Across the globe, we’ve all been asked to do our part to help contain the spread of COVID-19. Social distancing, self-quarantining, and self-isolation are just a few of the terms floating around to remind us to stay inside.

It’s still pretty uncertain when our lives will return ‘back to normal,’ and until that day comes, we have to hunker down, stay home, and patiently wait for this quarantine to be over.

So to help make all this time spent at home a little easier, we’ve assembled the ultimate guide to self-quarantining. It contains ideas to keep you inspired, informed, productive, creative, and most importantly, not bored.

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Get The Facts First

Updates regarding COVID-19 seem to change by the minute, so it’s important to stay in the loop of what’s happening. You don’t want to miss any critical information.

• Follow CDC guidelines and check for updates on prevention and treatment.
• Follow the World Health Organization (WHO) for reports and all information on the outbreak.
• Follow Dr. Dena Grayson, MD, PhD. on Twitter to get all of your questions answered regarding COVID-19.

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Digital Tools for Working from Home

If you’re adjusting to working from home, it helps to have a few tools to keep you productive and in communication with your team. We recommend these:

For meetings

• UberConference for web conferencing and online meetings.
• Zoom for video conferencing. BONUS: There’s a filter on Zoom you can use to look better on your video calls. Learn how to turn on the setting here.

For productivity

• Tomato timer uses the Pomodoro Technique to encourage you to knock out tasks in 25-minute cycles.

For communication

• Slack allows you to instantly message people in your organization. Share files, updates, jokes—the list goes on.

For proposals, legal documents, etc.

• DocuSign lets you easily send and sign documents electronically.

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Learn from The Futur

With much of our free time being spent at home, self-quarantining doesn't have to mean sitting and staring at the ceiling. Instead, let’s exercise our brains and learn something new.

As a matter of fact, we’ve temporarily reduced tuition for all of our courses. Now’s the perfect time to pick up a new skill, whether it’s creative, business-oriented, or for personal development. What course is calling out to you?

Featured courses

• Master Typography with our most popular design course, Typography 01. Then, take your type skills up a notch with our Hand-Lettering Kit.
• Negotiate like a pro with the guidance in our featured business course, How to Negotiate.
• Run your projects profitably and friction-free with the Practical Project Management course.
• Change your mindset, change your business with the Be Your Best Self lecture (100% free right now!).
• Share your projects and process in a way that helps you win more work with the Complete Case Study.
• Browse all our other courses here.

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Free downloadable resources

• Personal Branding Worksheet
• Focus Worksheet
• Pitch Evaluation Worksheet
• Browse all of our other resources here.

‍Books to check out

• Essential Reading for Creative Professionals: Vol. 1
• Essential Design Books
• Ten Business Books All Creatives Need to Read

Learn anything from our content

• Creative skills
• Business fundamentals
• Personal development

Featured YouTube playlists

• Mindset & Personal Development
• Goal Setting
• Start a Creative Business
• Build Your Portfolio

Featured livestreams

• Overcome your fear and anxiety surrounding the virus with the help of Wesley Anne Little, LPC.
• Tune into our conversation with Dr. Otto Yang as he helps us separate fact from fiction regarding COVID-19.
• Lower your expenses and keep your finances afloat with the guidance from Errol Gerson.

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‍More Learning Resources

This is the Internet, after all, and you can learn just about anything anywhere. We recommend these online platforms for anything else you might want to learn while self-quarantining:

For the curious

• YouTube Learning lets you learn literally anything, from study tips, illustration, computer science, to fitness.
• PBS Digital Studios houses educational series on a variety of topics.
• Pop into free virtual museums, concerts, plays, and more on CNN style.

For the college course lovers

• Class Central offers over 500 online Ivy League courses, completely free.
• edX gives you access to over 2500 courses from the world’s 140 top institutions and universities.

For the career chasers

• Google Digital Garage helps you learn today’s most in-demand skills.
• Ran Segall's Webflow courses will have you building professional, custom websites in no time. Check out his two courses: The $10k Website Process and Webflow Masterclass. Get 25% off the Webflow Masterclass with the code FRIENDS-OF-FUTUR.

For the tech-savvy

• freeCodeCamp offers free coding lessons and certifications in a variety of languages.
• The Odin Project offers a free curriculum for you to jumpstart your web development career.
• Unity Learn provides courses, tutorials, and live learning sessions to master coding, 3D animation, and more.

For the marketer in you

• Digital Marketer is the online learning hub for all things marketing. Get certified in content marketing, social media marketing, copywriting, and more.

For the kids

• Scholastic’s online learning hub offers subjects for students grade 6-9.
• PBS provides free videos, interactive lessons, and more for your kids to learn from.

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Software

We’re recommending these two pieces of software specifically because they’re supporting the creative community in an amazing and accessible way.

• Affinity Designer is offering a 90 day free trial for Mac and Windows versions, or a 50% discount if you buy right away.
• Adobe is waiving 90 days of your subscription charges if you call 1-800-833-6687. Press 1, 1, 2 to activate. If done online, your subscription charges are waived for 60 days.
• If you're a logo or identity systems designer, check out The Logo Package. This tool lets you export every possible iteration type of your logo. Use the code home to save 25% through the month of April.

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Food Delivered to You

With many restaurants closed or only serving takeout, dining out is officially on hold. Why not whip up a good meal with groceries delivered to your door?

• Imperfect Foods delivers organic food, fresh produce, and more.
• Butcher Box delivers curated grass-fed beef to your door.
• Amazon Prime delivers Whole Foods groceries to you in just a couple of hours.

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Outlets to De-Stress

All this uncertainty is causing more stress than many of us can handle. Here are a few ways to de-stress and decompress while self-quarantining:

Be entertained

• The New York Times compiled a list of the best movies, TV shows, books, and more to digest during the quarantine. Plus, they’re updating this list every weekday!
• Spotify has hundreds of thousands of songs, artists, playlists, podcasts, and more for you to stream as you please.
• This Lo-fi hip hop radio is a favorite from The Futur team.

Be fit

• Self shares the 12 best at-home workouts you can do without any equipment.
• The Wall Street Journal recommends these five workouts.
• CNBC recommends these fitness apps for working out at home.

Be well

• The New York Times created this list of easy recipes to cook with ingredients you already have at home.
• To Be Magnetic teaches you all about the power of manifestation.
• Totally Laura will show you how to turn your fears into power.

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Get Some Sleep

In times like these, it can be hard to calm our minds down and fall asleep, but these tools should do the trick:

• These Lo-Fi beats are perfect to sleep/chill to.
• Sleep With Me is the podcast that puts you to sleep.
• Headspace offers guided meditation to help you relax and fall asleep easier.

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…And that’s all from us, folks! Of course, there are plenty of other resources out there for you to check out, but these are our personal picks.

Stay safe, stay healthy, wash your hands, and be well, Futurists. We’ll all get through self-quarantining, together.