Recently, I've been having this weird nightmare that the entire world is stricken by a global pandemic in the stock market crashes and entire cities were locked down in a literal president.

United States called with the Chinese virus just to be extra scene for no reason.

And I get home because I don't want a potentially infect my parents.

But everybody I know has already fled New York's I'm completely alone and anxious and sad and associating and aggressively horny at the same time, but trying to do my job.

And then I wake up and I remember that's just reality now, really, I know everyone has been affected by the virus differently and many more city leaving us in the United States.

So I hope you all are safe and holding out hope, and my thoughts are with anyone who can't work remotely and has lost their jobs.

You know, it is such a privilege to work from home.

But in the meantime, I know many of you are studying or working from home right now, so I thought I'd give you my tips on how I stay focused, productive and saying, or if he's relatively saying while working from home.

So generally when I wake up, I try to avoid checking my phone at all.

But honest have been really bad about that recently, and I can find it hard to find that sweet spot between the anxiety of not knowing what's on the news and the anxiety of scrolling away too many articles and then getting freaked out.

So I've just been reading The New York Times Live updates, which is free to read.

Even if you don't have a subscription, then I look up any new restrictions in New York that I need to be aware of.

And after that, as hard as it is, I put my phone away.

I'm leaving in my bedroom and try to get started with my workday.

Something that's really helped me is having a little morning ritual, which for me consists of making macho and getting ready.

I used to wake up and then literally grab my laptop from my nightstand and start working without eating or changing clothes or getting out of bed to make sure that I maximized the kind for working, but it honestly just made me feel awful.

So I described my morning routine as a version of It's a little buffer time after I wake up that mentally takes me from my home life, my work life and held my brain like Hello.

We are entering office time now.

Getting ready every morning, even when I'm not filming or seeing anyone has also helped me feel really centered and have, like a real person working in a real office.

It's almost meditated for me.

I crack a window and get some fresh air and listen to the relaxing sounds of birds and random, angry New Yorker shouting at each other on the street below Me.

Whether you're into makeup or not, I think it's important to carve out some time to not listen to anything, not even music or a podcast.

Just sit in silence, kind of sift through your own thoughts.

Honestly, this might sound weird, but there is something about being enclosed that are slightly uncomfortable that makes you work harder.

Or maybe I just associate got squeezing pain of skinny jeans with my non stop studying in high school.

But either way, it works for me.

Here are a couple of my go to work outfits.

First of all, a simple pair of jeans and a cute top.

You can't go wrong.

I call this outfit kind of an upgraded after leisure look.

The trick is to wear pants with an elastic waistband so they're super stretchy and comfortable but feel and look a little bit more put together than leggings.

My top is just a stretchy bro.

Let's so it's super comfy on the booms.

I'll have, you know, but it has a square cut that I think it's very chic.

And lastly, a dress is a no brainer outfit because it's literally just one piece.

And it's also really comfortable because they usually have a stretchy waistbands and then let your legs roam free.

A lot of people avoid wearing their best fanciest outfits at home or save it for a good day.

But it's today is a good day, and if an outfit makes you feel good, there's never a limit on the number of times you can wear it.

Now it's time to make the long commute to the office.

Traffic was awful today, made a bit of a rush hour.

So my number one tip from working from home is to create a distinct workspace.

Spaces affect your mentality so much, and especially when working from home, it's crucial to simulate that separate office space.

So I placed my desk as far away from my bed as possible to avoid the temptation to slump back into bed and scroll on my phone.

I also like to face toward the window, so I get some sunlight while I work.

And it's a little bit less depressing than the view of a plain white wall for hours on end.

And I like to face away from the rest of my apartment.

And any potential mess or household distractions, even just desk clutter and cameras and notebooks can be stressful to look at and distracting when you're trying to focus.

So I clear those away as often as possible.

Don't forget to clear out your digital workspace to I hadn't realized I was getting stressed out, just looking at all the files and screenshots and unused APS on my desktop.

But it's so much easier to focus with a clean vest top clean space really does he.

And if you don't have room for a proper desk.

I didn't in college for a while.

You can still get creative with a nightstand or shelf and add a few decorations to create as nice a workspace as possible.

If you do have to work from your bed, I found that even rotating the pillows so I'm sitting perpendicular to how I usually sleep.

It helped create a little separation between working in bedtime and chilling in bedtime.

To do lists are the main way that I structure my work schedule.

And basically I have a rule that if it's in my brain, no matter like how small a task it is or how big a task it's getting written down somewhere just so I can kind of clear it out of my brain.

