Over the last 5 years, I have implemented the concept of “The Yellow Pad Weekend” in my life. In case you don’t know what the yellow pad weekend is, let me give you a brief description of what that actually means to me. My Yellow Pad Weekend is my monthly routine practice of going to a remote area out of town once a month on the weekend where I rent a cheap hotel room without a lot of amenities and fancy things and I put away my computer and my phone and I only allow myself to use my smartphone in case of emergencies. The goal is to find a quiet and peaceful place to be alone without any distraction whatsoever and literally bring a yellow pad and a pen or pencil and start thinking, writing, and making lists of things that went wrong and went good in my life and what I should do to improve things.

During this COVID-19 pandemic, I do have plenty of free time. No traveling, no sporting events to go to, no concerts to go to, no parties to go to, so I’m home and I know there is no new scripted television programming coming on anymore so essentially in my mind TV is dead to me even though sports are back, I’m not as interested as I once was.

I realized early on that we were going to have to spend considerable time locked at home. I actually locked myself away and I made sure that I stock up on all essential supplies that I need to get it all out of the way in the beginning. I have spent months and months at home.

I did not waste that time. I turned this time into one big long yellow pad pandemic. Keep in mind that all the time I’ve been at home, I have no friends, no family, no visitors. I know there are many people reading this blog post right now who are in the same boat of being alone in an apartment, furloughed from work, laid off from work, or stuck at home for any number of reasons. I know we’re all pissed and some of us go out and drink and waste a lot of free time. I went the other way and I have decided that I am going to use this time and implement all the usual yellow pad weekend elements that I learned over the years and I realized that this pandemic is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity now.

I have decided to take this opportunity as a very rare opportunity and for many people reading right now, this pandemic may be the only time of your life that you get all this time where you don’t have to be anywhere, you don’t have to do anything. There’s nothing to do. Nobody will come over and visit you. Nobody will shake hands with you. Nobody will hug you or kiss you. No birthday parties. That’s all out the window for the most part. So, I decided to make it one big yellow pad to spend time thinking about how to make things better and writing them down. I take long walks every day and I think and write and when I get home, I transcribe it all to my screen trying to figure out once life goes back to normal, what I’m going to do better more effectively.

I don’t want to be completely lazy. I don’t want to lie around here for months so I decided to do something with this time and adapt the principles of the yellow pad weekend to a pandemic and now I call it a Yellow Pad Pandemic with a lot of notes taken, a lot of things written down to plan how I am going to do it better next time there’s no pandemic, how I am going to be a better friend, how I am going to be better at work and in my community, how I can stay on top of things and beyond, how I can take honest critiques of myself and write what is right with me, what is wrong with me, what can I do better next time, what do I miss while I’m sitting home during the pandemic, what things did I not appreciate that I’ll be sure to do next time I’m free to go wherever I want to go, how can I be rebranded, relaunched, and rebooted. My goal is to come out of this thing healthier and better than I’ve ever been.

You might need to be doing that pretty much in the style of the yellow pad thinking about what happens next and what you are going to do when this is all over.