Half the year has gone by without anybody noticing thanks to the global pandemic that’s crippling entire nations. People are desperately trying to normalize their lives amid the coronavirus or at least trying to adopt the new normal to deal with the situation.



As for yourself, you might have burned through all the fun stuff you could do while in quarantine and now, you’re wondering, what else could you do with this excess of time?

Fortunately, we’ve listed down 8 productive and worthwhile activities you can start doing today while maintaining social distancing at home.

Catch up with your family and friends.

This might sound like a no-brainer to you but maintaining good relationships with your loved ones and closest friends will make you feel less lonely during these uncertain times. And I’m not just talking about the people you live with right now. Technology has made it easy for us to connect with any of our friends no matter where they are in the world so why not give them a call?

Declutter and disinfect your home.

Now that you’re spending a lot of time indoors, it’s time to give your home your undivided attention for at least a week in order to declutter every room in your house. You don’t have to clean everything up in an entire day. You can tackle each section one day at a time to give yourself some time to distinguish which among your possessions are to keep, to give away, or to discard. 

Practice whatever decluttering method you want to, whether you’d do it the Marie Kondo way or if you want to now become a minimalist. There is no one correct approach to this just as long as you clear unnecessary items from your home and find effective storage solutions as well.

Disinfect parts of your living space while you’re at it for that extra boost of protection.

Learn a new life skill.

Teach yourself how to cook, pick up that guitar you’ve kept since first grade, or try learning a new language. Take your pick. Learning a new life skill will be beneficial later on and it’s definitely never going to be a waste of your time. If you know how to cook more than just fried eggs, then your future self will thank you for it.

Once you’ve mastered another language, maybe something related to your field, then you can try applying for work outside the bounds of your country, if that’s something you want to do. 

The internet is full of learning resources that are just a few mouse clicks away. Most of them are free to use so we should take advantage of this as much as we can.

Expand your knowledge.

Speaking of learning, why not enroll in actual courses that could help you move forward with your career? Aside from life skills, there are seriously thousands of online learning courses that can give you an edge at work, and some are from reputable institutions, too.

But that’s not all. Universities have also been conducting online classes not just for bachelor’s degrees, but for the pursuit of higher education, as well. Many Master’s programs are now available online, whether that be a Masters’s degree in health administration or even an MBA.

If you’re not set on any Masters programs as of the moment, you can still enroll in review courses that will prepare you for the GMAT or GRE whenever you feel like pushing through with your MS or MBA dreams.

Start a side hustle. 

If you don’t want to study while in quarantine, then perhaps you can bank on your current skill set to start a side hustle. You can literally try anything from web designing to consultancy. You can even be a vlogger if you want to! Entrepreneurial minds take this opportunity to try their ideas to earn extra income while staying at home and you can do this too.

Practice sleeping better.

Another worthwhile activity that you can practice while in quarantine is how to improve your sleep. Your circadian rhythm might have been affected by the news of the pandemic or maybe you’re really just a night owl who wants to work at night. Whatever may be the case, you still have to prioritize your sleep hygiene for your overall health and productivity.

Update your resume.

Many employees fail to update their resume simply because they have no time to do it. For some, the inability to update their work document hinders them from actually looking for a better job. So do yourself a favor and update your resume. Career development doesn’t necessarily need to happen in just one company over a lifetime.

Reassess your life goals.

The pandemic has halted plans of humans all around the world. Some laws remain unenacted, trips have been canceled, schools are temporarily closed in other countries.

However, this doesn’t mean you can’t prepare for the future. You owe it to yourself to map out your short-term and long-term goals with or without the pandemic in mind. Sit down and think about where you want to be in 3 to 10 years from now and plan backward to see what exactly you need to do to accomplish that.

The pandemic has given us one non-renewable resource that most humans lacked because of workaholism and other priorities. Now that we have all the time in the world, we should use it wisely and use it well.