If you’re starting to feel a little bit stir-crazy at home right now, especially if your kids are out of school due to the pandemic, you aren’t alone. I can totally relate as someone who has been working from home for more than 2 decades.
If you shelter in place for any reason, you need a plan to use this time productively.
Whenever you have a lot of time on your hands, it’s easy to get fidgety, irritable, and with the added worry of the coronavirus pandemic, nothing good will come from this unless you have a plan for productively using your time.
While you’re spending more time at home, you have a couple of choices. You can let that time slip through your fingers by waking up later and later each morning and spending hours in front of the TV, a computer screen, or your phone. Yes, the time will pass, but in the end you’ll only be more lethargic and more stressed.
Your second option is to find ways to actually become a better version of yourself! Use this time, this time in history, to build your bank of skills and knowledge — things no disaster, no virus can take away.
You need a shelter in place plan!
Think about it.
What might you learn or accomplish by the time this pandemic passes?
Do you have multiple home-improvement projects you’ve never had time for?
Is there a foreign language you always wanted to learn but never did?
Do you love to watch DIY shows on TV but never seem to have the time to actually try those things yourself?
Do you have a piece of furniture you could repaint? Or maybe you always wanted to try watercolor painting but could never find the time.
Bluprint is currently offering their entire line-up of 1300+ craft classes with an annual membership of just $39.99. Learn cake decorating, jewelry-making, woodworking, quilting — so much there to keep you busy and productive!
What homesteading skills could you pick up? What online courses could you take? What about…
- Organizing and decluttering. Get ready for a late-spring yard sale.
- Going through old photos. Label and date them as best you can for the next generation.
- Get outside and get your garden ready to plant.
- Increase your physical activity by walking/biking/jogging OR working out to videos on YouTube.
- Sew, knit, crochet, quilt — and teach those skills to the younger generation.
- Send handwritten letters to people expressing your gratitude for how they’ve influenced your life.
- Learn more about first aid, herbalism, and baking from scratch.
To make this season even better, many of you also have a free labor force at home — your kids! They’re probably wondering what to do now that school is on hiatus temporarily (you hope!). Teach them how to correctly clean the bathroom, how to cook a meal and follow simple recipes, and get the pots and garden ready for planting season.
This list of 32 skills for kids might keep them busy for at least the next 12 months, well beyond our current pandemic crisis! Not only will this ease their worries and stress about the coronavirus, they’ll also be learning lifelong skills and helping ease your work burden as well.
So much to do and, ultimately, so little time, but without a shelter-in-place plan, this time will slip through your fingers.
This season of the unwelcome viral pandemic is a temporary one. On the other side, as the outbreaks slow down and it’s time for life to return to normal, you could be a new and improved version of yourself with a brand new collection of skills, knowledge, and accomplishments! Kudos to you for moving forward with this goal in mind and creating a shelter-in-place plan!