As many now face the strange experience of being kept home due to Coronavirus lockdown, some will struggle to adapt to this new way of life. Here are some thoughts to help you.
Being stuck at home might be new to most of us but is normal for some, such as those recovering from illness, and those who get snowed in. In some parts of the world people plan for extended time in their home. They survive and thrive, so we can too.
I have a list of activity suggestions at the end of this post.
A helpful idea is to set up a new routine. We often work best with routine so the change brought on you will be unsettling. Setting up a new routine will give some stability to your weekly life.
There are routines around domestic chores for food, washing and cleaning, so maybe firm that up and have set days or times for those things. Then add in new things you build into your life. I have a bunch of suggestions for you to pick from. Set up a routine to fit those things in.
What you fit into your life will be based on your life values. Keep in mind what is valuable and fit those things in for yourself and your family. I suggest you value your spiritual life, social interaction, health and nutrition, exercise and fun, mental stimulation and education, enterprise and preparation for the future.
Spiritual – take time each day to pray with your family or those in your home. Pray that God bless each of them and meet all your needs. Also take time on Sunday and a few other times during the week to watch Church broadcasts and other messages together, to encourage you and feed you spiritually.
Family and Social – be there for each other. Have time chatting and catching up. Join in table games, conversations and shared activity. Think about how to show care for each other. In terms of routine, set times for activities or long chats. And connect with others outside your home as well.
Health and Nutrition – find out what will build health and what makes for healthy eating. Add new things to your diet, increase the number of different things you eat each day, especially unprocessed foods.
Exercise and Fun – get out of the house, get plenty of sunlight and fresh air, and keep your body working and strong. Find ways to get all your muscles working at some time or other. Make up your own exercise track and home-made weights and the like. Create a family work-out, walk-out and stretch-out to repeat each day.
Mental Stimulation and Education – find books to read, topics to explore, brain puzzles and courses to study. There is much that is worth knowing so invest in sharpening your mind and learning new things you can use in the future.
Enterprise – people once created wealth and provisions by cottage industry, so there may be many ways you can create something of value in your own home. Hand-crafts, growing things in pots, writing, fixing, building, and buying and selling are all possible from home.
Those suggestions are headline ideas, so let me now throw a bunch of other ideas at you, to set off a spark of interest.
Cooking – cook foreign food once a week; get good at the Mediterranean diet that is so healthy; aim to increase the number of different food items eaten each day (30 different things a day is a starting target). Make fermented food that is very healthy – sauerkraut, kombucha and ginger-beer. Teach your children to cook.
Garden – grow your own herbs (to add to your diet); cultivate potted plants to give away or sell (maybe build a thriving mail-order plant business); buy small trees and repot them to grow and become more valuable. Create a fancy-looking hedge.
Exercise – do squats and lift things over your head, walk regularly. Create a family work-out, walk-out and stretch-out to repeat each day.
Family – take walks and bike rides together; work up a family fitness program. Record your family history, by audio or text. Interview family members for a Time Capsule record. Read the Bible with family, and read through Pilgrim’s Progress with them (note that the Bible and Pilgrim’s Progress were in just about every American home in pioneering times and are said to have made people wise and strong).
Music – learn an instrument; learn to play by ear; develop your chord knowledge; get in the practice and drill you always avoided; practice scales. Sing together.
Study – star and sky watching to learn weather patterns, star movement, telling time and seasons by the stars; note your backyard birds and learn their names, noises and habits; read through the top 100 books list and have family discussions about them; study Bible topics of interest; do online courses.
Entertainment and Fun – have your family watch the top 20 movies of all time and critique them. Similarly have them listen to the top tunes of each decade over the past 100 years. Make up your own Coronavirus lyrics to a popular song. Pick the song that best works as your Family Song. Have family members do short talks about something they know that others don’t. Get the Ungame questions online and have family discussion time using them as conversation starters.
Enterprise – restore furniture, a car or motorbike; build a gazebo or fancy gate; Paint the fence; knitting, needlework, sewing; handcrafts; selling unwanted items online; bargain hunting online and reselling for better price.
Social – keep up with social groups on-line; sit and write a letter, and get children to add drawings, to send to loved ones by Snail Mail. Take things to drop at the door of your friends and neighbours – cooking, potted plants, needlework, flowers from your garden, etc.
Home Life – redesign your home life, moving furniture, creating more space, etc. Create shared space to suit your lifestyle. Buy a useful piece of furniture to help you fit in better.
Many of you have other great ideas so please add them as comments to this post, so others can be inspired by what you are doing.
Tags: Coronavirus Lockdown, Ideas to help you survive Lockdown, Stuck living at home, What to do when Stuck at Home
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