How to utilize the self isolation period for your benefit

We are all fighting the Coronavirus by wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, and staying at home.

WHAT ELSE CAN WE DO?!

Watch monotonous, disturbing news continuously! , and ache our finger in liking and commenting on Social media!

To have an update on Coronavirus, a news bite (for 5 to 10 mins) is enough. The more you overdose your brain with news, the more mindnumbing it would be.

And anyways WILL IT HELP??

SO WHAT CAN WE DO?

To get away from the monotony and boredom of lock-down and do something constructive for ourselves.

INVEST  IN OURSELVES. DON'T WORRY. I AM NOT ASKING TO INVEST YOUR MONEY (NO HARM IF YOU ACTUALLY CAN DO THAT!), BUT HERE I AM ASKING TO INVEST YOUR TIME AND ENERGY. OUR AIM SHOULD BE TO KEEP OUESELF UPDATED AND CONFIDENT.

Simply put. Grab this opportunity to hone your skills and acquire new ones if possible in this FREE TIME  

I have listed FIVE simple steps for you and would request you to ponder upon - 

  1) Read books. (Read more if you are already reading) -  ( Romantic novels, Bestsellers are okay but I would ask you to focus more on books of your subject of study or your domain of work and self-help books or Motivational books) Many a time we forget what we have read in the last few years  This is a good time to pick up some of our own old collection from the shelf and browse over a cup of coffee. I am addicted to the smell of old books. You might love it too!

   2) Analyze yourself! Yes, you heard it right. Change a 'Habit' if you want to, which you feel is n't that good. Nobody can understand you better than yourself. See where you can bring in improvement in your life and work on that. For example, you can slowly change to an early riser from a late riser. You can start incorporating freehand exercise into your daily routine. You can start speaking in English with any of your family members or even friends over the phone to improve your verbal communication etc. You can also start working on building your own Image. Start exercising or a new diet to increase your Immunity.

  3)Youtube Videos - It's a Treasure Trove. Search for videos on the topic you want to work on or learn about and I bet you would find a good number of videos with excellent quality content. Subscribe to some of the popular training channels to start learning. For example, If you are a Hindi speaker and want to learn English, then,'Learn English with Zita' channel would be really helpful. Youtube can play an important role in improving communication.

 

Watch them for free and take down notes of important points. Three to four quality videos ( you can watch more )on a topic would enhance your knowledge proving a good grip on the topic. You can download the videos for watching them again later.

  4) Free ebooks -Explore free e-books on various topics available on these five websites and start reading, online or offline ( by downloading)

Here are five famous free e-book sites - 

Please note I am not endorsing them but these are sites which as I am using. You yourself can find more of such sites on the net. Please do help me by providing their names if you can in the comment section.

 - https://manybooks.net/
  

 - https://www.overdrive.com/search -  It's worth a visit. Got a huge collection of e-books on various subjects.

 - https://bookboon.com/ - A great hub of free textbooks from top universities.

 - https://www.gutenberg.org/  -  A library of 60000 free e-books

 - https://openlibrary.org/ 

  5) Online Courses - Many of the E-Learning courses are available for free till May31st.You can try to acquire new skills. Subscribe to any of the courses as per your liking on the available platforms.

 

Here are the five e-learning sites that are trending - 

 - https://www.coursera.org - Coursera is a leading learning website that has tie-ups with Universities across the globe. and offers MOOCs  - Massive online Open Courses along with degrees, certificates to upgrade your career graph.

 - https://alison.com/ - Alison offers diploma and certificate courses in various streams of Management, Language, Science, Math, Marketing, Lifestyle, Health, etc.

 - https://www.mercurysolutions.co/ - A Basket full of  IT (Information Technology) courses are available on this site. So if you want to enhance your IT skills, you can definitely check this out.

 - https://www.edx.org/ - edX is another great platform for learners offering free courses. It provides 2500+ online courses. It has an association with top universities in the world like Harvard and Boston. It is worth value for your time and effort.

 - https://www.udemy.com/ - In Udemy, there are a lot of free courses available and many of the paid courses are now being offered at a highly discounted rate of  Rs. 360 per course till the 14th of May 2020.  It's a real big deal.

 Post-Coronavirus Lock-down days, courses from any of the above-mentioned sites may help you in your current job or while trying your luck in some other job. An additional skill always helps you to be noticed. It can also increase the value of your CV.  As an HR professional, I can guarantee you that a very common job interview question after the Coronavirus pandemic would be - " How have you spent your time during the Lock-down". I hope that the above suggestions would surely help you in providing an appropriate answer to that question. :-).

I am positive that the above information would be beneficial for you in the same way it has been to me.

Stay Safe, Keep your Immunity strong. Goodbye.