I was not planning to write this post on sharing activities that I do at the time of social distancing but we were discussing the same in one of the WhatsApp groups. When everyone was complaining and saying how they are bored and want to go out. I was sharing what I have accomplished in the quarantine period and everyone was curious to know, how?
Well, this is a crucial time, I agree. It’s painful, hell yes! Am I aware of what is happening, what to do, what not to do? Absolutely yes. But my 24×7 focus is not on the disasters!
Watching the same news, again and again, tracking numbers of how many people are Covid-19 positive and how many died of Corona and keep forwarding those depressing messages cannot change the actual situations. Getting me?
While following all the rules, staying alert, taking extra care and keeping our surroundings safe, let’s use this social distancing time as an opportunity! Let’s shift our focus from disasters to creation.
So here I am sharing 13 Worthwhile Things to Do While Social Distancing. I hope this helps you all.
Review Unwanted Subscriptions and Cancel Them to Organize Your Inbox
Many times we see unwanted emails in inbox from a lot of people, blogs and service providers whose services we have never used or we are not likely to use in the future.
You wonder, why you are getting so many emails every day? Well, most of the time, when you do sign up for an account, the checkbox for the newsletter is by default checked and that’s how you start receiving a hell lot of emails that you never wanted. This is the time to review those unwanted subscriptions and cancel them.
Go through your inbox and check those emails one by one and start unsubscribing them.
Many times, you can miss an important email among so many spammy emails. So doing this activity will leave your inbox organized with important emails.
Develop Your Own Herb Garden
As we all know, the pollution level has increased everywhere. What we are eating is also not pure and has very few nutritional values because of harmful fertilizers and pesticides used to grow vegetables and fruits. Of Course, we can’t stop eating but we can turn towards eating organically grown vegetables and fruits.
The best thing that you can do in this Social Distancing quarantine period is, to start developing your own herb garden.
Now, Wait! Do you think it’s not possible because you don’t have your own garden/backyard space? Well, you can still develop your small herb garden.
Many herbs and vegetables can grow in pots only!
I live in an apartment on the 4th Floor with No Balcony! Still I have managed to start growing Carom Seeds (Ajwain), Ginger, Tulsi, Neem, Aloe Vera, etc. I am using them daily for cooking meals and making homemade Ayurveda Green Tea and Kadha (a drink full of herbs).
In this time when we are fighting against Covid-19 Pandemic, these herbs are helping the entire family to maintain immunity and stay strong.
Start with two easy ones, Tulsi & Carom Seeds (Ajwain). They grow easily with minimal efforts.
Pamper Yourself
Now, you would say, that we do on normal days too! Well, that’s not true for me. For example, I prefer to oil my hair only when my scalp is clean. Now what happens in routine days, I wash my hair and immediately I go out for some work. Now when I want to apply oil to my hair, I find my scalp is not clean, and eventually I don’t apply hair oil.
Now this is the time, I don’t go out. Thus I am washing my hair in the morning. And by the afternoon when they are dry, I apply hair oil to my clean scalp. And this is helping my hair to get extra nourishment.
I am applying hair oil every 2 days now!
I am also utilizing this time to use sheet masks, clay masks, body scrubs, body oils, foot scrub, etc for which I hardly get time on those busy days. And I am totally loving these self-pampering sessions.
Digitize Your Child’s Memories
Long time back, I made a Private Account of my son on Instagram to save his memories online. We all family members have access to that account and we have uploaded his pictures from our phones. But lately, it’s been 6-7 months I have missed uploading those Pictures and Videos.
I have utilized this time to upload more pictures and videos of him on his Instagram account that I am planning to give him on his 16th Birthday as a gift.
p.s. I add a date and picture description for each picture I upload. We may see them together 10 Years later and laugh together recalling those memories.
Take Online Courses
I strongly believe in investing in self-development and skill development courses from time to time. There is no age to stop learning new things.
