How To Stay Busy While Social Distancing

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Our world today battles a pandemic, and everyone is practicing self-isolation and social distancing. Are you stuck at home amid the coronavirus lockdown not knowing what to do with yourself?

Everyone has been urged to stay at home unless if you are among the essential workers who can still leave home and go to work. Are you going super crazy because you’re unable to go out and do the things that you usually do as a normally busy person?

If so, this may be a good time for reflection – a time to catch up on the things you’ve been putting away for a long time. You put them in the back burner because there was no time in your busy schedule to do them.

Here are a few tips to keep boredom at bay while you’re social distancing during the COVID-19 lockdown.

Read books and magazines

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Do you have books on your shelf that you never had time to read or to finish before now? I have stacks of subscription for Elle and Cosmopolitan magazines which arrived monthly in my mail, and I was too busy to even open any of them. Are you like me?

Do you have a novel or two you bought the last time you went through the airport hoping to read it during your flight, and you ended up sleeping throughout the entire flight?

Do you remember those interesting books you downloaded on Amazon Kindle long ago? You never really got around to reading them because you were too busy?

Well, this is the time to settle down and read those dusty, forgotten books on your bookshelf.

With the Amazon Kindle app, you can read your eBooks on your computer, tablet, or your cell phone. If it’s interesting and you bought it yourself, I bet you’ll enjoy reading it now!

I recently read a powerful self-actualization book to boost my morale and keep me going. It’s rightfully titled, “Self-Actualization – How to master the art of renewing your mind”. It has helped me to re-evaluate certain areas of my life and clean up many of them. The book is on Amazon and is a great read at this time.

… happy reading, enjoy!

TV/movies during social distancing

Are you like me and you have several episodes of your favorite TV shows and movies On Demand that you fell asleep each time you tried watching them? Hey, there’s more television to watch today than ever before. Now’s the time for you to catch up on all those programs you weren’t able to watch during the busy buzzy times of your life.

Effective April 6, there’s a new option for streaming content on your phones called Quibi. It’s a service backed by film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, and offers short-form entertainment.

TV Guide also has a list of helpful suggestions on the best TV shows and movies to watch every week on Hulu, Amazon Prime and Netflix. So sit down, relax and have fun watching.

Clean out your closet & drawers

This is the time to do some spring cleaning in your home!

It’s time to rearrange your underwear drawers.

It’s a good time to empty the drawers of your bedside table and throw away all the little junky stuff that are in there. You know you certainly have no use for them, so fish them out.

Put your jewelry in order and throw away what you no longer wear. Throw away those odd earrings that you can no longer find the second one to match it with.

Throw away old creams and makeup that you no longer care for, or use.

Declutter your closet. Remove all the clothes that you haven’t worn in over ten years that have been on hangers, gathering dust. Good Housekeeping has a valuable checklist of how to make your home sparkling clean using 33 easy spring cleaning tips.

At the end of the clean out, you’ll be surprised at all the stuff that you don’t need which have been taking up space in your bedroom, closet and drawers.

The good thing is that you can donate those unwanted items to charity and someone else who needs them can have them. That way, you have done a good deed!

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Clean out and tidy up your pantry

Are you like me, have you been neglecting your pantry? Does your kitchen pantry need some decluttering, tidying and cleaning? This is the time for you to do so. Sparkles of Life has 6 simple tips that will help you to clean out your pantry, so you can do that while you’re at home.

Have daily video chats

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Are you missing your family and friends during this time? If you can not be physically close to your family members and your friends, connect with them online. Use FaceTime or Whatsapp video call. It is important to maintain your relationship by staying connected. If you’re used to partying with your friends, you can use video chatting platforms to throw parties and hang out with them.

Other apps and softwares that you can use to stay in touch include Facebook Messenger, Google Duo, Skype, and House Party.

Choose your favorite one and stay connected today!

Start a journal / Coloring Books

This is a good time for you to start a journal or work on coloring books. There’s so much going on, and you may want to start writing about how you feel, what’s going on around you, and generally write on anything you feel comfortable writing about.

You can also write on the positive things that have happened in your life this year – just keep it positively inclined. This is not the time to reflect on the things that didn’t go right, or it will deflect the purpose of staying positive at this tense time.

This is also the time to reflect on some of the goals that you’d like to achieve in the near future. Put your thoughts and plans down in writing in a journal, in your own words.

Here are some simple plain journals with fun titles and a coloring book that you can use to keep busy during self isolation:

• Diva 4Eva
• T.G.I.F. – This Grandma Is Fabulous
• Anxiety Management Journal
• Mandala Coloring Book For Adults

Yoga and meditation during social distancing

You may be feeling unduly stressed out and overwhelmed by boredom during this period of social distancing. One of the things that you can do is to use meditation to help boost your spiritual health so that you’ll be at peace with yourself.

Your spiritual dimension is your commitment to your value system. When you are in in good spiritual health, you’ll feel at peace with life. 

Try starting your day with yoga, and stretch out your muscles. Yoga has the benefits of decreasing stress, promoting quality of sleep, relieving anxiety, and increasing strength. There is a huge collection of YouTube videos on yoga that you can start with today and make loneliness during social distancing a thing of the past.

Learn a new hobby

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Have you been interested in picking up a certain new hobby but you were always too busy to do so? Have you always wanted to learn how to knit, play an instrument, or how to bake? Well, at this time of social distancing and self-isolation, it should be a good time for you to start. If you’re not sure what hobby to pick, MSN has suggestions for 13 new hobbies you can master during the quarantine period.

Get busy and stay busy!

Listen to podcasts

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Hey, listen to podcasts.

What better way to spend your time during social distancing than to listen to podcasts. The good thing with podcasts is that you can listen to them on your earphones or speaker while you clean out your closet, cook, or during workouts. The Oprah Magazine compiled a list of the best new podcasts worth listening to in 2020. You may find that useful.

Choose an interest area, or your favorite podcast speaker and enjoy!

Watch virtual concerts

The World Health Organization (WHO) and Global Citizen recently held a concert. It was called the ‘One World: Together at home’ concert. It was organised to support healthcare workers who are fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The concert aired on April 18, 2020, on NBC, CBS, ABC, and several international networks. It was also streamed on Amazon Prime Video, Facebook, Instagram, and Apple. You can relax and watch virtual concerts like that.

There are several other virtual concerts that are being organized online, which you can watch and get your spirits high at this time of social distancing.

So, how are you spending your time during the quarantine?