Havovi Batliwalla’s new schedule includes taking her neighbour’s dog Buddy for a car ride, working on vegan recipe options and making sure her friends are eating right.
An aspiring foodpreneur,Havovi says, “It started with the lockdown. I began working on recipes for myself; baked with various seeds and fruits and tried a lot of smoothies because I didn’t want to end up having all the junk that was at hand. While others cribbed about the lockdown, I decided to make the most of it by doing things I had been procrastinating on. Not being able to get food home delivered helped me a great deal.”
She adds: “Now that we are on Unlock 5, I have reworked my timetable. I still take Buddy for a ride and devote time for my cat Boss, continue to eat clean and healthy, make time for my workout and meet friends and go to work. Citing work made me postpone all the things I had wanted to do, not any more.”
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Earlier, this leisure riser would return from work and spend a considerable amount of time hanging out with friends. And a major chunk of her morning involved playing with her cat.
Havovi is among many people who are shunning their ‘bad’ lifestyle habits and embracing a change for good; what’s more, they seem to be loving it. Some of the changes actively taken up include waking up early, minimising screen time, developing a reading habit and also starting a blog about the industry they are in.
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Businessman Pavan Reddy is elated that his bedtime now is 10 pm instead of 2 am. Pavan says, “We realise a lot of things once we start practising what we want to do. My late meetings and business dinners converted me into a night owl. I wanted to get back to a normal routine but things weren’t falling into place. I couldn’t be consistent. Finally, three months later, I am a reformed man with regards to sleep. I’ve reworked my schedules as per my sleep time. As a result, I feel rejuvenated, healthy and my work isn’t suffering.”
Having taken a cue from a friend on reworking her professional and home schedule, Vasumana Ghosh is amazed at the joy her new lifestyle is offering. From relying on her cook for all her meals, this self-employed woman is now deciding her menu, doing her own meal preps and “all this before I head out for a yoga session with my group. I realised the joy of eating a meal I put together is actually more satisfying and fulfilling, perhaps because it comes with ingredients I like. Looking forward to my meals makes me happy. Now, work happens at a designated time. I have maintained my new time table even when attending meetings. It was a problem of rearrangement, not about lack of time.”
Dubai-based Rashita Agarwal and her husband Amit, both lawyers, begin their day with an online training session. “I started with a new timetable which involves waking up 40 minutes earlier than before, sorting a time table for three meals and meal prep,” she says.
Is the new time table an outcome of the extra time available because one does not need to travel to work? Hyderabad-based restaurateur Palash Pathak says, “A strict day time routine and correct meal hours is doing wonders to my schedule. It includes morning walks and a daily workout of 30 minutes,” adding, “Earlier, I used to head out to the restaurant and return until I was tired from the after hours at a friend’s place.”