Beat that quarantine boredom

It seems like everywhere you look there are articles about maximizing your experience during this COVID quarantine. But when you’re not usually working from home and trying to maintain some semblance of your formerly busy life, boredom is sure to settle. Being cooped up in your house is sure to become overwhelming after a few days; that’s why there are so many memes about it on the internet right now.

When that sense of boredom strikes, you don’t always want to maximize that time; sometimes you just want to distract yourself. Those distractions can be productive or just enjoyable, so here are a few suggestions for either:

Organize your pantry, junk drawer or any other space--Of course cleaning house will probably seem daunting (how did all this stuff fit in there?), but once you organize and throw extraneous or old items out, the physical decluttering will be a bit of a mental decluttering too. The other nice thing about organizing eclectic spaces is that it can take as long as you want. You can focus on just one shelf during those painfully long commercial breaks, or you can focus on the whole area while you’re half listening to yet another panel discussion about the coronavirus.

Teach yourself a new skill--YouTube has a video for pretty much anything. Want to learn how to knit? Some disembodied hands and a perky voiceover can teach you in 10 minutes. Has your car’s wiper fluid been low for a month but you’ve been too busy to take it in? A quick search will show you how to refill it and tell you which fluid to buy and why. The best part of all--you don’t have to pay for the lesson and you can turn it off or switch to a new one, plus, you can try a bunch of new skills, or just get sucked into a YouTube hole and emerge hours later after watching what ballerinas and other athletes eat in a day.

Sort through and possibly digitize old photos--Photo albums make great gifts, but they can be bulky. Similarly, maybe you take tons of photos of your dogs and they’re hogging up your phone’s storage. With all this extra time on your hands, go through and delete duplicates and save the keepers to a file on your computer or in the cloud. As for those hard copy pictures, at some point, you’ll probably want to share that memory, so scan it and save it to your digital album so you can enjoy it forever and not have to wonder which album you need. Plus, you can have folders within folders in digital albums, so you can organize by time, topic, or whatever works for you.

Read a book--There are so many books out there, and many can be found online either for free or a low price. Author Abbie Owen just put a huge amount of her collection on sale for $0.99 each, and other authors are offering similar deals. Most library websites also give options for ebooks and audiobooks too.

Pick up some cooking tips--Sure, you might end up with two cakes, three dozen cookies, and only a couple of people to eat them, but hey, next time someone asks you to bring dessert to a party, you’ll have the perfect recipe in mind. You could also call your mom or grandma and see if she’ll give you the secret family recipe for your favorite dish and try to perfect it. It isn’t quite the same as cooking with her, but next time you try, you’ll already have a few attempts under your belt.

Binge-watch a show, or three--All the streaming services, and even cable, have such a wide selection of shows, so step out of your comfort zone and check one out. Maybe you’ll get sucked into the world of treasure hunting or a world (“The Curse of Oak Island,” cable) with magical keys that can let you see the inside of your mind (“Locke & Key,” Netflix). With all the options including classics and new releases, you’re sure to find something worth watching.

Start a blog--With all those books, shows, and cooking tips, you’re bound to have some opinions. Wordpress, Squarespace and Medium all have great resources for starting blogs. They can be simple or complex, but ultimately they’re yours and can become a cool new hobby. If you’re a little shy about having your opinions on the internet, you can use a pseudonym, or if you want to make a following, you can self-promote across platforms.

Send polls to your friends--Lots of articles and websites emphasize the importance of connecting with your friends and family. If you want to switch it up, send them a poll or survey, there are lots of sites out there (Survey Monkey, Google Forms, Office Forms, Doodle Poll, etc.) where you can make unique polls and send them out. It could be as simple as asking everyone’s favorite movie or memory with the group, or even turn into a game to see how well your friends know each other.