10 Things to Do While Bored at Home

Between the moments where you are not stressing about schoolwork and meeting imminent deadlines, there is an open window of possibilities waiting to be explored with this newly acquired extra time at home. The feeling of laziness can creep on you and bring you down; but with these ten things to keep you occupied, you can keep that creep away.

1. Cook or Bake

Cooking and baking is actually quite fun to do and results in a (hopefully) yummy meal to lift your spirits. If you’re new to cooking, it’s a chance to learn something new and incredibly useful in your life. Additonally, if you don’t want to spend too much money and time, there are loads of recipes popping up that only require a few minutes and ingredients. If you would like to experiment with these simple recipes here are some videos on YouTube on how to make a chocolate cake with three ingredients and Tamago kake gohan, a popular Japanese breakfast. If you’re an expert already, challenge yourself! Try making something you’ve never done before or test out a recipe from a famous chef such as Gordon Ramsay.

2. Start a Bullet Journal

Bullet journaling is a trend that became really popular in 2016 where you create your own personalized schedule to help you sort out your life down to each day. Bullet journaling is a chance for you to get creative as no one person’s bullet journal is the exact same as another’s. You can decorate or design it to your taste and what you like. Personally, bullet journaling has helped me organize my school work and chores in a way that is fun to do and pleasant to look at.

However if you’re like me and don’t want to make and design spreads too often for every week I recommend starting a life journal! A life journal is just a notebook filled with spreads of your favorite things or important events going on in your life. Unlike a bullet journal you are not confined to your life journal in that you have to use it every day. A life journal allows you to get creative every once and a while to create a page or two for something you love.

3. Exercise

With most people staying indoors due to the ongoing pandemic at home workouts are becoming increasingly popular. It’s the perfect time for you to work out and achieve your body goals no matter whether you want to be shredded by summer or fit and healthy. Exercising can also help you relieve some of that stress from school or work while engaging your body in a healthy way. If you’re unsure of what workout program to follow a trending fitness YouTube channel owned by Chloe Ting is a well received and free program for you try out. Chloe Ting’s most popular YouTube video “Get Abs in 2 WEEKS” has amassed seventy-eight million views in eight months and is worthing giving a shot as it doesn’t require too much time spent working out each day.

4. Redecorate Your Room

Spending most of your time in the same place can get pretty stale, by changing up your room decor you can have some fun and end up with a cool-looking room. There are plenty of room design ideas able to be found on the web through sites such as Pinterest and TikTok. If your walls are bare I recommend getting or printing out posters of your favorite movie or TV show and putting them up. Another great idea is printing out an empty world map and color in the countries you have already visited. Try filling up your room with the things you love and I guarantee it’ll look much better.

5. Follow a Bob Ross Painting Tutorial

Even if you don’t know how to paint simply watching a Bob Ross tutorial can be a great activity. From his insightful commentary to his pleasant demeanor Bob Ross is certainly the guy to be around if you need to calm down and reduce stress. If you mess up while painting, it’s alright! As Bob Ross says, “We don’t make mistakes. Just happy little accidents.” I personally recommend watching episode 11 from season 30 as Bob Ross begins the episode playing with some baby squirrels.

6. Learn a TikTok Dance

TikTok dances are usually simple enough that even if you don’t have any dance experience they are still feasible and fun to do. I personally believe that creating TikToks with my friends is a great way to pass the time and an even better way to keep up with new music and trends.

If you’re not the creative type you can be more of a passive TikTok user like me. The app is a great way to find not only fun content but also interesting and inspiring videos too. TikTok has something for everything and because of its algorithm the content you see is based off of what you like.

7. Netflix Party

Netflix Party is a recently trending free Chrome extension that allows you to watch Netflix at the same time as your friends and chat with them. A friend of mine moved away last year and as a method to keep in touch during quarantine we decided to have Netflix parties together. Personally, it was a fantastic experience and we had a lot of fun watching “Too Hot To Handle” while simultaneously using Netflix Party’s chat function to discuss events happening within the show as well as characters we loved or hated. You can download the chrome extension for Netflix Party here, but note that both you and your friends must have Netflix in order for it to work.

8. Houseparty

A similar but different kind of online party is the free app Houseparty. Houseparty isn’t just any video calling app, it allows up to eight people at a time to not only chat but also play games. In 2019 Houseparty teamed up with Ellen Degeneres’ app “Heads Up!” and allows users to play charades with one another while calling. You can also play trivia as well as a game similar to “Apples to Apples” called Chips and Guac. Houseparty is a great way to stay connected to your friends or even family members while getting rid of your boredom by playing some fun games together. You can download Houseparty as a chrome extension or app here.

9. DIYs

Do it Yourself (DIY) projects have become increasingly popular on the internet since the late 1990s. DIYs can be a fun way to use basic materials you have at home to create something new and potentially beautiful and useful. You can make DIY stationary, DIY furniture, DIY snacks, the possibilities are endless.

Even if you don’t like making DIYs yourself, watching them can be a fun, passive activity to do. Personally, I like watching Troom Troom DIY videos which can be quite strange but entertaining to watch.

10. Online Shopping

Online shopping is becoming increasingly popular due to the coronavirus as many people must stay home in quarantine. It’s the perfect time to peruse online shopping sites and find something you really like. Due to a lot of people being on social media more frequently new online shopping brands have been on the rise and some have even exploded in popularity on apps such as TikTok. Most of these online boutiques have been praised for their cheap prices, good quality, and international shipping. Some of these popular boutiques include Shein, Princess Polly, Tiger Mist, and many more.