To use a recent metaphor, the coronavirus storm has set us all adrift in a range of different boats — some strong and overcrowded, others small and empty. Despite the number of resources and advice directed at families, U.S. singles surpassed married people in 2014, and more than one in four Americans live alone.

Even those of us with housemates may find ourselves in isolation as roommates temporarily relocate to stay with loved ones. That’s my experience. And as a fairly extroverted person employed less than part-time (though thankfully solvent, for now), a day’s hours often exceed my motivation to do more than read the news.

A recent comic strip by Chinese-American artist Weng Chen captures this well.

As shown in a recent Washington Post piece on her work, the strip continues: “How do we feel after that?”

“Panic.”

“Should we stop?”

“Never.”

The mysterious magic of ‘baby steps’

One day last week, I didn’t start making good choices until early evening. The move toward productivity started with something quite small: eating two dried-up gummy vitamins. Once I did, further good choices cascaded on to changing out of PJs (gulp), taking out the garbage and on to bigger things.

Maybe the notion of baby steps sounds lowering. We’re all adults, right? Shouldn’t we be able to set grander goals for ourselves? But as I learned in a time-management workshop years ago, top-line goals like “make a purple coat” or “change Rosco’s oil” involve a host of hidden steps.

As long as you leave out the smaller tasks, it’s easy to stay overwhelmed by the main goal. When overwhelmed, we procrastinate. But the more I’ve learned to “subtask,” as that long-ago trainer called it, the more I start to make actual progress.

After all, even as basic a task as eating dinner happens not in a single, mouth-stretching gulp, but a series of bites and sips ideally interspersed with conversation. (I won’t dwell too long on the latter part, or I’ll start crying.)

It’s rare that one checks off the bites required to finish a meal, but with most other projects, I find it hugely helpful write my list with details I can tackle. Once I have an entry point, it’s much easier to get started. Here’s an example of how I subtask sewing projects, one of which — hooray! — I can cross off thanks to Friday’s #mendinghour work. (More on that later.)

For times when I need to pull out from all the details, I also made a list of “topline” projects that helps me keep the big picture (hahaha — 12 items, even without mask sewing!).

The last secret here, as you might have noticed, is sticking the lists to my wall. I don’t do that with every list, but one of the rare business books I read, The 4 Disciplines of Execution, talks a lot about the importance of visual reminders.

By its lights, my lists don’t qualify as “score boards.” But the authors recommend a similar process for achieving goals:

1. Identify 1-2 “wildly important goals” (more than that, and you won’t get anywhere, they say). Goals should take the form of, “From X to Y by When.”

2. Determine actions that predict or can create the result (really, the change) you want. These often prove counter-intuitive. For example, the biggest predictor of impulse purchases (and therefore saving) turned out to be how I got to and from work. When on foot, I walked past stores, which increased the likelihood of stopping in to check for a sale, which often led to “bargain” buys. But once I switched to a folding-bike commute, impulses buys dropped dramatically.

3. Track progress on an easy-to-read, visible score board. The authors say it makes a real difference when you and/or your team can easily see if you’re “winning” or “losing” as you progress toward your goal.

4. Meet regularly to report on the prior week’s goals and set new ones. This applies more to teams than individuals. In my sewing example, it might involve making sure to cross off tasks completed.

Well. When I started this post, I didn’t plan to launch such a tangent on productivity! But hopefully you get some benefit from reading about my life hacks. Writing them, I realize that maybe I need to add my mask-sewing to the list if I want to finally finish the 10 I started, uh … a far-too-long time ago.

But that brings me to today’s gratitude list.

Entry 5: Tuesday, April 21

1. The grace of baby steps. As a first-born with strong tendencies toward perfectionism, I often get stuck in a highly destructive cycle: “I want to do something. Oooh, but I should do the best version of Something I can.”

A few minutes later: “Oh, man. That’s so much work. I can’t do all that.”

Hours later: “Wow, I could have done Something today, but instead I did Nothing. I’m such a loser. What am I even good for in this life?”

Thankfully, the Bible says that God remembers that we are but grass, as a I wrote a few weeks back. As such, Jesus called us to take each day at a time, only tackling our troubles breath by breath. One of the hardest things in my Christian life has been to believe and receive the gentleness of God.

As the wonderful collective Porter’s Gate sings on their album Work Songs, God calls us to “do little things with great love.” That obedience and better stewardship of a day can start with something as small as eating vitamins is a grace for which I’m very grateful.

2. Easter bells. Since my increased time at home, often working in my bedroom, I’ve become much more aware of the hourly bells that peel out from a neighborhood Catholic church. Unexpectedly, that day-in, day-out testimony of the church’s continued existence has come to mean a lot.

After the Palm Sunday noon bells included two hymns, I decided to walk over Easter Sunday in time to hear the bells myself. Here’s a taste that I posted on Twitter.

3. Easter flowers and fellowship. Later that day, I packed up four carefully not-handled cinnamon rolls, and drove them to a friend’s house. Since the lockdowns, I’ve occasionally taken her some of my extra sourdough baking. The first time she gave me a fancy chocolate bar, this time, Easter flowers that have held up more than a week!

I’m pretty clearly the winner in this exchange. I was especially grateful to exchange Easter greetings in person, though several feet apart. “He is risen!” “He is risen indeed.”

4. Fresh eggs. Between the bears and moose in our city, I have ventured out very little the past few weeks. Plus, I’d have to change out of pajamas and pile on the hat, gloves, scarf, coat and shoes one needs to venture outside here. Yes, I’m clearly a wimp who has lapsed into terribly advanced and surely vitamin D-depleting sloth. I’m sure that deficiency helps matters.

But possibly due to a magic late-day vitamin snack this past Sunday, I finally made it out the front door with a small tub of vegetable scraps for the neighbor’s chickens. To my surprise and delight, I came home with nine fresh eggs to cook with!

I don’t eat eggs every day, but I had only a dozen left in the freezer and like to use three at a time for a fabulous “Thai”-style noodle saute I make. I’m so glad I can postpone an egg run to the grocery story without having to hoard yokes and whites.

5. Mending progress. I think we can all agree COVID-19 has involved a lot of loss — with much more to come, who can say? The other day, I thought about one of my “albatross” knitting projects — something I packed along for global singleness project research, but managed to avoid for seventeen whole months. Well, make that 24 months, as I still haven’t done a thing with it.

What exactly will it take for me to finish that, I wondered. When, if not during forced quarantine, will I get to it? These days, maybe few besides knitters and sewers have mending piles, but all of us have at least some things we should or want to repair — whether that’s a broken chair or even a relationship.

Yet, going back to the problem of high-stakes goal setting, it’s oh-so-easy-to avoid projects like this forever. Even during quarantine. That’s what gave me the #mendinghour idea. What would it take to start giving even 5, 10 or 60 minutes a week to my mending? And how much could I accomplish if I did this every week of quarantine?

I decided I needed both fun libations and music … and company, if I could find it. Since mending is too dull for video, but sometimes too focused for conversation, I’m inviting anyone on Twitter or Instagram to join my #mendinghour challenge each weekend. Take some time out to work on your project, then post a photo with the hashtag that shows your progress.

We’ll keep on as long as the projects or the quarantine lasts. It’s nice to think of reclaiming at least a few things amid all the losses.