So I've been using a bullet journal for a while now, and I really like it.

But I know it can be kind of intimidating.

Do spend that much money on a notebook or seem like you need something super well formatted, so you can also literally just pick up a pad of paper for like 99 cents and jot down ideas there as well.

So the way I make to do list is in my bullet turtle, all right, an overview of my tasks for the day.

So I have a couple high level top task.

These air, usually big projects like filming a video, editing, a video, creating a thumbnail and then below.

I have a pending section for kind of ongoing Aaron's or lower priority tasks.

Then off my chief for notebooks, I'll go ahead and break down those large task into all of their smaller steps.

So, for example, in creating video, I write down all of the different shots that I have to take writing the voiceover, recording the voice over rough cut, fine cut adding music exporting thumbnail description so that I can cross off smaller steps throughout the day and have that sense of accomplishment as I'm making progress rather than just seeing in my notebook edit a video which takes like 30 hours and then getting frustrated with myself and feeling like I didn't do anything that day because I didn't get to cross off task.

One of the biggest struggles of working at home is avoiding distractions, especially when you don't have the boss to keep you on track.

The best trick I found is to essentially create rules for your workspace.

Like at this desk.

I don't watch you two at this desk.

I don't stroll through TIC tac.

If you want to do those things, you have to physically get up from your desk and go to your bed to do.

Though I found that nine times out of 10 it's kind of just a fleeting impulse to pick up my phone or race tile online.

And ultimately, I'm too lazy to get up and move 10 feet to do them.

I'm also big on preserving the sanctity of space in the sense that if you start allowing to talk at your desk, for example, it's a lot harder to stop because you already created the mental association between space and the activity in your brain.

Whereas if you've only ever done work at your desk, your brain automatically wants to do work.

Once you sit down, not at this desk.

If you're still having trouble getting distracted, I'd recommend shutting off your phone and leaving it in a different room and turning off your wife, I If it's not essential to the work activity, you're doing?

I do this a lot when I'm like editing or writing.

Even e mails can be a big distraction and disrupted the focus you need for deep work.

So I like to quit out of my email act until the end of the day, when I'm ready to check it all at once.

Something that I still struggle with through this day is the good old afternoon slum.

I feel like it's so much worse when you're working from home around like three or 4 p.m. I just get really distracted, and Nancy and I want to get up from my desk and do something else.

So I found the best way to channel that energy is into a productive breaks.

For me, that means doing something physical rather than doing something mental on my computer, like cleaning up my room, organizing my ever messy kitchen cabinets, going outside to run errands, which isn't really a possibility right now, or cooking something new, which in my case is just adding an egg.

The Roman because I have never tried that before, and that's as advanced as I get.

Gordon Ramsay has been real quiet since I made this video, huh?

Often doing something physical allows my brain Thio think at kind of a relaxed pace, and I can often find solutions to problems.

I was stuck at my desk.

Once I get up and change my environment a little bit, I even find that switching tasks and using a different part of my brain can feel like a break.

A lot of the times when I'm several hours deep in editing and getting really frustrated, the antsy I'll take a break and edit a thumbnail or draw handwriting graphics, which allows my brain to chill out for a sec.

For you, this might be switching between writing an essay and doing something visual, like creating a presentation or taking a break from something high, intensity like coding with something more mundane, like sending e mails.

And my final tip is to create over ward for yourself at the end of the day, whether that's face timing, a friend or watching a movie.

I never used to make social plans or gave myself downtime during the week because I felt obligated to keep 100% of my time available for work, not having anything to look forward, do not only is super demoralizing, but it also makes me waste more time.

This is because of Parkinson's law, which is the idea that work expands to fill the amount of time available for its completion.

So when I give myself too much time a K from the moment I wake up till the moment I go to sleep to work, I will end up you more distracted because I know I have so much time to fill versus, for example, if I have plans to face time, someone ate it pushes me to work more efficiently and not get distracted so I can make it through those plans for business goals.

It was New Year's and we thought you were here.

That was bad.

Shit started happening until cats came off.

Anyways, that's all we have for this video.

Honestly, it's a weird time, and if you're not feeling productive, I 100% feel you take it easy on yourself.

I had to force my ass to get ahead and make this video because I just wanted to, like, lay down and scroll from the news.

But I really have found that work.

Those health is a distraction So I hope this video was helpful and I hoped older staying safe and staying indoors.

I'll see you guys next week.