Hello, all. Here is a list of things to do if you’re by yourself or just plain bored during quarantine. A little silly, a little serious, and a little of the unexpected. Enjoy.
Self
1..Write down your best qualities and why you’re a wonderful individual to have around, from the silliest to the most serious. Tuck your list away somewhere safe so you can read it when you’re having a bad day. I did this in group therapy a few years ago.
2. Write a letter to yourself in the future, seal it, and don’t open it for five years.
3. Write in a journal or check out one of these journaling apps.
4. Write down the things that you can be grateful for.
5. Take a bath with a candle lit somewhere and get romantic with yourself.
6. Create a vision board for where you’d like to see yourself in 5 years.
7. Do a life audit per Life By Grit. Write your goals on Post It notes and put them in envelopes to be opened at the intervals you’ve chosen.
8. Listen to a guided meditation on YouTube before you go to sleep. The ones for kids are really cute, but there are three hour long ones for adults that are equally high quality and will send you snoring peacefully.
Explore
9. See what you need to do to volunteer at The Panda Centers in China, just to dream.
10. Look for Best Of lists for music, movies, shows, or books from previous years. That’s how I found Jake Bugg. Thanks Rolling Stone!
11. Look up what the life cycle of a frog looks like.
12. Look up flights to far flung places and dream a little. Think about what you would do there.
13. Start with a random topic on Wikipedia and see where the rabbit hole goes. I recommend starting with Lewis Carroll and Alice in Wonderland, the book and all the films it has spawned, like the 1988 stop motion one by Czech director Jan Svankmajer. Donate a $3 tip to Wikipedia if you enjoyed your journey.
14. What does whimsical mean? Go to dictionary.com and read definitions for common words that we take for granted like hope, love, prayer, spirit, happy, humor, divine, agnostic, food, soul, kiss, hug, smile, sadness, depression, grief, mourning, sun, light. Do you agree with the definitions?
15. Look up some cool quotes or verses that you can hang around your house and draw inspiration from. One of my favorites is from Van Gogh: “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together. And great things are not accidental, but must certainly be willed.”
Create
16. Create a map of your home and use a dotted line to trace everywhere you’ve been in a day, a la Billy on Family Circus.
17. Plan a 24 hour day for what you’ll do once quarantine is over down to the hour.
18. Create a mini zine of the definitions you looked up on dictionary.com and illustrate it with magazine pics or markers. If you have a printer that copies/scans, copy it 10 times, fold up your zines, and mail them to your friends.
19. Write a letter to someone famous you admire, look up their official mailing address, and send it. Decorate the envelope so it stands out.
20. Trace your hands on a piece of paper and make each finger a different character with hair, eyewear, three items of clothing/accessories, and then write a scene where they’re five friends or strangers stuck in an elevator.
21. Write a limerick and illustrate it.
22. Draw an hourly comic about what you did for the past 24 hours, like these.
23. Rewrite the 8th season of Game of Thrones as it should have been, then perform it in your bathroom mirror.
24. Write a haiku. Use 5-7-5 and concrete, specific detail.
25. Roast some chickpeas and snack on them.
26. Try to memorize your favorite poem or piece of writing and recite it in your mirror. Bonus points if it’s from Shakespeare or another language. Now try backwards.
27. If you’re a person who sews, make masks for your local medical providers.
Social
28. Create a bulleted plan that would solve all the world’s greatest problems from poverty to dealing with all of our garbage efficiently to getting everyone access to clean water.
29. Read up on harm reduction, intersectional feminism, body positivity, or another social issue.
30. Drink some water. Check out Water.org, a charity to get clean water and sanitation to people around the world who need it.
31. Say hello to all of your household appliances and thank them for being so helpful.
32. Email your senators, representatives, governor, Lt. governor, or mayor about the things you care about. See if they’re already doing something worth your attention.
33. Update your voter registration if you’ve recently moved.
34. Find your childhood best friend on Facebook and say hey, thinking of you, remember that time we…
35. See what local organizations are doing to help others in your community.
36. Make a sign for your neighbors and put it in your window to encourage them.
37. Get on Reddit and look up every subreddit that may possibly interest you, like r/grandpajoehate or r/Eyebleach.
YouTube
38. Learn how to chop vegetables and fruits properly.
39. Check out this video on waterbears/tardigrades. They can survive in space!
40. Watch cute giant panda videos where they fall all over themselves like this one.
Music/Physical
41. Find a yoga or workout video on YouTube. The Fitness Marshall is funny, inclusive, and dancy, and the length of his workouts vary, so you can choose what’s right for you. He is also on Instagram.
42. Look up all the albums from your favorite musical artists and listen to every song to find hidden gems
43. Follow the DJ D-Nice @dnice on Instagram and tune in to his live dance party broadcast, Club Quarantine, on 4/4/20 at 4pm Pacific Time (7pm EST). I either heard about this from NPR or the NYTimes, I can’t remember.
44. Try to do a headstand. Carefully.
45. Do some stretching or exercises as though you were in elementary school PE. Circle arms, big then small, then big again, are my favorite. Be careful not to knock something over.
Read
46. Reread your all-time favorite book
47. Turn out all the lights, get under a blanket, turn your flashlight on, and read like a naughty kid staying up past bed time. Ghost story telling would also work.
48. Listen to or read The Art of Flaneuring by Erika Owen, then take a leisurely stroll outside and see what’s out there.
49. Read The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Meditation by Thich Nhat Hanh, (it’s pretty short) then try one mindfulness exercise a day until you find one or a few you’re comfortable with. My favorite ones are following your breath and having a day of mindfulness with light housekeeping/organizing and reading, among other activities. You’ll never think of cleaning your house or doing the dishes the same way.
50. Read every Roald Dahl book out loud to your cat/dog/fish/plant/couch pillow. Matilda is my ultimate favorite, but The BFG and The Witches are close behind.
Clean/Organize
51. Organize books on shelves and look for ones you didn’t actually read, then read them.
52. Go through the pictures on your phone or computer and delete the ones that don’t bring joy (The Marie Kondo way).
53. Look through all of your screenshots and delete the ones you don’t need anymore.
54. Back up your files from your computer, flash drives, SD card(s), onto an external hard drive so everything is nice and safe in the same place. Organize them if you so choose.
55. Go through all of your important papers and organize them, throwing out things you don’t need any more and grouping like things together.
56. Clean the dust off your ceiling fan, air conditioner, or standing fan. I need to do this.
57. Go through all of your old electronics and see what you can sell, donate, or recycle. Do you need all those cords?
58. Try to gather all your change from around your house and put it in a ziplock bag so you can cash it in at a Coinstar.
59. Go through your closet and see what you can sell on Poshmark or donate. Mix and match what’s left and have a fashion show with blaring music and all the lights on. Holy crap, you can sell more than clothes on Poshmark, check it out!
60. Rearrange your furniture if nothing’s too heavy.
Whew! I hope that’ll give you a few things to try, but I hope we won’t need all of them in the coming weeks. Stay safe and healthy, friends. Sending love your way!