5 Things to do While Quarantined — Myriad Misadventures

So I hear everyone back home in the USA is getting quarantined and social distancing and things like that. Well here in Shenzhen social distancing started when the city started to lock down a little in response to the COVID-19 crisis in February and the city still hasn’t completely returned to normal. So I’ve gotten pretty good at keeping myself busy at home. And I’ve seen people back in the states complaining that they’re bored. So here are my top 5 things to do to stay busy while quarantined.

Please keep in mind this isn’t aimed at everyone. Some people are very good at keeping busy. All the parents who suddenly have their kids home all day probably have less time that usual. And of course there are the essential employees who still have to go to work. But for the people who don’t fall into one of those groups and are bored here you go.

1) Stay healthy

I feel like every year half of us say we’re going to be healthier, put in a lot of work for a couple of weeks, and then stop. For a lot of people this is because they don’t have time. We’ll now you have time. If you’re at home with nothing to do set aside some time every day to exercise. If you live in a rural area you could go outside and run or hike. If you’re rural enough you can probably get out and still stay away from other people. If you live in a city though don’t. Stay inside. It will probably be too hard to keep a safe distance from other people. But even in your house there are things you can do. If you have weights at home you’re all set. Use them. If not you can make your own but putting some books in a bag or do calisthenics. Body weight exercises like pushups, squats, and planks are great exercise. And if you’re like me and the problem isn’t that you lack time but that you’re really lazy start with bite sized workouts. Just do 5-10 minutes of calisthenics. You’re much more likely to do a workout of that length than 45 or 60 minutes and if you can keep doing them consistently you might be able to work your way up to more substantial workouts. I try to do some weight or calisthenic resistance training and/or run most days. Some days I do more than other days but I try to do something most days.

The next part of staying healthy is eating well. It’s too easy to eat something quick and dirty normally but with the extra quarantine time you can spend a little time cooking. Get some fresh food (the fewer ingredients the better) and cook something. Unless you enjoy cooking (I don’t) I find that the best thing to do is cook a lot of food at a time. I try to cook a week’s worth of anything I’m making. That way I don’t have to cook for 6 or 7 more days. As long as you don’t mind eating the same thing for a couple days it’s a huge time saver.

The third part of staying healthy is a huge pet peeve of mine and that’s sleep. A lot of people brag about how little sleep they get because they view it as a measure of productivity. Less sleep means they’re getting more done. This may be true but sleep is very important for health. If nothing else you probably don’t have a commute anymore. If you can use that extra time to get to bed 30 minutes earlier and wake up 30 minutes later you’ve gained an hour of sleep and that could make a huge difference.

2) Spend some time on your hobbies

We all have things that we love to do but we often don’t have time to do them. Between working and all of the other things that being an adult entails, like grocery shopping and doing laundry you always seem to run out of week. I get it. But right now you’ve got more time. So dedicate some of that time to those hobbies you think about so much about. You may never get another chance to spend this much time on them. I’m trying to learn some new martial arts forms on the internet and review my old forms so they don’t get too rusty. I’m also trying to spend more time on the blog. It often gets pushed back to the last minute so now I’m trying to plan and get things done in a more timely fashion.

3) Learn something

In addition to the hobbies we all have I feel like most of us have things we’d like to learn. But all too often work and real life get in the way. It’s hard to spend time on learning a new thing when there’s little material benefit to it. Especially if we could be learning something that would help us at our job or hobby instead. Well not anymore. Use some of your extra time to go learn that instrument or pick up painting. I’m trying to spend some time learning languages. Spanish and Chinese were some of my favorite classes back in college and my Spanish actually wasn’t too bad back when I lived in Spain. But now it’s not so great. So I’m trying to put aside some time every day, even if it’s only a little, to read a little in Spanish and to learn some more Chinese.

4) Let yourself be lazy

Sometimes you just need to do nothing. You’ve just gotta sit on the couch and watch the TV show your friends keep talking about. Or play that game that’s been sitting on the shelf. Or read that book you keep meaning to start. Well now’s the time. Just because you’ve got more free time than normal doesn’t mean you have to be productive with all of it. While I’m not saying you should spend all day binge watching an entire carving out a bit of time every day to just relax is definitely worth doing.

5) Have a routine

This one is a little different since it’s nor a specific thing like the other. I feel like I most often feel bored when I’m not doing anything. When I’m mindlessly scrolling through Facebook or falling down the Wikipedia rabbit hole. And I’m more likely to do those things when there isn’t some other thing I’m supposed to be doing. If I’ve got a daily routine I follow and I start scrolling too much I’ll usually realize I’ve got something to do and stop. It also helps me do the things I need to do. Right now I usually do my social media stuff in the morning and exercise after lunch. Without the structure of the routine they keep getting pushed back and back later in the day and often don’t get done at all. By regularly doing them at the same time I can usually guarantee that they get done.

Hopefully this has helped all the people who’ve found themselves bored at home find some stuff to do. And if you know any essential employees who still need to go to work make sure to thank them for all they’re doing.

Thanks for reading and I'll see you on my next trip. Don't forget to click the links below and follow to stay up to date on what I'm doing and where I am and to see all the pictures and videos from my trips.