Weathering the COVID-19 Storm How to Help Your Family, Maintain Your Sanity, & Keep From Going Stir-Crazy

If you’re like many of us, you’re probably getting a little bit tired of hearing about the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. On the one hand, we all need to continue to take this virus threat very seriously and keep taking all the precautions recommended by leading health experts – wash hands frequently, disinfect common surfaces, practice social distancing, and stay home as much as possible. But we also know that if you’ve been sheltering-in-place for any length of time, you may be starting to feel somewhat frustrated, cooped-up, and maybe even a little stir-crazy!

We get it, because we’re right there with you. We want to take this opportunity to offer some words of assurance (this virus won’t last forever!) and encouragement to help you cope. Here are a few tips that might help you to maintain your sanity while you’re trying to set your home apart as a calm, safe space for you, your family, and your work during these trying times.

Keeping a Proper Perspective

It might be helpful to continue reminding your family (and yourself) of the facts:

• Your chances of catching this coronavirus will go down greatly if you’ll just remain sequestered. For this reason, your best course of action is just to stay hunkered down and stay away from people as much as possible.
• While we still don’t have a vaccine or “cure” yet, the reality is that the vast majority of those who end up contracting COVID-19 don’t end up experiencing serious problems. Most people will get better with simple rest and fluids.
• This is NOT to make light of the fact that this virus has claimed and is claiming lives around the globe. That is a tragedy we all should mourn, and it should motivate us to continue doing everything we can to help “flatten the curve” for others, especially those who are more susceptible to the virus. But don’t relegate yourself to living in a continual state of panic and fear. We need to be alert and be mindful, but we also shouldn’t lose hope in the midst of this struggle. COVID-19, too, shall pass!

Talk to Your Kids About It

No matter how you slice it, this is a stressful time for adults, but it’s also important to remember that our children are looking to us for guidance on how to react right now. If your kids see you maintaining a state of worry or anxiety, then they’re likely to reflect the same and even magnify it. Make sure your children know all the facts (including those mentioned above), and make sure you’re helping your kids to take all proper preventative measures. It’s also important that you take time to listen to your children, talk with them about their fears, and help them to gain some sense of control over their feelings and concerns. Here are a few positive recommendations that were recently shared by the National Association of School Psychologists:

• Remain calm and reassuring
• Make yourself available
• Avoid excessive blaming
• Monitor television viewing and social media
• Maintain a normal routine, to the extent possible
• Be honest and accurate, but also keep things age-appropriate for younger children
• Know the symptoms of COVID-19
• Review and model basic hygiene and healthy lifestyle practices for protection
• Keep loving on those kids (and each other) through all of this!

A Few Thoughts About Maintaining a Happy Home Environment for Your Family

Here are a few more things you can do to help maintain some peace, calm, and positivity in your home environment right now:

• Build in some structure and routine as much as possible – not just for your kids, but for yourself. This will help to create a better sense of security, and will also help to reduce stress.
• Make sure you’re taking care of yourself! If you don’t keep yourself healthy and well-rested, you won’t be in a very good position to help create a sense of peace and wellbeing for the rest of your family, either!
• Also make sure that you’re getting some exercise, and take the opportunity to engage in some activities as a family. Choose a TV show or movie you can all watch together. Don’t overdo it with binge watching, though – make sure you’re building in some engaging, collaborative family activities, as well. Go for a walk together (it’s still safe to go outside, as long as you keep your social distance!), get out a board game, or work a large puzzle together. Break out the Wii and do some multiplayer games as a family. Play some cornhole in the backyard. Plant a garden. Be creative!
• While physical distancing is a great strategy for helping to mitigate this virus, now is NOT the time to socially distance yourself from your family and friends! Stay personally connected with your family, and stay virtually connected with your friends and loved ones! We all need each other right now, perhaps more than ever.

Some Tips on How to Work Remotely

Working remotely is something that’s been an option for many businesses on a smaller scale for quite some time, but in the matter of a few short months it’s now become the norm for many of us. For the safety of our team, our clients, and our community, the entire Cibirix Digital Marketing team is working from home now, too. Here are a few things we’re finding to be helpful as we’re learning to adjust to our new state of “normal” during this season of proactive quarantine:

• If you’re able to work from home right now, count yourself blessed! Also strive to keep “work time” and “family time” as separate as possible. Be sure to communicate your schedule to your family, so they’ll know when to respect your work time, AND so they can know when to expect you to be more available to them as well.
• Establish some physical boundaries when you’re “at work,” and try to do your work within a separate, designated space within your home. You’ll be more productive that way, and it will also be easier for the rest of your family to respect your necessary work boundaries.
• Make sure that your children have something constructive to do while you’re “at work” – either with their own routine, online learning opportunities from school or other sources, or whatever else you designate for them.
• Be sure to schedule some breaks for yourself, and also prioritize taking meals with your family as much as possible. Mealtime is really one of the best times to unwind, recharge, and stay connected with your family!

We Can Weather This Storm, Together

We don’t share this blog because we claim to have all the answers about how to navigate these uncharted COVID-19 waters – we don’t! But we did want to offer a few thoughts and tips that might be of some real use to you right now. We know this is a stressful time for everybody, but we also want you to know that we care about you, and we’re all in this together!

A Word to Our Clients, and Two Special Offers from Cibirix

We also want to assure each of our clients that we haven’t forgotten about you – far from it! Even though our Cibirix team may be physically separated right now, we’re being intentional to take full advantage of technology to ensure that we’re still staying connected with each other, as well as with you. We’re working together to make sure we’re still taking care of your digital marketing needs. Our commitment is not to let this little virus slow down our ability to produce real results for you!

In fact, we’ve got a special offer to share with our metal buildings industry audience. On the market for some powerful customer relationship management software? Well, for the next three months (April, May, and June of 2020) you can try out our Sensei CRM for FREE! Just reach out and we’ll be happy to get you subscribed for this free trial offer. And if you’re not in the metal buildings industry, sit tight and stay tuned – Cibirix is in the process of expanding our Sensei CRM to make it customizable for businesses in other industries, too!

But what if you’re not a current client of Cibirix? Or what if you’re simply ready to launch a new campaign? If you’re ready to start a business web design project, or just need some help getting your business seen and heard online … that’s what we do! Since folks are likely to be spending even more time on the internet over the coming months than EVER before, now’s the perfect time to ramp up your business’s online presence. And now is also a great time to partner with Cibirix, because we’re offering a 5% COVID-19 Relief Discount for any new digital branding, marketing, or web design projects. In addition, we’ll provide a matching 5% donation to a charity that’s helping to fight the impacts of COVID-19. We want to help your business, AND we want to do our part to help others right now!

Helping businesses to Rise Digitally is what we’re about at Cibirix. If you’re interested in either of these special offers, or have any other questions, please feel free to contact us. And in the meantime, let’s all stay safe, stay healthy, stay hopeful, and help keep our sanity together!