There are many educational and professional websites offering courses. Usually those courses are priced $49 to $500. These days, a few websites are offering such courses for Free!
Me being a Digital Marketer, my core interest lies in learning new digital marketing methods, tools, strategies and techniques. I have decided to learn something new & polish up my knowledge in this time of Social Distancing.
And I have found, Currently, MOZ Academy is offering some valuable courses for Free for this quarantine period. Similarly, there are a few Courses available for Bloggers by Ahrefs Academy for Free. (If you are a Digital Marketer, Thank Me Later 😉
I have completed 6 Courses so far, saved 450+ dollars which I would have spent if they were paid and am feeling great with the new strategies I have learned.
Similarly you can find Free Courses online that works for your interest and hobbies. I swear there are many out there, start checking.
DIY and Repair Projects
You will always have a few things at home which need to be fixed. And I am a huge believer of repair, recycle and upcycle.
Thus, I have identified a few torn clothes which I love wearing but currently they need some alteration and a few stitches to make them wearable again.
We have also identified a few soft toys of my little one which needs a few stitches to make them more durable.
We use Mud Pot at home for storing drinking water. It’s been a month we were seeing some water leakage and none of us had time to repair it. We have utilized this time to repair our Mud Pot and now we are enjoying chilled drinking water stored in our natural mud pot. My husband and I don’t drink cold water from the Fridge any more.
Moreover, Mom and I collected everything and started repairing. We are doing this activity ongoing to fix more & more items on our own. Proud Girls!!
Make an Exercise Routine & Try To Be Creative Here
Now, it’s been years I have tried to do regular exercise and never succeeded. But this time I am winning, Yeay, Happy Dance!
While writing this post it is my 9th day of regular exercising and there are concrete reasons for how I am making it routine and enjoying it now.
I have identified that exercise routines should not start in a lazy or boring way. For example, Starting my workout routine with Pranayam doesn’t inspire me. Instead, we all decided to start working out with aerobics. Some dance moves to boost up energy & mood first!
We do 20 Minutes of Aerobics together (Yes 7 of Us do aerobics together at home!) followed by some exercises for 15 mins, Some Yoga for 10-15 Minutes, Stretching for 10 mins and 5-10 minutes of Pranayam. Now each of us keeps changing this order, exercises and we do what works for us better.
Currently, We are Using These Videos for Aerobics, Try Them 🙂
For extra fun, you can share one of these links with your friends and you all can do Aerobics together using Zoom or Skype! Trust me, you will have fun. Challenge each other!
If you like to use mobile applications for home workout here are 7 BEST WORKOUT APPS FOR 2020
Guided Meditations & Talks
Throughout life we have complained about the time! We don’t have time to sit for meditations. Universe heard you!! Now you have so much time.
Stop Complaining, Start Acting…!!
There are many great Yogis and Gurus and Life Coaches offering fantastic Guided Meditations these days. You just need to sit in a quiet place and listen to the instructions.
I have done a few in the last 15 days and trust me it works magically.
I have enjoyed meditations by Sadhguru, Sri Sri Ravishankar (Happens Everyday On Instagram) and by Some extraordinary People at E u n o i a Group On Facebook (Happens every day at 7 pm)
I have also attended a Brilliant Talk by a Forum Leader Gurmeet Pal from Landmark Education, and it was so powerful.
There are many such talks and guided meditations happening. If you can’t find any, a few links I have shared above. Try them.
Play Mindful Games
Now, utilizing your mind and staying focused is very important. You can play some mindful games together with your kids, family or friends.
Guess what? after almost a decade I have started playing sudoku!
I am playing other mindful games like Jenga, Wordsearch, and Memory Game with my kid.
To keep him engaged and improve concentration, we taught him various Beadwork techniques. And he is enjoying the same.
Additionally, we are playing Board Games too like PICNIC, MONOPOLY, Chess, etc.
This is the time to recall your childhood and live that time again! Take it as an opportunity.
