Things to do while you’re bored at home

Covid-19 fear is here, and I think it’s going to be here for a while. During this time, you’re either working from home, wish you were working from home, or not working at all (all of which have their downsides). So, if you’ve been instructed to stay put, here are some things to do while you’re bored at home.

In South Africa, we have a national lockdown for a minimum of 21 days. Thus, I am stuck at home until further notice, and I’ll start working from home in April. For this reason, I have made a list of things to do to keep the little sanity I have left.

Declutter

It’s basically the apocalypse, so what better time to get rid of some unnecessary earthly possessions?

I’m going to go through the house and try to throw away as much crap as I can. I’ll start with my room, and work my way around the place. This declutter mission might be difficult because I still live with my parents and they hate throwing stuff away – everything ‘sparks joy’ to them.

I must admit, the fear of my mom’s green eye wrath will make the activity a lot more interesting and exciting.

Continue hobbies you’ve been neglecting

‘I don’t have time’ is the all-time favourite excuse of every working person (‘I’m too lazy’ is everybody else’s excuse). Whichever it is, why not use some of your time at home to give those hobbies another chance.

My main hobby is this blog – yeah, sometimes I slip up, so I’m going to try my best to write out as many blog posts as possible so that I have them as a backup when life gets crazy with work again.

Also, I’m keeping a ‘diary’ of my lockdown time and I’ll post them here and on my social media. With ‘diary’ I mean short tad-bits of what we crazies get up to.

Spending time with family

I guess this is only applicable if you live in the same house. Living alone must seriously suck during the quarantine. Families tend to live past each other, so now is a great time to reconnect.

Usually, load shedding also forces us to talk to each other. During this time, I get to hear some of the crazy things my parents did in their youth (and then I blog about it).

If you don’t know what load-shedding is, congratulations, you live in a first-world country. I’m jealous.

Learning new skills

Are you bored? Why not learn a new skill? I mean, if you’re reading this you have access to the internet and then you can go onto YouTube and learn a cool new skill. Want to learn how to cook, code, knit, draw, make clothes, do maths – the internet can teach you all of that.

Personally, I’m going to make it my mission to learn a few more katas. I do karate (Chu Jin – full contact, Shito-Ryu style) and it’d be great if I can teach the students new stuff, and at the same time prepare for my second dan.

Also, my boyfriend is a gamer and he’s been asking me to get into it as well. I tried it a few times and I get so confused with the controls and panic when I see an enemy. Hence, I decided to start with baby steps – as in old DOS games baby steps. So far it’s going well.

Reading

Is your reading list as long as your forgotten hopes and dreams? Oh wow, this pandemic is making my humour much darker.

Anyway, make it your mission to read those books that are gathering dust on your bookshelf. If you have run out of reading material you can always go onto the internet and read up on topics that interest you.

Donate to charity

During this pandemic, we are all suffering, and are trying to become accustomed to a new way of life. If you’re lucky enough to still earn a salary consider donating some of it to charity. Charities, especially those who look after the well fair of people and animals, struggle to keep head above water during normal circumstances, and now it’s even worse. Consider donating to those charities because you may be reliant on them one day.

If you don’t want to donate to charity, consider just helping someone out, whether it’s paying for someone’s groceries at the shops or buying vouchers from a small business that’s not able to operate during the lockdown. Help someone out, even if you just do it to feel better about yourself.

Final thought

Whether we like it or not, we’re all in this together. If you are not part of the essential services in your country, stay at home (don’t be an asshole), unless you have to go out for food and medical services. If you’re part of essential services, God bless you and stay safe.

We can beat this thing.

Michelle

P.S. If you’d like to contact me, feel free to comment below, send an email to thatmichelleperson@gmail.com or follow me on Twitter @M_ClutterBox.