3 Tips for Reducing Chaos in Your Life While You Are Stuck at Home

As of this moment, a huge number of people all around the world are more or less confined to their homes for the foreseeable future, in the midst of the global COVID-19 crisis.

In uncertain times such as these, it can be very easy to feel totally overwhelmed by chaos, and to feel as though there is little you can do in order to regain a sense of order, balance, and structure in your life.

Fortunately, though, there are in fact things you can do in order to maintain balance. Here are a few tips for reducing chaos in your life while you are stuck at home.

• Get your home organised to the best of your ability

Any form of uncertainty or turmoil in the wider world is only bound to be magnified dramatically if your own home is also a complete haphazard mess.

While you probably don’t have much power to immediately and directly tackle the broader global concerns that are likely on your mind, you certainly do have control over your own home, and can turn your home environment into an orderly and pleasant place to be.

To the best of your ability, you should take advantage of this, and should do everything in your power to get your home properly organised so that it strikes you as a pleasant and worthwhile place to be – and so that, perhaps more importantly, you actually feel in control there.

The home organising process might involve temporarily finding a secure storage facility and depositing a bunch of your belongings for the time being. Or, it might just mean dealing with that huge pile of dirty laundry you’ve been neglecting for some time.

• Make regular time for quiet, contemplative activities like journalling

Chaos, in one sense, is unmanageable complexity, turmoil, and the presence of more information than can be properly handled and processed.

Overcoming a sense of chaos, therefore, often has a lot to do with making regular time for quiet, contemplative activities like journalling, or even just pacing around the home and letting your imagination carry you away for a time.

Generally speaking, the more you can relax and hone your thoughts and attention, the more stable you will feel amidst otherwise turbulent circumstances.

• Distract yourself, in a balanced way, with digital entertainment

The temptation is obviously quite high right now to spend a significant proportion of your time researching worst-case scenarios on the Internet, constantly refreshing news sites, and getting yourself increasingly worked up.

While it is important to stay informed, it’s also often very detrimental to get yourself into a negative feedback loop where you constantly get yourself increasingly more worked up and stressed.

To a significant degree, dealing with chaos in general – and with the current situation in particular – will involve distracting yourself and finding things to do that you actually enjoy, and that make you feel more positive.

If you’re stuck at home, one of the most engaging ways to entertain and distract yourself is with digital entertainment. So, line up some films and TV shows that you enjoy, and play some video games that you like. Of course, all of this should be done in a balanced way, so that you aren’t neglecting the other dimensions of your life.