This weekend I realized that there are lessons I am still learning as a result of the pandemic. I learned a lot during that time, I think we all did, but I also think that I forgot somethings which brings me to my first lesson.

I think I have forgotten how to be efficient. I spent a lot of time last year asking myself how the heck I used to do it all pre-lockdown. I kept my dwelling (then a house a shared with roommates) clean, had a great social life, worked four jobs (one of which had an hour each way commute), and was a full-time grad student and somehow still had time to watch TV and volunteer and probably spend hours on my phone although we didn’t have the screentime app back then. I couldn’t understand how I did it after all the lockdowns when all I had to do was keep a clean house, work-from-home, and stay home. It was so easy to keep a clean house when that was your only work. It was easy to try new recipes and cook elaborate meals when that was your only entertainment.

Now that I have been adding thing after thing in, I have been really struggling with time management. And I realized late last week that I think I have forgotten how to be efficient. How to stack chores so that I can start one, let it run while I do active ones. Prioritizing tasks that require daylight, like walks or filming and pushing cleaning or writing into the evenings (this is especially important in the winter). And also going to bed on time so I can actually get up in the morning and use the daylight effectively. I have to re-learn how to be efficient after not requiring it for couple years.

The other thing I have realized I have, not necessarily forgotten, but have gotten less comfortable with is driving in the winter. And I know that sounds insane because I live somewhere where it is winter eight months of the year. But because I don’t really leave town when the weather is bad, and didn’t have to leave the house barely at all when we were work from home.

This past Saturday I knew I had to get to the next town over to run errands but it was snowing and icing and it wasn’t really bad but it was happening and that was enough to make me not want to go. But I really had to run these errands, they had been put off for a couple weeks while my car was in the shop and I wasn’t able to go. But it made me realize that I have become such a wimp about winter driving.

It’s wild how I am still learning from those years and just now realizing those lessons.

Laura