Not wasting time while trapped at home

Invest in yourself, do not waste time hiding at home in 2020, productivity experts said, while others told me to chill and not burn out.

When I was not washing my hands at home or trying desperately not to sneeze at the grocery store while picking up bread or fruit, I was attending webinars, that were teaching useful things like, How to Breathe Properly, or How to Massage your Neck Yourself.

Since I was spending so much time sitting on my desk and staring at my laptop screen, I decided to get a laptop stand from one of the many online retailers, and a wrist rester that had gel inside and looked like a midget’s (sorry, vertically challenged person’s) pillow.

The stand raised the laptop screen at a 30-degree angle, up to my eye level, so I had to raise my ergonomically crafted chair up, and found I was then looking down at the screen. Anyway, after a couple of trials and misses, and going up and down in my chair, I found the perfect sweet spot.

Now, I had to learn not to rest my wrists on the gel pad while typing, but hover over the wrist pad. Then I realised it was a wrist rest that hard-core gamers use, you know those guys who travel around the world to play games at a gaming event, or those adults who salivate over a PC that has specifications like this: CPU: Intel Core i5 10400F — i9 1092* | GPU: GTX 16@@0 — RTX 3090 

Anyway, I realised I now had a crick in the neck, so, I had to look up a webinar on “How to Massage your Neck yourself”.

“Touch the area on your neck, near the spine. Do you feel the tension, like a coiled spring? You have to slowly, lovingly go deep down into the muscle tissue ... Feel free to rest your face on the table when doing this ...”

“What are you doing?” said my wife, looking alarmed when she walked into my room.

Online seminars

A webinar is like a seminar, only that it is held by a person online, and the audience (me) sits in the comfort of their home. There are free webinars available, but do not waste time on them. The really useful ones are the ones that you pay online and you can access them with a password.

Incidentally, even you can hold a webinar from home. If you know to entertain a bored pet at home, you can hold a webinar. You just need a good dynamic condenser microphone (I am planning to get one of these) or an adjustable camera stand called a Gorilla that can cling to just about anything, and give your audience an unusual perspective of your home.

In a different world, many, many years ago before the pandemic, I would attend seminars for doctors. Usually, they were held after lunch and it was perfect if you are looking for some rest and quiet from the hustle and bustle of the daily life.

But the doctors, poor souls, had to pay attention and look at the screen where strange things were projected. They were attending this because they wished to get some CMC (continuing medical education) credit points.

(I challenge anyone to stay awake in a seminar after lunch, on the subject, “Is Epiglottitis a medical emergency”?)

After attending umpteen webinars in the past few months, I am so knowledgeable that I am bursting with information.

I now wish for the days of the past where I could just chill out without any tension about “investing in myself”.

Mahmood Saberi is a storyteller and blogger based in Bengaluru, India. Twitter: @mahmood_saberi