The Coronavirus Lazies Are Nothing to Be Ashamed Of – And Some Tips to Fight Them

Lately many of us have been feeling the Coronavirus Lazies. The Coronavirus Lazies is the mix of loneliness, depression, worry, and stir-craziness that makes it hard to motivate ourselves to do basic functions like showering, putting on pants, and keeping our homes in any vague semblance of order.

The Pressure to Be Amazing Despite the Coronavirus Lazies

Yet I keep seeing challenges and demands that people use the quarantine time to complete some sort of grand project. These come in the forms of memes and attempts to be motivational from a certain type of self-help guru.

These tell people that they have an obligation to take advantage of this global tragedy to produce something amazing. If instead they fall prey to the Coronavirus Lazies, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Even when advice-givers are less obnoxious about it than that Jeremy Haynes tweet, the message is still the same. I was recently taking a webinar about book marketing, and the instructor acknowledged that we’re all suffering from COVID doldrums, and sometimes it’s hard to just get out of bed. But then he suggested that when all this is done and you’re looking back on this time, you’ll regret it if you wasted it on Facebook instead of creating something.

Who’s Giving This Advice?

I’ve noticed that there tend to be two kinds of people giving this advice. The first are successful lifestyle gurus who themselves have infinite willpower, energy, and entrepreneurship. They’re already rich, have assistants to take care of everything for them, have mansions with home gyms and huge yards and swimming pools, and being stuck in a quarantine isn’t really causing them any problems.

They’re the kinds of people who give totally impractical, impossible to follow advice in the first place. The ones I criticize in the Self Improvement for Skeptics page. They have no idea what it’s like to be a normal person. They can’t empathize with any of the difficulties normal people have. A lot of them seem to be unaware that mental health problems even exist, or they hold to the archaic superstition that mental health problems are weaknesses that can be willed away, rather than diseases that need medical treatment.

There’s another type of people giving this advice. I try not to be snarky in this blog, but there’s really no way to avoid it here. Let me describe it this way: There’s a popular Facebook group called “It’s Never Your Successful Friends Posting The Inspirational Quotes.”

Many of the people demanding that you be more productive during the crisis are suffering from the Coronavirus Lazies themselves. Maybe they’re hoping that by making demands of others they can help motivate themselves. Or maybe they’re trying to present a better image of themselves on social media. But either way, they’re giving advice they aren’t capable of taking themselves.

Not Everyone Has More Free Time

There’s an obvious point that a lot of people demanding extra productivity during this time seem to miss: Many people have less free time, not more. Sure, people don’t have commutes. And a lot of people have lost their jobs. (What’s up with gurus acting like that’s a good thing?)

But there’s also plenty of people who are completely overwhelmed by having to homeschool their kids. For example, one of the members of my writing group went from being a full-time writer to having no time at all to write, because she’s devoting every minute of her life to childcare.

There’s also essential workers who are working longer hours (while under exceptional stress), people who have to put in extra hours to get their usual amount of work done because working from home is less efficient for them, and the unemployed and underemployed who are spending much of their time job-hunting.

It’s rather condescending for some guru with a cushy life and no worries to tell these people that they “lack discipline,” when they’re working much harder and have less free time than usual.

Why We Have the Coronavirus Lazies

But what about those of us who do have more free time? Why do we have the Coronavirus Lazies?

There’s a bunch of obvious reasons. There’s worry. If you’ve lost your job and don’t know how you’ll pay your rent or feed your children, you’re probably not going to be focusing on learning French or starting a side hustle. (Especially since many side hustles require an initial financial investment, and may not see a return for a long time, if ever.)

There’s depression. Companionship is a basic human need. So is sunlight, and being in nature. We’re being deprived of that. One of the main symptoms of depression is lack of motivation.

There’s uncertainty. Nobody knows how long this quarantine will last. That can lead to us asking, “What’s the point” of doing whatever project we’re thinking of doing. It can also make it easy to procrastinate. With no firm end in site, we figure we can always start it “later.” Both of these factors contribute to the Coronavirus Lazies.

There’s burnout. A lot of us started the quarantine with ambitious plans. But now that we’re a few weeks into it, the hard work is starting to take its toll. Maybe we aren’t seeing the results we wanted. We’re hitting roadblocks. It’s more frustrating less fun than we anticipated. We aren’t sure what next step to take. So we decide we’ve earned a day off. Then we take the next day off as well, and the next. And the Coronavirus Lazies take over.

Why the Guru Advice is Worse Than Useless in Combating the Coronavirus Lazies

I’ve been critical of the gurus and people giving advice they aren’t following themselves. But I do believe they mean well. They’re trying to be helpful. They genuinely want you to produce something amazing, to be successful, to live a fulfilling life, and to make the world a better place.

But they’re going about it the wrong way.

Shaming, blaming, insulting, and other forms of negative feedback do not help people improve. Any self-improvement guru who isn’t aware of that basic fact of psychology isn’t a very good self-improvement guru.

They want to encourage people to do their best. But they’re actually demotivating people. What will end up happening to anyone who takes their advice seriously is that they’ll still suffer from the Coronavirus Lazies, and in addition they’ll hate themselves for it.

Alternatively, the gurus have inspired an angry backlash, as the people who recognize the legitimate reasons for their Coronavirus Lazies react with rage to these efforts to shame them.

