Keeping a list of what I do every day is helping me manage quarantine anxiety

One of the things I've found most difficult about self-quarantining is the lack of organized time. There's no morning commute, no trot down a flight of stairs for a coffee break, no anticipatory subway ride from work to see a friend, no cathartic sigh when I get home after a long day. All I do — and I'm lucky to be able to do it — is stay at home. Sometimes it feels like no time is passing at all.

I've always loved to-do lists. A day divided into segments feels less daunting, like starting a 6-episode miniseries instead of a 3-hour movie. But to-do lists during quarantine don't hit the same, partially because I'm setting myself up for disappointment. I'm not as motivated as I usually am, neither to do work nor make things for myself, and accepting that has been a struggle.

I have found comfort, though, in the opposite of a to-do list. Right before I go to sleep at night (well, before I watch 50-100 TikToks and then go to sleep), I make a list of all the things I did that day. Not just the "accomplishments," either. Every. Single. Thing.

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Did I eat a slice of peanut butter toast for breakfast? I write that down. Did I lie on my bed for an hour while my dog farted every few minutes? I write that, too. If I filed a story, I write it. If I read two pages of a book, I write it. I write down everything, from the silliest chore to the most intensely felt achievement.

I first began this practice because of my sister, who is home from school right now. A few weeks into quarantine, she started a shared PowerPoint with her friends, where each person makes a daily slide about what they did during each day they're physically apart. This way, the friends can keep up with each other from afar.

One day — a day during which it felt like not much had happened — I looked at the slide she'd made and was struck by all the things I'd missed. The (very good) chai lattes we'd drunk. The time we'd spent petting the dogs, which feels mindless but is of course a mental health godsend. The ten minutes she spent holding the bands for my physical therapy exercises. So what if I hadn't finished a book and mastered the art of paint-by-numbers that day? Judging by her list, we'd actually done a lot.

Writing my daily list isn't really about making me feel productive, though. That's what got me into this obsession with "getting a lot done" in the first place. Instead, it helps me learn a new baseline, one that gives each of the day's activities a more equal weight. It scratches my list-making itch, but it's descriptive rather than prescriptive. The message isn't here's what you should do, but instead here's what you did and that's the way it was.

When I look back at my lists from the first few weeks of quarantine, I'm struck by how many sorts of days are possible. It makes being isolated feel like less of a slog. I'm living a life even in here, after all, and I'm incredibly lucky to do so. If someone digs up my journal to read in 50 years (something I, a loser, often dream about), I know they'll be looking at an honest account. Because times are strange — unprecedented, even. They deserve to be recorded that way.