Meaningful things to do during a pandemic

Hey friends,

It’s an interesting time to be alive. In the past week, the UK’s gone into a half-baked lockdown, everyone sensible is practising social distancing and enormous queues are forming outside supermarkets, filled with people hoarding supplies.

Lots of my doctor friends working in London are seeing the carnage of the coronavirus first-hand. We haven’t had many cases in the East of England where I work (yet), but there’s definitely a sense of impending doom spreading throughout the UK medical community at the thought of what this virus could bring, and the startling fact that lots of the general public still don’t realise the magnitude of the crisis.

In the midst of this craziness, I came across a wonderful Google Doc listing some meaningful things that we can do during a (pandemic) lockdown. I’ve been exploring some of the links over the weekend, and can’t wait to dive into more of them.

Some favourites:

1. Answering this series of life-changing questions
2. Making a timeline of your life
3. Setting some lifetime aspirations

If anyone fancies sharing their results and whether the exercises have helped in any way, do please hit <reply> to this email and let me know – I’d love to hear from you.

Stay safe, stay indoors and have a great week!

Ali

This week on Not Overthinking

Not Overthinking is the

weekly

podcast

hosted by me and my brother. If you enjoy these emails, you’ll hopefully like that too. You can listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Castro (my favourite podcast app) or any other podcast app – just search for ‘Not Overthinking’.

Not Overthinking | Not Overthinking: Coronavirus Edition

This week we talk about the only thing there is to talk about right now — the Coronavirus crisis. We look back over the past few weeks to see how our thinking about the virus has changed, and we try and figure out how to get ourselves to emotionally care about things that are distant from us.

My Favourite Things this week

1 – YouTube Channel

(Yes Theory) – I’d been seeing these guys’ videos recommended for a few years, but never really taken the time to get into them. That changed this week, and I’ve spent hours watching them and being inspired to seek discomfort and to be more bold and adventurous. Can’t recommend them highly enough.

2 – Blog Post

(Dating Advice for Single People in Their 30s) – I quite enjoyed this post from one of my favourite bloggers Tynan. Even though I’m 5 years away from being in my 30s, this was a great read about the importance of prioritising important things in our life and not leaving things to chance (see a previous issue, Tie Your Camel).

3 – YouTube Video

(“I don’t care about coronavirus because I’m young and healthy” | Doctor sounds off about COVID-19) – This tirade was beautifully delivered, shot and edited by Dr Chris, an interventional radiologist and YouTuber in the US.

Quote of the Week

For me, and for many of us, our first waking thought of the day is “I didn’t get enough sleep.” The next one is “I don’t have enough time.” Whether true or not, that thought of not enough occurs to us automatically before we even think to question or examine it.

From The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. Resurfaced with Readwise.

This week’s videos