The current Covid-19 pandemic has made life difficult for everybody. With the lockdown imposed upon us to contain the spread of infection, people have been confined to their homes for the past 3-4 months.
“Work from home” keeps a person busy through the day. However, that is only during office hours. After that, the four walls seem like a prison when you know that you cannot step out freely. Slowly the boredom starts creeping on you and that leads to frustration.
A little creativity and enthusiasm can help you tide over the boredom and put the time to some constructive, good use.
Why do we get bored? Well, the simple reason is that we do not have any aim or task to look forward to. Nevertheless, if your hands are full with work or creative endeavors, you will never feel bored.
Here are some suggestions that will keep you busy and happy and will make you wonder where the time has gone.
- De-clutter and tidy up: When you are busy in the daily routine, especially the free time when you have outside office hours, you seldom get time to keep your things in place or keep the room tidy. Weekends are for general cleaning and relaxing after a tiring week. Thus, this is the best opportunity to take care of this task. Take time to go through your stuff, sort out what is important and useful and what is not. It makes sense to get rid of all unwanted items and then tidy up the room. You will feel a lot better by seeing a cleaner (and probably bigger) living space
- Re-decorate and beautify the place: Now that you have tidied up the house and disposed off all unwanted stuff, you will find the place more open and bare. Use your imagination and unleash your creativity to re-do the place by simple reshuffling of furniture or art pieces. If your creative self permits, then try to do a small canvas painting or handicraft to brighten up the space. It is a very apt saying, “Variety is the spice of life”; so, by adding some variety to the décor, you will create a fresh and inviting place.
- Old is gold: Nowadays, everyone is so hooked up on computers and mobiles, that the old board games like chess, ludo, snakes and ladders, monopoly and others are long forgotten. There are many card games too, like Pontoon, Blackjack or just playing cards. During every vacation, these cards or board games were the main source of keeping all occupied and happy for long hours together. However, since video and online games have taken over, these old favorites have been confined in a box or cupboard. Now is the moment to bring them out and spend quality family time while enjoying the games.
- Cooking: Trust me; there is no place like kitchen to de-stress. Trying out new recipes and putting your culinary skills to test is the best stress buster activity and creative too. Who knows? You may be the next Master Chef in making. Cooking as well as baking can keep you busy for a long time.
- A trip down the memory lane: Undoubtedly, we like to click pictures of the places that we visit and the ceremonies that we attend like weddings, birthdays, naming ceremony and others. Why do we do that? Well, to capture those precious moments forever so that we can look back at them later. You must have thousands of pictures taken over the years, but never had an opportunity to sort or arrange them categorically. Make the most of the time on hand now and make labeled albums of these pictures after taking prints. If you wish to retain them in digital form, then arrange them folder wise and if possible make a slideshow for a family viewing in future.
- Gardening: Your busy schedule never permits you to spend some quality time with nature. What are you waiting for? Now is the time to show the world that you have green fingers; plant some decorative plants or floral plants to beautify the home. Do not forget to create a small kitchen garden in few pots with daily essentials like chilies, tomatoes, quick growing veggies or some herbs. Caring for the plants will keep you busy in a constructive way.
- Pursue a hobby: When you decide to pursue a hobby, there is no count of time. One gets engrossed in the activity so much, that there is no realisation about how time flies! A Hobby can be anything that you wanted to do all the while, but did not have time –like playing a musical instrument, painting, running, sculpting – just about anything, that makes you happy.
- Catch up on reading: Books are a man’s best friend. There are many genres to choose from – biographies, mystery, comedy, romantic novels and others. There are knowledge-imparting history, general knowledge, space and universe, animal kingdom and much more. A good book can keep you occupied for a long time.
- Jigsaw puzzles: Remember the time when the parents wanted to keep the kids busy, so that they would be less mischievous. They would entrust the children some jigsaw puzzles that took hours to complete. The bigger the puzzle with many pieces, the more complicated it was to solve. It was surely a game of patience and concentration. This comes in handy now too, when you feel bored. Sit with a puzzle of over 100 odd pieces and you will be lost in setting it right.
- Acquire a new skill: There is no limit of age to learning. In the same manner, a person can possess many skills to enhance his personality. Your busy work schedule did not permit you to try your hand at something new. Nonetheless, now that there is lot of time at your disposal (since you are working from home), you can try to find a skill that you wish to master. It may be learning a new language or some computer skill that may be useful in your work or some creative activity that fascinates you.
- Find some old classics to watch: There were many good movies in early times and some were super classics. Try to get them from a CD library or download and watch it. Watching these old classics with the family is a great way to spend some quality family time. Do not forget to sit with a bowl of popcorn to munch on to give that perfect theatre feel.
- Connect with family / friends: One may feel that in this computer age, everyone stays connected with each other through social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and so on. However, these are all virtual meetings. Take some time to call them on phone and talk to them. Catch up on good old days and relive your memories. This helps to establish a better bond that is more real and warm. In the family, there has been no communication since ages with many members. Show them that you care by your simple “hello” over the phone. Same applies to old school or college friends.
These are some ideas that you can choose from to kill your boredom. However, mind you, it is every individual’s prerogative to spend the time as he / she wants.
Our mindset prompts us that we are bored. If we look at every activity we perform through the day, we come to know that in some cases the performance can be better if we give them more time than rushing through. Now that you have the question of how to kill the time, make it point to do the household chores in a systematic and thorough manner so that the task will be perfect and you will spend good amount of time in completing that.
CONCLUSION
The present situation has taken its toll on everyone and it is but natural to get frustrated and bored. However, you should learn to look on brighter side of life and realise that this condition is actually a blessing in disguise, as it allows you to breathe a little freely from your otherwise hectic schedule.
When you are busy in normal routine, you keep complaining for lack of free time or quality time to spend or do something that you like. The irony is that now when you have that “time”, you are complaining of how to pass it!
Humans can never be satisfied with anything, there is always some new complaint popping up. Thus, unless you learn to respect and follow time, you will be forever at a loss. Boredom is how you look at it. If there is a creative streak in you, then rest assured, you will never be bored. Utilisation of time to do something constructive other than your routine work. This is the mantra of leading a fulfilled life.
Even though some ideas mentioned above give a head start to killing the boredom, I am sure you can come up with some novel ideas of your own and spend your time in a happy manner. Time is precious, do not waste it and regret later.