see you there!

For more tips on coping with the novel coronavirus, see also: