Essential Skills You'll Need After a Pandemic

Essential Skills You’ll Need After a Pandemic

For a number of months, Covid-19 has had adverse effects on all of us mainly because we simply weren’t prepared for what was about to follow. Managing and trying to navigate through the day proved difficult for some. Let’s talk about these essential skills you’ll need after a pandemic. 

For others, we quickly discovered that there were a few areas in our lives that needed improvement if we were going to simply survive. If only we had the right tools and skills, that would have made our lives easier during the stay-at-home orders. 

Essential Skills You’ll Need After a Pandemic 

Many of us have had the time to learn many of the necessary skills so learned how to not have to rely so much on others. We also have gained skills that helped us live life more fully. These are essential skills that everyone needs to have learned following the pandemic.   

Refocusing Your Energy 

Let’s be honest for a moment. Do you ever find yourself on certain days feeling anxious, stressing over matters that are out of your control? I know I do sometimes. It’s hard for us not to because we like to have some sense of control over our lives. 

Yet when something unexpected or undesirable comes our way, we allow fear and helplessness to start affecting how we deal with things. We begin to focus all of our attention, worry, and time on the crisis instead of calmly trying to figure out how to manage through the situation. 

This current pandemic is certainly an unexpected variable that none of us can control, offering us new challenges that we’ve had to learn to navigate. Instead of focusing all of our energy on the negatives, many of us have had to learn to refocus that energy on how we were going to make ends meet and how to safely protect our family.    

Critical Thinking 

Have you ever made a terribly poor decision that you later looked back on and wondered, “what was I thinking?” The evidence may have been staring right back at you, but you refused to see it? We’re all guilty of this at some point. In those situations, we make the mistake and come to a conclusion based on our own values and opinions, rather than seeking the truth regarding the situation and how it may influence our lives.    

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Critical thinking is especially important because it brings us to a place where we make fewer mistakes, and in return, produces more favorable outcomes. 

It’s setting all of our biases aside while taking in all the information that’s available to us and analyzing it piece by piece. This approach allows us to make better judgments and decisions. Critical thinking is especially important for us when dealing with unprecedented conditions (like Covid-19). 

Being Adaptable and Flexible 

Out of all the essential skills on my list, being adaptable and flexible are probably the most important ones for you to remember. By using these skills, you’ll be able to not only cope with uncertain situations, but you’ll be able to stay on top of them as well. 

  • Think of it as a wrestling match. Getting pinned every time isn’t a whole lot of fun for any wrestler. It hurts. 
  • So, learning how to maneuver and counter your opponent’s moves becomes key in making sure that losing doesn’t continue to happen.    
  • Covid-19 threw a screwball at us like no other, and those that did not learn to adapt to it are still trying to recover. 
  • Many of us were left without work, put in a position where we had to stay home with our kids to help them with their schooling, or even had to look into another substitute for toilet paper. Who ever thought that would happen?
  • Several of us had to cancel our vacation plans, reschedule weddings, and start attending outdoor church services. We all had to be flexible in those situations that forced a change in our daily lives.    

Adapting with Your Work

There are millions of Americans who are still without work, and those that have returned to work,  are struggling to make sure that their children are getting their schoolwork done as online schooling continues. Here are a few ways that they may have to adapt to as they deal with these circumstances. 

Work Different Shifts

Until things return to normal, many moms and dads may be required to work different shifts than they did before in order to make things easier for their family. 

Finding a New Career

As hard as this one sounds, people that are still without work may need to start looking into a different career, or at least a temporary part-time or full-time job that can hold them over.  

Start Working From Home

 

Essential Skills You'll Need After a Pandemic

Working a job outside the home just to pay the babysitter doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for some families. It may be time to look into jobs that you can do from home as you monitor your children with their online schooling.

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Stock Your Home Office 

These are great items to stock because we need to have a desk setting available for every member of the family to use.

Learning New Work Skills 

Learning new work skills can provide you with more opportunities down the road. This is especially true in today’s world where learning the latest about technology and updates to computer programs and applications is so crucial.   

Improve Your Cooking Skills

When the local restaurants that we relied on so much began to close, many of us started to panic because our cooking skills were pretty basic, or even obsolete. In case you missed this post, Cooking From Scratch 101

  • If you quickly grew tired of eating bland meals that didn’t have a whole lot of flavor, you may have sought ways to improve your cooking skills. 
  • Learning about what to stock in your pantry, while providing your family with warm meals that were healthier for them also may have been something that you looked into. 
  • Mastering these skills keeps your family from eating out so often and wasting so much more money, but also helps each one of your family members stay healthier too.        

