Hey everyone,
even when you do not have the chance to go outside, there are still plenty of productive and exciting activities that you can do, without leaving the comfort of your own home. All these activities will help you to stay active, happy and will make your days worthwhile!
Let's start with the list of ideas. To acknowledge the wisdom of the crowd, feel free to add all of your ideas to the comments, I am more than curious, which amazing ideas you can come up with. Furthermore, let me know if I was able to excite or surprise you with one of the ideas!
The first idea you should definitely try, is to write a cookbook solely based on one type of food. The food you choose has to be included in every recipe that can be found in this cookbook. I know that most of us have at least one food they could always go with and I think this could be an amazing activity to combine all your great findings in one resource. To make the cookbook idea a bit more challenging you could also decide that your cookbook has to have two to three of your favorite foods in each of the recipes!
Another great idea to spend your time productively is to take online classes! I am especially a fan of Skillshare, the website allows you to take a variety of classes to all kind of topics. If you want two months of free Skillshare usage, you can do so 'Here'. Enjoy!
A thing I always tend to put off, is to go through the endless list of bookmarks, which I have saved in the last months. Now is the perfect timing to go through them and to see if I can delete some of them. And most likely I will find some pages again that I completely forgot about and that will excite me once again!
Have you ever played with the thought of opening your own blog? Well, now would be the best time to do so: choose a topic that interests you and that allows you to create a variation of content! To make this idea out of the box, how about starting your blog with a good friend? As blogging can be done online both of you can access the edit forum via their internet access. And shared content will allow greater ideas, let's get typing!
As you probably know, yoga is a great way to destress and to control anxiety. To give a twist to your daily yoga routine, you could try to give your yoga class a theme. Make your next yoga session under the topic of expressing gratitude. Gratitude is especially now a key part of my life and I think it is immensely helpful to remind myself of all the things that I am thankful for: Focus on the good and small things that currently make you happy.
If you ever wanted to boost your productivity this activity is the solution for you: Setting a timer allows you to set a time interval in which you want to execute a specific task. This can be a task you have been long putting of, or a task that you simply don't seem to be able to focus on. By giving your time only a limited time window you are able to focus more easily and by having the knowledge of the time running done you surely want to finish 'in time'.
At home relaxation can be easily achieved with a self made face mask. The difference between a homemade and a store-bought face mask is obvious: the ingredients are fresh, and first and foremost you exactly know what went into the mask and therefore on your face! An easy face mask for dry winter skin is: Yoghurt, Honey and Tumeric. Simply take a small bowl, whisk the ingredients together and apply on your skin. Instant healing benefits within seconds!
You miss your workout buddy? Another idea would be to workout in a virtual space. Invite your friends to workout with you via Face Time or Skype! Boosts motivation and gives working out a completely new style.
The next idea is to start a 14 day challenge. Especially on Pinterest you are able to find an endless list of challenges you could start today. Most of the time the challenges develop within their time frame and get more and more difficult from day to day. Of course you can freely choose the challenge and you could also set up a challenge by yourself or ask a friend to do so. Your challenges can be based around developing a new habit, strengthening a hobby or one To Do you want to achieve each day.
I have a lot of cities that I enjoy visiting even if I have seen them a couple of times. I know which sights I would recommend to family members, I have my hidden café gems that I would recommend to a good friend and I know where to take the best pictures in the city. How about collecting all this knowledge in a digital guidebook. After the creation you could share this guidebook with travelers who will come to the city or you keep it for your own memory and add on experiences after future visits. The guidebook can include Must-Sees, Restaurant Tips, Local Gems and Best Activities. The customization is completely up to you!
Take the time to develop a well thought through bucket list. The list can be focused around a particular part of your life, a future travel or a goal that you still want to achieve. Bucket Lists are a great way to visualize your goals and to motivate yourself!
I love allowing myself to develop new ideas and just letting my brain wonder. Great resources for increasing your ideation can be found all around you. My suggestion would be to definitely try the 'Random Word' Ideation. This method implies that you simply take your idea and make it more out of the box by combining it with random words given to you by a website. You will be stunned which new routes your ideas might take.
You always had that one idea, but you never had the time to put it into practice? Do so now!
Of course you can also choose to play one of the board games, that you already have at home, but why not put your own input into a game. You could create a personalized Monopoly or and adventure game with your own story. If you want to challenge yourself, how about creating an 'Exit' board game for your family and friends. You will be able to choose the narrative, the design and the achievements in your game!
Bringing in a not as exiting task, but definitely a productive one: You could spend a day going through your finances and budgets. I know for myself that this is a dreadful task, but once it is done it is out of the way once again for a bit of time.
The next idea is about becoming an expert. I know of a lot of my friends and also of myself, that we all have that one topic that excites us and about which we could talk forever. I do think everyone has that 'one' topic and you could surely spend some time developing your knowledge and becoming a small expert for that topic. Of course you could also decide to look into a topic, which is completely new to you: Maybe you want to level up your Barista knowledge?
Good mood through singing! Challenge your friends to join you for a virtual karaoke night. You can sing the charts up and down and nominate your best singer. Small joke on the side: And luckily enough the virtual option now allows you to mute your friends if someone is completely not striking the right tone!
