Each day in the life of a captioner can bring new challenges, unexpected events, and late or long days spent at your desk.
As we all know, captioning is a taxing job, both mentally and physically. Keeping up energy each day is crucial to maintaining focus for long stints of captioning. There are no “slow periods” when it comes to captioning, but every two years, captioners are even busier prepping their dictionaries for the massive, worldwide event that is the Olympic Games.
The Summer Olympics are even larger than the Winter Games, meaning that the prep work can be almost triple in size! With all this extra time dedicated to prep work, family dinners and well-thought-out breakfasts can turn into delivery and takeout quickly. But, not everyone wants to resort to takeout on busy days, and home-cooked food is the best way to stay healthy and focused each day.
This begs the question–what does a busy captioner do for meals on days, or weeks, that demand your time is spent at your desk?
To answer this question, TCG went right to our captioning team and asked them what they like to do on busy days when time for preparing food is limited, or even nonexistent! Here are four tips:
Keep the Munchies Close By
Quick snacks during a commercial break can combat hunger until you have enough time to eat a full meal. This captioner always keeps a quick snack by her desk to munch on–almonds, dry cereal, or granola is always on hand. Her other favourite is a chopped apple with peanut butter.
Keeping a snack at your desk saves you from running to the kitchen when hunger hits.
Meal Prep is Key
One captioner tells us that the best way she gets through a busy day is to think ahead. How does she do this? The all-important meal prep. She portions out her meals after cooking and then pops one in the microwave on a commercial break.
By thinking ahead and packaging your meals into containers, it makes it simple to grab and go when you have limited time between shows. Just grab, heat, and eat! You’ll have a full meal, and you’ll be ready for your next show in under 15 minutes.
See excellent meal prep ideas for beginners.
Keep it Simple
Another great snack idea is to include fresh fruit. It is easy to cut up and store in containers in the fridge, so you’ll always have a fresh snack ready to go when you need one. One captioner likes to eat bananas covered in peanut butter. It is easy, quick, and still satisfying when your time is limited. This is a great quick breakfast option, too!
Delivery–But Better
Looking for a way to keep the family together with a home-cooked meal, but have no time to spend an hour or more in the kitchen? Home Chef has the answer. One of our captioners started using this home-delivery service, and she says it’s the best thing she’s done to take time in a busy day for her family. She chops the veggies up on one of her breaks, then has it cooked in time for her supper hour with her family while still captioning various shows throughout the evening. Her new favourite (pictured here) is Brown Sugar and Pecan-Crusted Pork Tenderloin Medallions. How delicious does that sound!
It is much less costly than ordering in, plus the meals are designed to be health conscious, simple, and tailored to you and your family’s tastes.
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Do you have any great ideas to share with us? How do you eat healthy on your busiest days? Please share your ideas and thoughts in the “Comment” section!
