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10 activities that you can do at home when you are bored

Affordable activities and ideas that you can learn/ do at home to prevent boredom

By The Bumble LifePublished 4 years ago 13 min read
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10 activities that you can do at home when you are bored
Photo by meredith hunter on Unsplash

Boredom is not bad; it’s an opportunity to fill that time with something great. It’s an opportunity to learn something new, it’s an opportunity to change direction in life and fill your life with interesting activities and adventures. In a way boredom can be your friend because it encourages you to try and do something new. If you find yourself stuck at home feeling bored with a low budget and a lack of ideas of what to do then this list of 10 activity idea which you can attempt on a low budget may help you. All of these ideas can be used together to level up your life so that you can always find something to beat the boredom and look forward to; even on a low budget.

As I write this we are under Covid-19 lockdown. Right now is one of the weirdest moments of my lifetime so far. People are bored... beyond bored. They’ve read every book in their house, binged watched every single Netflix series that they feel is vaguely watchable, done the whole retail therapy thing, plastered their every thought and feeling all over Facebook and got into some App called Zoom which I’ve not had time to fully understand or get into. Through this whole thing I’ve been working and meeting or listening to a lot of very bored people.

My time off is valueable to me and even through there’s no way I can do all of what I would like to do on my time off; I’ve had plenty of time to think about what I would do if I had the luxury of being able to just be at home trying to pass the time. I know there’s worry right now (as I publish this article) and I’m worried too but what I want to talk about is the lessons that we can learn from this scenario where we have to stay at home and just be with ourselves with the constraint of having less money to spend. There is so much that we can learn from what we can/ have achieved in lockdown which will be really useful to take with us into the future.

Things that you can do on your own to prevent boredom

1. Fitness

By Jonathan Borba on Unsplash

There are so many free fitness skills that you can learn from home. You can find loads of fitness content creators that teach activities online like yoga and fitness workouts/ challenges (squats challenge, push ups, planks...). On sites like YouTube you will find instructors to teach you all kinds of dance from belly dancing to rave dancing or whatever dance type that you want to learn. You could get silly with it; dance around and make fun of yourself (who’s going to judge you when you are alone at home?). You could learn something to take to your next music festival or night out when you go back out into the world of people. Personally I’m a fan of learning circus skills and the flow arts but I’ve talked about this before and so I’ll just link it below.

2. Make something wearable

By Merylove Crafts on Unsplash

We are humans! Our thumbs and our hands are what separates us from other animals and it’s our ability to create which has shaped us to be what we are now. There’s an enormous satisfaction to be had through being able to make something. Right now I’m obsessed with the idea of being able to crochet my own clothes. There are so many crochet clothes that I would love to buy for myself but to source them ethically (made by someone paid fairly for their work with sustainable materials) it’ll cost me at least £50 (probably more like £100 + per piece); I can’t afford that! Crocheting takes very few tools and materials; your basic beginner materials are a set of crochet hooks (which are cheap to buy) and some wool (which you can source locally and ethically). With a lot of time and patience and some more YouTube videos you can be on your way to turning that boredom into creating your own ethical clothing which could also serve to save you some money as well as give you your own unique style. Of course crochet isn’t the only clothing skill that you could learn; to name a few there’s knitting, leather work, sewing, felting... If you are interested in how to source your clothing more ethically then check out the article below for more ethical fashion tips.

3. Create a side hustle

By Thought Catalog on Unsplash

You’re bored, you don’t have much money and you want something to do? Why not create your own side business? I won’t claim to say that this will make you rich (especially overnight) but it can be fun to try your hand at creating a business in your spare time. “How much will it cost you?” “How long is a piece of string?” Seriously through this all depends on what you do and isn’t really a guaranteed get rich sort of thing. Your on business could change your life or it could help you pass boredom but it’s not guaranteed to work. Things you could try to do include...