Reiki, Chants, and Affirmations
I am a reiki practitioner and since the day I learned Reiki, it has changed the way I live. Thanks to my masters.
I wasn’t someone who had blind faith in Reiki, Chants or Affirmations from day one but from time to time, I have tested the effectiveness of these tools.
These are spiritual tools and they are free from any religion and that’s the best part of these tools. Anyone can use these tools and honestly speaking, they have helped me in my lowest lows!
If you want to know more about Reiki, You can DM Me. I will share some resources with you. You can email me at [email protected]
Now coming to the Chants! Listing and Chanting Chants has a science behind it. But it works! Am I talking about any specific Mantra here? No! Whatever inspires you.
Regarding Affirmations, There are many Affirmations. But my favorite ones are by Paramahansa Yogananda and Louise Hay.
This one is an absolute favorite of mine, which I listen almost every day while doing house chores.
101 Powerful Affirmations To Manifest Your Dreams by Louise Hay
Organize Your Important Documents & Files
Now, this is very important and I wanted to do this for a long time. You need your important documents like identity proofs, address proofs, vehicle insurance, medical insurance and various other ids frequently whether you are traveling, at the time of hotel check-in, banking process, any health emergency or even at the time of KYC for certain apps. Needless to say, many times we need these documents at the time of collecting payments too.
Now every time, I need to send any soft copy of my document, I have to check my phone, my inboxes (Now I have 3 email ids, so three inboxes), My laptop and My PC. And it is so annoying that you can’t find all documents at one place.
In this quarantine period, I have solved this problem with the following steps.
- I have gathered all my documents and my passport size picture
- I have also kept our Mediclaim Policy with me.
- I have scanned all these documents with CamScanner App
- I have made a folder on Drive and Uploaded all my Documents there. (Don’t worry, that folder protected)
Voila! Now I have all my documents just a single click away! No more time-wasting on searching at 10 Different Places.
Also, if you have a soft copy handy, you can mail that to the hotel/hostel/resort staff for a smooth check-in process, rather than giving them a hard copy. Nowadays all hotels and resorts accept a soft copy. That way you save paper and the environment.
Declutter Mobile Phone, Make More Space
People like me who use mobile extensively for work would understand the importance of having sufficient space in mobile. My mobile storage runs out of space so fast, here is why!
- I use my mobile for social media marketing projects for my clients. I communicate with Graphic designers to get me specific graphics and we test them using WhatsApp. So eventually for one creative, I receive and send 10-15 images. This occupies space.
- I do product photography for Jewelkosh, clicking new jewelry designs and to get one good shot, I click dozens of clicks of the same product.
- I experiment with new media formats like making and editing videos of different types, part of my learning
- I click pictures for this blog and edit them.
All these occupy a humongous amount of space! And I would say 80% of images and videos are just for trying something and not worth keeping.
I have discarded everything that was not useful and occupied so much space on my phone. So that I don’t need to worry about ‘storage space’ any time soon in the future!
Write Letters / Emails to Your Child
My kid is six years old and I have already created his email id last year. I write emails to him and send him to his email id. When he turns 15/16 I will give this to him. By doing this, I keep his memories alive forever! Those small incidents which made us laugh or cry, I have written in emails to him.
In this time of Social Distancing I have written him 4 emails. One email explaining, what happened at this time, what we are doing as a family together, how he is passing his time etc. I have also recorded his voice and wrote some letters to him with an audio file as an attachment.
I am sure, he will love to receive his inbox as a gift full of letters, videos and audios of his childhood memories. I have utilized this quarantine period for collecting memories and writing to him 🙂
That’s all guys. Apart from this, I am calling my friends and family from time to time. Talking to my old friends from school and college too. Reading books, watching movies and series and participating in some mindful activities. But we all do that ya? So I haven’t written much about these activities that we all are already doing.
What else are you doing? Do Share in Comment.
And if you like this post, share with someone whom this can help. That would be a true reward for me.
-Love n Light…