Home Maintenance

Over the past several months we’ve all been spending more time in our homes than ever before. 

  • So any minor maintenance issues and flaws in your home have probably begun to stick out to you more like a sore thumb. 
  • Whether it was fixing a minor leak with your toilet, fixing dings in the walls, or doing a complete overhaul and remodel of your kitchen, the pandemic provided the perfect opportunity to learn some new home maintenance skills. 
  • Learning these skills also keeps you from having to rely on others for simple repair work, and also spending more money than you have to. 

Creativity 

Recognition of the pandemic closely followed up by the stay-at-home orders provided us with more free time throughout our days than ever before. As hard as Covid-19 has been on all of us, it did help us see our lives in a different light.    

This allowed many of us to pick up new hobbies, paint beautiful pictures, or even construct a bird feeder. We were given the chance to tap into the creative side of us that we may not have used since we were younger. Creativity is not only a fun skill to develop, it helps you to continue living and enjoying the things that matter most, even in difficult circumstances.  

Final Word

Chances are, you probably have learned a few of these essential skills already, or may have developed them a smidge ever since Covid-19 rocked your world. What are some other skills that you think are important for us to have following a pandemic? Can you name essential skills you’ll need after a pandemic? May God Bless this world, Linda. 

Copyright Images: Work From Home AdobeStock_336255662 by Maridav, Skills AdobeStock_102882234 by ymgerman

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27 Comments

  1. I feel pretty lucky in that not much changed. I worked everyday and was exposed every day. My job stress increased as did the workload.
    I feel for folks effected and hope they come out in top in the end. We’ve got some serious bumps in the road next 60-90 days so don’t unbuckle the seat belt yet.
    Y’all stay safe.

    1. Hi Matt, I totally agree with you, we have some serious bumps coming sooner than later. My concern is all the restaurants, retail stores, so many people out of work. I hear about suicides daily. I’m not sure how much longer people can hang on unless they have a government job. Even hospitals are laying people off. And we thought 2008 was bad. God bless us all. Linda

  2. I don’t think a lot has changed for us. We were lucky in that we were and are retired. We cook and eat basically the same. We have and will stock up more, but that’s about it. We will garden next year.

      1. I’m also glad nothings changed. It has for too many. It’s so sad that so many have lost their jobs and there aren’t any to replace them. I pray for them and everyone affected by this Covid virus.

        Hoping every has a healthy and happy Labor Day.

  3. I love this. So much has changed for my family. We are basically rebuilding our income and figuring out different ways to make more $.

  4. My wife and I are more in Deborah’s boat. We are retired, so job loss didn’t happen. We didn’t go to the beach this year, but that’s about the only thing different. We’ve always gardened but with an automatic drip-soaker hose irrigation system leaving the garden beds for a few days or even a week is no problem. Same for our chickens. Our automatic feeding and watering systems look after them if we’re gone. Plus, I have a good neighbor who’s willing to come over and check for eggs and if the systems are functioning correctly.

    I have upgraded my cooking skills in the past few months–expanding on my repertoire of sun oven cooking dishes. And I’ve done a lot of maintenance on the homestead, building trellises, painting inside and out, rebuilding a chicken coop and run.

    My wife and I have also done a lot of jigsaw puzzles. We like the 1000 pc ones from White Mountain Puzzles. I write novels and newsletter articles and read voraciously. All that keeps the old gray matter churning so it doesn’t go stale.

    We’ve taken great care to restock any preparedness supplies that were depleted during the worst of the shortages–though we’ll see in the next several months if those really were the worst of the shortages. I’m pretty sure things will get a lot worse before improving. But since I’m and optimist at heart, I do think things will eventually improve.

    1. Ray, I also think that things will get worse, before they get better. I also an optimist. I hope for the best, but prepare fo the worst. I’ve been through the worst many times, and didn’t have the means to prepare. A single mom with 3 children, and not gettin my child support, was hard. My mother helped us with food.

      I married my husband at 38, and have been the happiest I ever have. He is so good to me and I love him with all my heart.

    2. Hi Ray, I have always been a person who is optimistic. I’m the person who believes the glass is half-full and not half-empty. I love hearing you and your wife are doing so well, Yay! Linda

  5. We have always prepared for the worse , The one thing I found was that people in our area began their gardens earlier, or began one for the first time. I will have to be earier next year. Some of the newbies only grew tomatoes and zucchini, but that was ok. I praised them and encourged them for next year. They were from a gardening class I taught. This time has really opened people’s eyes as to what they can do. That is a very good thing!!!