Take some time and train your pet a new command. If your pet already knows all the essential commands you can step up the game and teach them new tricks. Training your pet not only makes your pet smarter, it also keeps them happy. Furthermore, you will be on the best way to have a well-trained animals. To make it enjoyable for your pet keep the training sessions short and sweet!
Basic, but highly beneficial for you: Drink a big glass of water! Often times a small reminder to drink is enough, because most likely it is not the case that you don't want to drink, you simply forget about it. So, here is your reminder! Water helps you to increase your attention, you will feel more awake and your mind and body overall will thank you.
If you have not heard of the platform 'Kahoot' yet you should definitely check it out: Kahoot is a website that allows you to build your own quizzes, which you can then share with the rest of the community. Kahoot is used as an educational tool to check knowledge, but you can also have the best time playing with friends and family. You access the quizzes via your mobile device, which allows you to be geographically apart from each other!
Most likely the photo album on your phone has not been updated for a while. Best time to take a moment, upload and save them all to a save place and then decide which pictures you would like to actually keep on your phone. I assume that the majority of them could be deleted and they would allow you to use the storage differently and more effective!
The next activity concerns the issues of climate change. Our society needs to make changes and you can participate in those! Simply by making small adaptions in your daily lifestyle can have a huge impact on our planet. If you are interested you can read my article on 50+ ideas on how to make your daily lifestyle more sustainable, find it
'Here'.
Take a moment and ask your friends if there is something you can help or support them with. Maybe the need an advice or just an open ear from you to talk about something that has been keeping them busy. Often times your friend will have something that they will share with you, as you are in some situations to intimidated to ask, but if the other one actively makes the offer you will gladly take it.
Have fun by building your own little bowling setup: All you need are simply some empty bottles and a light ball. Arrange the bottles in the typical cone shape and GO! Challenge your family, who is the bowling king or queen in the house?!
Besides the fact, that I highly enjoy making lists, one type of list can be extremely helpful when you have to make difficult decisions. You are likely to be stuck and you have no idea which outcome of the decision you would like to go with. How about making a Pro and Contra list. Simply start off by listing all the things that are for the topic or decision and the ones against it. If you would like to you could also ask close family members and friends to add onto the list, just make sure to not have yourself too highly influenced by the other opinions.
Podcasting is one of the current trends of our technology. Spotify and Apple Podcast offer the recordings to an immense audience and the demand is there! You could try and record your own podcast by yourself, or maybe with a friend. On the other hand you could also decide to interview a person of interest in your podcast or record having multiple hosts that guide through various parts of the podcasts. Whatever you decide on doing, podcasting is a great way for a creative output!
Have a spare hour, use it to update your Resume. Powerful updates you can take, should be done in regards to old positions, your updated skills, refreshing your contact information (if necessary) and maybe a new look to start off with. Polls have identified that it is quite common to forget to update your Resume, so make sure to do so frequently.
As previously touched upon, music is a great mood booster! Discovering new songs and musicians is one of my favorite things to do if I have some extra time. With that being said, most of us just need to hear the right beat, and we are immediately way more motivated.
Do you already have the plans for the summer time? Research some destinations you would like to explore this summer. Maybe you are planning on doing a road trip with friends or a short weekend getaway. Look into activities you could do during your trip or make a Bucket List of stops to see. Look up Locations that have been reviewed from other travellers and already arouse your travel nerves!
Sadly enough it is not done often anymore, but receiving a handwritten note is always a pleasure. Your card can have a humorous undertone, but your could also write a supportive message to a friend. Moreover, you could write a romantic letter to a loved one, add a short poem or write a small verse. Most likely they will appreciate every word from you. Feel free to add small drawings and illustrations, or maybe some pictures.
Personally, I have seen quite a few apps in the App Store that I have been more than curious to download and to try out. I am always amazed by all the creative and innovative apps and platforms that are out there. If you are curious for some recommendations, I would suggest to check out the app called 'Toogoodtogo', a company which is working against food waste and offers leftover groceries from supermarkets and bakeries in your area for a discounted price. A travel app, which I can recommend is 'Getyourguide', I enjoy just browsing through all the offers that are made here for tourists and locals alike.
Cuddle up in a blanked fort, grab some caramel coated popcorn and dug out on of your lighters, and the of course, you need a scary story to tell. Make sure to dim the lights and tell the stories in a row to each other. Decide on the scariness of the stories beforehand and keep it chill and simple. Some light goosebumps are welcome!
Do you have a task you have been dreading to do and that you have been therefore putting off for way to long? Well, let me tell you, I would like to challenge you right now to do exactly that task! Get it done and feel the immediate relief!
A good way to indulge in the 'good old times', is by hosting a photo afternoon or evening. Choose pictures based on a year or a topic. You could do an afternoon solely based on all the birthday pictures you can find. Or a specific year of your interest. Another idea would be to only focus on summer holidays and to indulge in some beach pictures. I hope that these pictures will be able to convey some of their warmth through the digital space.