  • Sell items on eBay
  • Create items and sell them on Etsy
  • Create an online blog
  • Blog for revenue share sites like Vocal Media (may as well quote this one as I’m using it for this post)
  • Create content for YouTube
  • Sell digital products
  • Freelance for people
  • Create content
  • Provide a service within your community
  • Create an eBook

There are many more ideas out there but I’m not going to go and name them all. If your bored and low on cash then why not start something that has the potential to solve both issues? If you are low on funds then maybe a project which requires a lower investment requirement is better such as writing.

4. Educate yourself

By Ben White on Unsplash

Learning is easy with modern technology. There are more courses out there than you could ever even think to attempt. Certain job sites like Reed jobs run training courses for those who want to gain a certificate within a skill and attempt to improve their employability. I’m currently working towards a certificate in excel (I’m experienced in statistical programmes but have used more complex programmes than excel which is quoted for most of the jobs I want to actually apply to). You could learn something silly, you could learn for the sake of learning. Other resources I have found are useful for learning with is Future learn, certain YouTube teachers, reading scientific papers or reading/ listening to content from certain content creators. Some courses cost, some have cheap discounted deals avaliable and others are entirely free. You could even do something like begin learning the theory for a driving test if that’s something you would like to do later on. Perhaps in the future you would like to take a University course or start an apprenticeship and there’s no reason why you can’t use your boredom to get prepared for that.

5. Get out in Nature

By Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

Nature is free and filled with interesting animals and plants. You can go for a walk, volunteer by taking part in a nature survey, get a plant ID or tracking guide and learn to identify the plants and animals in the woodlands or footpaths. Getting out in nature can have many benefits to you, provide some peace and help you to learn more about your world. Getting outside will also help you to see more natural sunlight.

6. Learn to cook healthy food

Our consumerist culture sometimes doesn’t allow for much food prep. You could easily find yourself going to work, grabbing a sandwich and finding that you actually spend more money by not cooking your own food. If you find that you are bored often then you could easily use that time to cook a big healthy meal in bulk so that you have plenty of food left over to eat when you don’t have time to make healthy meals. You could learn to cook an entirely new dish, hone your cooking skills, cook for other people or try vegan/ vegetarian recipes. The more time you dedicate to learning/ improving cooking skills the better that you will be.

7. Be creative and make art

By Anna Kolosyuk on Unsplash

Letting out your creative side can be a great way to relax and there are so many artistic mediums to choose here are some of them...

  • Photography
  • Painting
  • Sketching
  • Doodling
  • Collage
  • Craft
  • Woodwork
  • Metal craft
  • Candle making
  • Digital art
  • 3D modelling (open source programmes like Blender exist)
  • Playing an instrument
  • Writing music
  • Mixing music/ DJ
  • Painting pebbles
  • Sculpture
  • Jewellery craft
  • Card making
  • Toy making
  • Polymer clay figures
  • Creative writing
  • Poetry

The list goes on and on... there are lots of mediums to choose many of which require few few investments but time to create. You could create for yourself or other people if you get good enough you could even sell/ publish some of your creations.

8. Learn mindfulness and relaxation techniques

By Deniz Altindas on Unsplash

Journaling and mindfulness can be great tools to use in order to work out what you want from life and reconnect with yourself. Maybe you need to use tools like journaling or mindfulness cards to help you understand what you need to do with life or you need to take some time away from social media to get out of that cloud of other people’s opinions before you can connect with yourself and what you need.

9. Plan a trip

By William Christen on Unsplash

If you are bored now and find yourself consistently bored then maybe it’s a good idea to plan a trip, holiday or outing to give yourself something to look forward to. We need experiences in our lives that we can think back on, look forward to and prepare for. Where would you like to go? What would you like to experience? Who might go with you? Trips don’t even have to be abroad there is plenty that you can experience by just visiting another town, city or village. If you can’t travel right now what would like like to do when you can? What skills would you need to learn to experience the trip fully? Would learning a language aid your experience? Would becoming fitter help you on your trip? Would learning to drive help you achieve your trip goals?