This is better than taking the demands seriously, but still not a healthy response. The best reaction is to roll your eyes and forget about them, because a stranger on the internet saying something obnoxious hasn’t earned the right to take up any of your headspace.

Nobody Wants the Coronavirus Lazies, But It’s Okay to Have It

Of course, nobody actually wants to have the Coronavirus Lazies. We’d all prefer if we could use our time in quarantine to learn a new skill, produce something amazing, start a side hustle, or otherwise be able to look back on this time with pride at what we accomplished.

As I said in Self-Improvement for Skeptics Demands Positivity, a positive approach to bettering yourself is what works. So first, remember that you want to use your time for a grand project. You don’t need to. Think of it as a stretch-goal. Be extra happy if you achieve it, but still be happy with yourself if you don’t.

Accomplishing a grand goal during the quarantine is the gold medal. Just surviving it is the silver medal. Winning a silver medal is a wonderful achievement and something to be proud of.

Accomplishing a grand goal during the quarantine is the gold medal. Just surviving it is the silver medal.

Ways to Beat the Coronavirus Lazies

Here are some techniques you can try to keep the Coronavirus Lazies at bay:

Write Down Your Goals

Every morning, write down a list of things you’d like to accomplish. Personally, I like to be ambitious when doing this, writing down what I’d get done if everything went perfectly, and far more than I will realistically do most of the time. I’d say I only achieve everything on my list around 5% of the time.

Since this is an aspirational list and not a to-do list, I don’t have any self-judgement about what I fail to accomplish. But I recognize it might be harder for some people to avoid feeling shame over what’s left undone. If that describes you, limit your list to only the most important goals for the day.

Similarly, you should write a weekly list of goals, and perhaps a monthly list, and a list of what you want to do over the course of the quarantine.

Do a Small Productive Task

My wife suffers from ADHD and Bipolar Type-2. (She’s okay with me sharing this, as we both believe in destigmatizing mental health problems. They’re treatable diseases and nothing to be ashamed of.)

This often causes her to often get overwhelmed when she has a large project to do. She’s found that the best way to overcome this is to do some small, well-defined, easy to accomplish task. It doesn’t have to be connected to her project. In fact, it may be better if it isn’t. Something like doing the dishes, or laundry, or reorganizing a closet. Once she finishes the small task, she has the motivation and energy to work on the larger and harder task.

Most of us aren’t ADHD, and very few people are Bipolar Type-2. But I think the various difficult emotions we’re all dealing with that lead to the Coronavirus Lazies can be overcome in a similar way. It’s certainly worth a try.

Set a Schedule

If you plan to work on your project “whenever” or “when you feel like it,” you may never feel like it, and “whenever” may never come. As Gretchen Rubin says, “Something that can happen at any time often happens at no time.”

So you may find it helpful to block out some specific time on your calendar each day (or each week) to work on your project. Also to exercise. And to try to stay on a regular sleep schedule.

Schedule Your Time-Wasters

This is a bit counter-intuitive, but it may also be helpful to schedule time-wasters like Facebook and TV on your calendar.

Some gurus tell you to give up social media entirely. That’s silly. There’s a lot of benefits to social media, especially now when we aren’t able to have real life connections. And let’s be honest. If someone tells you to give up social media, you’re just going to ignore that advice anyway.

But limiting social media is a lot more reasonable. A good way to do that is to schedule specific times for it, and only check it during that time. You can do the same for TV, internet videos, video games, etc.

Make Sure Fun Time is Fun Instead of Wasted

Let’s say you succumb to the Coronavirus Lazies, none of the suggestions above help, and you just can’t bring yourself to do anything productive.

That’s fine. Recognize that you’re not going to be productive. But don’t just scroll through the same posts on Facebook you’ve already read or watch random crap on TV you don’t really care about. Do something you find actively fun instead.

What’s actively fun? That’s going to depend on your individual tastes. Maybe there’s a movie you’re excited about. Or a TV show to binge-watch. Or a book to read. Or an awesome video game. Or a Zoom call with friends. Or a physical game to play with your partner or family. (Some suggestions: Codenames Duet, which is a version of Codenames that can be played with two [or more] people. Splendor. Settlers of Catan. Concept. Heads Up. Or if you feel like being topical, there’s Pandemic and Pandemic Legacy.)* There’s also online versions of Codenames and Cards Against Humanity that you can play with friends remotely. (Those work best if you have a separate video chat going while you play.)

Time you spend doing something fun is not wasted. Plus, it will energize you, recharge your emotional state, fight the depression we’re all feeling, and make you better able to fight the Coronavirus Lazies in the future.

Or Don’t Fight the Coronavirus Lazies – That’s Okay Too

You can also ignore everything I said in the last section, and not even try to fight the Coronavirus Lazies. That’s perfectly fine and reasonable. Just existing and getting through the day in these difficult times is worthy of a silver medal.

We all need self-care. If your form of self-care is to plop down with a bottle of wine and spend a few hours on Facebook or watching something dumb on TV, then that’s what you need.

Those who shame you about the Coronavirus Lazies may mean well, but they’re being the opposite of helpful. Ultimately, the only way we’ll finally beat the Coronavirus Lazies is when we defeat the Coronavirus itself, and can finally leave the house.

What about you? Do you have any tips for fighting the Coronavirus Lazies?

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* Some of these are affiliate links, but they represent my honest suggestions.