    1. Hi Cheryl, oh this is so awesome to hear! I love hearing people in your area started to garden. WOW! I have to agree with you, I think more people understand the need to be prepared for the unexpected since COVID. Let’s hope they keep it up. Linda

      1. Cheryl, you go girl! I think it’s awesome that you’re teaching people to garden. We are planning on one next spring. It’ll be in containers, but you ca grow a lot in them. I’m hoping for enough to do some canning. I’d really love a couple of raised garden beds. 4 feet wide by 8 feet long. More would be better. I can’t bend over like I used to. Arthritis has a hold on me in my back. Really not fun! Too much sitting, or standing, or walking makes it hurt all day. A hot soak in Epsom salts does help though. I grew up on home grown veggies and still prefer them to anything else.

        God bless you, Cheryl, and all FSMs people!

          1. I think it’s because of when we were born and our moms cooked vegetables a lot. Fresh is best. Just my opinion.

          2. Hi Deborah, I agree with you. I had green beans all the time. Oh, and creamed corn or regular corn. I grew green beans and pressure canned them with my girls. So, of course, they grew up on green beans. Life is so good when we pick our own food. Linda

  6. I need sharper shopping skills. I had remarked the other day that I should start looking for a turkey for Tgiving early. Usually on off season, they have a few frozen turkeys in the bins. Some people eat it at other times besides Tgiving. Today I went to 3 stores and there were no turkeys in the bins. I found one sorry Turkey breast, but that was it. I seem to remember early sales on Turkeys well before Tgiving. I saw Hawaian bread rolls, the stuffing, green beans, fried onions in the can on end caps….like they are selling some of the ingredients. Am I trying too early? I have some canned turkey, but I hope we can have the full bird. At the 3 stores I visited today, there were many empty shelves. Maybe it was because it was a holiday and not as many workers were there to stock. I don’t know, but I hope this isn’t the new norm that it takes a lot of effort to get a holiday turkey.

    1. Hi Debbie, I just looked at my series “What To Stock Up On In November”, I have one for every month. According to my list, November is the month to find turkeys on sale. Don’t give up. Fingers crossed we will all get one. Linda

      1. I’ll keep my eyes open for one. When I find one, I’m snatching it up, not going to wait…on sale or not. I can’t imagine Tgiving without a whole bird. It’s made me think of all the holiday and birthday special meals coming up. I don’t like to keep something too long in the freezer, but I think I could plan 6 months ahead with most frozen items. Will keep looking. The whole activity made me soooo hungry for a pumpkin pie! Now I have to make one. Pie crust dough is chilling in the fridge as I type. LOL

        1. Hi Debbie, oh I LOVE pumpkin pie! How fun! I feel pretty good about turkeys being available. Hopefully, the next one or so. Add an extra scoop of whip cream on that pie for me! LOL! Linda

          1. Yep, and it smells sooo good too. I usually have to make a few of these before Tgiving…just can’t wait. Tgiving has to be one of my very most favorite holidays. Thinking about it further, I kind of feel good about the turkeys being available too…I mean they have to go to market. Farmers have them fattening up as we speak. Just the same, if there are any left over after Tgiving, I was thinking of getting a second one and keep it in the freezer. Will a turkey keep for 1 year in the freezer? I almost never leave anything in there over 6 months.

          2. Hi Debbie, I always buy 2-3 turkeys when they go on sale if I have room in the freezer. I use them for T-Day, Christma, and Easter. I have had turkeys or roasts in the freezer for a year, I’m sure. I can almost smell the pumpkin pie from here! LOL! Linda

  7. Hi! I’ve kept turkeys in the freezer for a year many times when my unmarried kids got free turkeys at work for the holidays I couldn’t use. No problem! At Costco a few days ago they were already selling pumpkin pies! I think it’s wise to get whatever ingredients for holiday cooking and also gifts we can as soon as possible. We are going into uncharted territory with the DEMS planning to contest the election, rioting, etc.

    1. Hi Kay, I hope to see turkeys going on sale soon. Oh, I love Costco pumpkin pies, they are the best!! And very inexpensive!
      I totally agree with you about getting our holiday baking items NOW. This year has been crazy, we need a break, the world needs a break. Please stay well, and stay safe. Linda

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