10. Work on a budget/ finance plan

By Damir Spanic on Unsplash

There is no illusion that to do most things requires money. If you wanted to go hiking then you probably need a back pack, to make something you need the enitial expense for equipment and probably need to buy materials. If you wanted to take a year out to travel (even if you were to work and travel) then you would need to cover travel costs and emergency saving funds. To go to events requires money for tickets and travel. Setting up a side-hustle can require investments in money or time before any possible success can occur. Even hobbies that you can learn online may require equipment and clothing. Whilst you probably can not live and entertain yourself for free; you can make a budget plan to manage your money so that you spend it wisesly to allow yourself to make the most out of your budget. What cdo you spend money on that doesn’t add to your life in some way that isn’t nessesary for safety/ security reasons etc? Do you eat take out way too often when you could make healthier food for less? Do you buy a lot of items that you never use? Can you find items cheaper somewhere else? Remember money you are spending on things that you do not need/ that doesn’t have value to you or will never use is your time earning that money wasted. Being frugal with your money could even help reduce your environmental impact.

How can these boredom tips help you to “level up” in life?

To me the cool thing about these tips is that you can interlink some or all of them together to improve your experiences in life. While I’m not going to claim that anything is a guarantee in leading a fulfilling life or whatever I do want to show you some examples of how you can use some of all of these tips together to help you achieve an overall goal. Does life always plan out like this? No these are just examples to help you think about what you could possibly do with that boredom time and how using some of these ideas could help open up other opportunities to you in theory.

Example 1. - You want to plan a festival trip/ holiday

Let’s say that what you really need in life is a break but you’re low in funds and are not sure how you can achieve this. So you work on a budget plan, you do your own cooking and save some money via that route. You decide what you really need to do is to have more income on top of this so you create your own side-hustle. That side-hustle is a selling site where you resell items. You make some money and you spend some of that on improving your side-hustle and the rest you put away. You save money by learning to dance as a hobby by watching YouTube videos (instead of doing recreational activities that require lots of money) and so become fitter. You learn to make your own unique clothing and then you finally buy a ticket to your holiday; let’s say that holiday is a festival. So you pack your items and instead of buying a load of clothes for that festival you have made the items that you would normally spend money on. So you go to that festival and have an improved experience because you feel fitter and you know how to dance. Someone asks you “where did your clothes come from?” you say “I made this” and they ask you if you could make something for them so... you go home and you make other people clothing... the money you’ve saved and made you put towards another holiday.

Example 2. - Going camping with friends

By Scott Goodwill on Unsplash

You and your friends decide that it would be a really great idea to go camping with friends. Using your acquired budgeting and saving skills you get new/ used (if you really want to be a good budgeter) camping gear and go out and find a camp ground. You have been out in nature a lot and know a bunch of plant life on a wood land trip and can go “that is... it does this...”. You all decide that you are gonna cook each other a meal but one one of your friends is vegan or has allergies but that’s not a problem because you’ve learnt a great meal that means you can still cook for your friend rather than passing them a bowl of salad or something.

Example 3. - career change

After practicing mindfulness you have identified that your job is a major stress for you and you want a career change and guess what your sat at home right now; what can you do? You decide that you want to take a course for creative writing online and complete that course and write a niche specific blog which you promote. You also take driving lessons and pass a driving test. You budget and save and spend time in nature and learn let’s say photography and so use your artistic photographs in your work. You pass your driving test after using the money you’ve saved for driving lessons and a job opens up which is in the same niche as your blog but it requires you to drive; that’s no problem you can drive now so you apply for that job using the experience you have from your website in your cv.

These are imaginary examples however hopefully you can see how the potential for the combination of these ideas. It’s not often that life works out entirely how you expect it to but doing something is more likely to lead to something than doing nothing. In reality there’s no way anyone can be great at everything and other people will have different skills and be better or worse at different things. I think it’s less important to succeed or be the best at anything and more important to try. I hope these tips serve as a great starting point to help beat your boredom.

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About the Creator

The Bumble Life

Blogger, graduate, small business woman follow me on Twitter or on Pinterest with @TheBumbleLife to connect and read more or find me on my blog http://www.thebumblelife.com

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