Sentenced to Lockdown.
How I made the most out of my country’s lockdown and why you should too.
Monday, April 27, 2020, marks the end of our nationwide lockdown and our country receives a bit of normality back. Looking back, I think it was a great needed self-development boost on a curious path.
March 26 2020; my country New Zealand entered a nationwide lockdown, that saw it take on a brave move to enter a nationwide lockdown lasting for one month and four days, closing off our borders to the international world, all in a hopeful effort to stamp out the wrecking havoc Covid-19.
Shutting down a small country into lockdown meant three primary rules;
- all non-essential businesses or services had to shut its doors to the public, which left only possible remote businesses operating remotely. Schools curriculum went online.
- Only those essential businesses or services could remain open, meaning our grocery stores, gas stations, emergency personnel such as medical, police, fire and strict maintenance contractors would continue to operate.
- Everyone to stay at home unless visiting an essential service.
The theory was, this window of opportunity, the sacrifice from normality, would be a small price to pay now (while it was relatively early), than paying a larger price further down the line with hard felt consequences for our small country.
For a country that pride’s itself and somewhat relies on tourism for economic growth, of which the tourism industry is New Zealand’s largest export industries contributing 20.4% of total export goods and services, international tourism made up for 42.05% ($17.2 billion). It was going to be our biggest sacrifice with long term affects.
Like the rest of the world, we were at war. Only this war wasn’t with another country. It was with a nasty virus trying to exist, and again, like the rest of the world, we weren’t going to accept the hard consequences if it did.
Being in my early 30s, never in my life-time did I think I would live through and experience something with such an impact such as this. The streets, highways, shops and community hubs found empty daily consecutively and where a new form of normality post-lockdown would be inevitable.
Through the majority of the nationwide lockdown, my employment hours at work were reduced from a normal five day week to a lite two days a week.
For someone big on self-growth and productivity, I saw the free-time (read: extra time) as an opportunity to get sh.t done and I wanted to leverage that time.
I decided to use my anticipated free time to upskill myself as best I could, with skills and topics I was curious and interested in. I felt I was behind on some skills that I should have had by now (read: wished I had by now), so this timing was perfect for making a clear start.
Having a laptop and an internet connection was all I needed, and Skillshare, Udemy and YouTube fast became my best friends who were going to allow me to achieve this level of growth.
I spent all of my days, under a constructed schedule glued to my laptop screen at my sit-to-stand desk of my waking hours purely learning, observing, note-taking, watching hours of tutorials and lessons in and around key skills I wanted to have. Of course, a well-deserved credit is due for my wife, who was able to support me through my schedule by ensuring simple snacks and food was ready for me during break times.
With credit to the time and my diligence to persevere when things got confusing, I was able to successfully;
- map out productivity work-flows,
- dissect and explore a few ideas that I want to do,
- understand the stock market (to better and understand company financials for the benefit of my investing journey),
- get my touch typing up to speed (for the benefit of my writing, getting drafts out and thoughts down as quickly as possible),
- be 85% confident with markdown (for the benefit of uninterrupted flow and output publishing),
- learning how to code with Swift (as an entry to my coding journey, problem-solving health (see www.brilliant.org) and iOS app creation curiosity),
- learning how to use Final Cut Pro X for video editing,
- understand colour theory and sound engineering (for the benefit of video and photo editing),
- explore my curiosity for smartphone photography with hints of traditional photography and
- learning how to use Luminar 4/ Aurora HD and Adobe Lightroom for photo editing.
(For anyone interested, I have added links to some of the resources I used.)
While it seems I only touched the surface on the various fields I covered that deemed practical within a month; I felt this was a good start and a great foundation to continue to build on. Only time through continual learning and consistency will I be able to sharpen these new found skills.
My moral of this winded story is to demonstrate that no matter how impactful economic challenges (or any challenge for that matter) we are faced with, we should try (no seriously) and see them as opportunities rather than hardships or setbacks. Simply put, we should look for the opportunity in any obstacle we judge as such.
For me, it was turning an unwelcomed country lockdown and making the most of it by maximising my free time to create and develop new skills I was interested and curious in for the benefit of my personal growth and development.
No matter where in the world you may be, take the time to look at ways how you can add value to your life; however that looks like, even if it’s as simple as reflection time.
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”
-Albert Einstein
Markdown:
Skillshare:
- Ali Abdaal’s Fincal Cut Pro Tutorial
- Chrystopher Rhodes aka YCImaging’s Video on a Budget
- Justin Bridge’s Fundamentals of Photo Editing
- Caleb Babcock & Niles Grey’s iPhone Filmmaking
- Oren Soffer’s Video Essentials: Using Lenses & Lighting to Convey Emotion
- Chris Ching’s How To Make An App For Beginners (iOS/Swift — 2019)
- Benjamin Halsall’s Final Cut Pro X 2019 — Complete