The next idea was definitely one of my personal favorites. Would it not be a great idea to combine all family recipes in one cookbook? Make sure to schedule a call with your grandma or your cousins and collect their favorite and well kept recipes. The cookbook can be passed on within the generations and can be a great gift within your family. The pages can be illustrated with the recipes, a picture from the recipe owner and maybe a small quote or some words from the cook. Maybe the recipe owner wants to add special tips or has secret recommendations on how to make the most out of the dish!
Everyone loves a good scavenger hunt. And if you can't do them outside, then there is still a good chance to do them online. Furthermore, make sure to check out the board game 'Exit' it is a really fun game to play with friends and family. The game challenges you to solve riddles and quizzes to win the game. You race against a timer and to be honest the game can be more than challenging. Their are different levels of difficultly you can choose from, the beginner level is for starters and then there are two additional categories above this one!
Podcasts are a great time killer. They not only provide entertainment, but often times a great deal of knowledge at the same time. Listening to podcasts allows multi tasking and you could additionally clean your room, cook or go for a walk. In addition you will train your imaginative skills and you will learn about a whole new topic. To that end, podcasting is a great activity, as it also allows you to destress and your mind is able to have a break. Finding new podcasts is as simple as that, as there is an endless library of audio files to listen to.
Provided that you love arts and crafts, you are sure a fan of mood boarding. A mood board is a visual tool to create streams of motivation and inspiration. A mood board can be again based on a specific topic or purpose, or you can keep the topic open and make a collection of everything you find that inspires you. You can decide to draw, cut out from magazines or print out material.
Set up an interview structure and head into the field! Is there someone, who you look up to or an area of life that deeply interests you. Investigate how they achieve goals, what their morning routine is or which things they like to do to get inspired. You could also decide to interview a group of people asking them the same questions and then comparing the results!
In case your neighbors are elderly or don't have the ability to shop their own groceries it can be a nice offer to not only shop for your own necessities, but also taking care of your neighbors. It is not a great added effort for yourself, but you will make someone else happy and they will appreciate your help.
Writing a newsletter can be a lot of fun! Make sure to grab your readers attention with an interesting headline. Share the best and most engaging content with your audience. Try to keep it short and simple, as the newsletter has to be thought of a quick and informing text. In my opinion it would be a fun activity to write a newsletter within your family. Get every family to write a personal newsletter, visualized with a pictures and meaningful quotes and then distribute that within the family.
A blissful morning activity would be ate write a 'Happy list'. A happy list can be included in your bullet journal, diary, or as a stand alone document. In some moments we completely forget what makes us happy in our day to day life. A small reminder such as the list can help a lot! The list will bring you joy and happiness each time you pass by it. Make sure to put the list to a place, where you will be regularly able to see it.
Magazine writing allows a great creative output. You are allowed to choose the overall topic of your magazine, the individual article topics and whether you decide to include interviews, user stories or recipes. A magazine can be under the topic of traveling, or maybe you are highly interested in a particular sports, that you can elaborate on it.
To start off with you have to find the overall and also underlying emotion of your story. Short story writing is ideal, as it can be done by both, beginners and advanced writers. Before you start writing your story you should prepare a content outline. Make sure you draft out some strong characters before getting into the writing process. Focus on developing a character that is impactful and that allows to captivate the audience. Once you are confident about your character outline the main content points of your short story. This outline will be your 'safety anchor' to look back on when finally writing your story. Make sure to start your story with a great hook to get the readers attention.
Diary writing is an awesome way with a lot of benefits: Regularly writing a diary helps you to set and achieve goals. Furthermore, you are able to keep all of your thoughts organized and well kept in one place. And not only that, by writing a diary you are able to improve your writing skills and learn new words. You inspire your creativity and you can use your diary too write down all your idea on the go. Looking back on diary entries from past events you are able to self reflect and improve your own behavior.
I am always amazed by all the material, studies and research, which is available to all of us through Google Scholar. If you have a moment of free time to yourself I can only advise you to research a bit on Google Scholar. There are a lot of highly interesting studies out there and time will pass with ease. Let me know, which amazing studies you were able to find!
My mailbox is filled with a lot of mails, which I should delete. On a day to day basis I am honestly too lazy to do so. Right now it is time to roll up my sleeves, jump in and try to manage the flood of mails from the past! Spring cleaning done digitally!
Reorganizing your closet will help you to make everything visible again. There will be most likely quite a few pieces you completely forgot owning. It can be helpful to store heavy sweaters in jackets in the back of your closet, making it easier to keep an overview. Additionally it can be more than helpful to store your basic pieces all together. Decide whether you would like to order you clothes in a particular way, such as after color, or after season. A nice way to keep a fresh smell in your clothes can be to keep some lavender soap bars placed in some of the drawers of your closet.
Having a broad knowledge on geography is always beneficial. Start off by learning the continents. Afterwards you can start focusing on waters, learning the oceans on the world and the rivers and lakes in your home country. Make sure to constantly repeat your knowledge learning. Visuals are a great help in mesmerizing, especially when learning geographical facts. Additionally there are a variety of apps and other entertaining features out there, that help making the learning easier and more efficient.
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