If you, like me, attach your self-worth to your productivity, you might be in want of fun things to do during quarantine. The problem with the many other lists of quarantine activities is that those articles presume you still have the capacity for energy or excitement. Vague lists that suggest reading a book or exercising simply don’t service those of us who expect to be entertained yet refuse, on principle, to work for it.
Here’s your resident lazy person’s list of things to do during quarantine, segmented by what you’re looking for and expected effort levels from 1-5.
What to do while you’re in quarantine and lazy
Effort level 1: Occupying yourself with things that require no thought
1. Take a shot every time someone says “in these uncertain times.”
Tangible benefit: Alternatively, if you love yourself, make it water instead. That way you’ll emerge from quarantine either with no memory of the ordeal or really hydrated.
2. Create an inventory of the food you own and go through expired/expiring items.
Benefit: Cooking means you get to try out a different kind of stir-crazy. This site, SuperCook, lets you input ingredients and generates recipes you can try
3. Identify your real friends by texting them a picture of you holding scissors and saying you’re about to cut your own bangs, then seeing who talks you off that ledge.
Benefit: Useful tip if you find yourself with too many friends for your liking.
4. Sit as far outside as you can manage and try to feel the temperature rising against your skin as the day breaks.
Benefit: You become one with nature and secure your front-row seat to watch the world burn. Unless that’s just climate change—same difference
5. Revel in there being no more FOMO (fear of missing out.)
Benefit: Finally, there are no more events to not get invited to.
6. Text your ex.
Benefit: Really watch the world burn. At least things will be exciting.
Effort level 2: Miscellaneous tasks you’ve been putting off
7. Write your will.
Benefit: Now you always know when you might need it.
8. Clear out your texts/emails.
Benefit: Finally people will stop pointing out your thousand unread messages. Maybe if you respond using the “in these uncertain times” line, they won’t notice your reply is 10 months late.
9. Finally learn what blockchain is.
Benefit: Now all the zero people you talk to about it will know that you actually understand what they’re discussing.
10. Shut down your computer and update your antivirus software… Hear me out.
Benefit: Let your computer rest, you monster.
11. Finally replace the dimmed bulb in the living room (or fix something else around the house.)
Benefit: Develop a god complex and let there be light.
12. Improve your routine by watching YouTube videos on habit-forming like “The Two-Day Rule.”
Benefit: Maybe what gets you out of bed will no longer be the smell of your morning breath but a wracking sense of guilt.
13. Meditate.
Benefit: It’s a free trial of ceasing to exist.
14. Take care of yourself so you can compensate for future self-destruction.
Benefit: Maybe you’ve just downed a whole box of Cheez-Its but at least for now you’ve got glowing skin.
15. Continue neglecting to water your plant.
Benefit: Nothing sets the mood like a row of crispy-looking succulents on the windowsill.
Effort level 3: Quarantine activities that might improve you as a person, if you’re into that
16. Go on a Wikipedia deep dive on the coronavirus, starting with “how to locate people who are not social distancing” and ending on a synopsis of Breaking Bad, Season 1.
Benefit: Maybe if you reframe a typical timewaster as something you have to do, you’ll lose passion for it like you do other tasks.
17. Take a walk.
Benefit: You can remember how it felt like to be going somewhere.
18. Order lye (sodium hydroxide) from an apothecary instead of Amazon.
Benefit: Support your local, small businesses, especially the ones that don’t keep records.
19. Clear your search history and/or photos from your camera roll.
Benefit: Among other incriminating items, delete the pictures of course slides you knew you were never going to look at again. Free up your storage. Start anew.
20. Clorox your bathtub.
Benefit: Get a head start on spring cleaning.
21. Search for abandoned trails.
Benefit: Get out into nature; soak up that vitamin D.
22. Take out the trash.
Benefit: You’ve done your exercise for the day and cleansed symbolically. If your place still smells a little funky, prop the door open a crack for fresh air.
Effort level 4: Things to try that may actually pass the time
23. Knit or crochet.
Honestly, I only included this for completeness. Personally, if I wanted to work on another never-ending, daunting project, I already have myself. Benefit: You don’t have to worry about becoming “that” person if you already are her.
24. Clean your oven.
Benefit: Yeah, I’d pass on this one, too.
25. Socialize with people on Zoom for four hours on more than one occasion because you’ve never learned how to end conversations.
Benefit: You could finally stop relying on external excuses. Or, you could genuinely enjoy the deeper, quarantine cabin fever-induced discussions that run way past time.
26. Socialize with people on Zoom and ask them convoluted questions about themselves until people ask you if you majored in Psychology.
Benefit: Recognize this is simply French for “you think way too much.”
27. Get on the bandwagon and throw a PowerPoint party.
Benefit: Presenting to friends on your favorite conspiracy theory, like “Why MattressFirm is a money laundering front” or “Why North Dakota Doesn’t Exist,” makes for a fun way to occupy some time.
28. Work through an online puzzle.
Benefit: A puzzle could be the one last thing in your life you can get to fit just right. This challenging “Many Flowers” puzzle is perfect for those who tire of having functioning eyes.
29. Journal.
Benefit: Journaling is essentially talking to yourself, only for the civilized man. I’d brushed off so many suggestions to start journaling because I felt like I was already doing so much writing for classes and this blog that I’d be all “written out.” For someone who professes to have no thoughts whatsoever, though, I had an incredible amount to say.
30. Take a free digital tour, especially to virtual museums like the Louvre or the Met.
Benefit: You can look through exhibits at your leisure, even snack on some chips, without worrying about coming across as a philistine. Plenty of objects around the house to inspire tenuous connections with shapeless elements and convince yourself you “get” abstract art.
31. Write letters to loved ones.
Benefit: Surprise them with a special something that says “I didn’t just produce this out of boredom,” as though they didn’t also just come out of the same quarantine.
32. Prepare comebacks for oddly specific situations.
Benefit: Now you won’t be caught off guard in the event someone with missing teeth insults your appearance because you can hit them with “your teeth are like summer; summer here, summer there.” (source) A con of this tip is now you won’t have anything to ruminate on in the shower, unless you start brainstorming how to find someone with missing teeth and piss them off.
33. Learn an instrument.
Benefit: You can’t drive your neighbors crazy if they’re already going insane.
Effort level 5: What to do during quarantine at the expense of your sanity
34. Call your family.
Benefit: Mention the coronavirus and this will occupy hours of your time talking them down from mailing you a hazmat suit.
35. Stalk all of someone’s social media and see how much you can piece together from their public info. (Might be fun, if you know the person, to note the assumptions you’d otherwise make.)
Benefit: The FBI wants to speak to you.
36. Freak yourself out by doing a deep dive on COVID-19.
Benefit: At this point, I’ve found that all conversational roads lead to corona, so you might as well be ready with new material.
37. Read up on at-home remedies for all ailments.
Benefit: Now when you trip in the shower and dent your shin and can’t go to the hospital, you know to apply a Band-Aid to your rapidly swelling leg.
38. Think about facts that ruin your day, especially that the FDA allows up to 5 dead insects (whole or equivalent) per 100 grams of dates.
Benefit: Maybe your day was going too well.
39. Watch a live zoo animal cam.
Benefit: You can appreciate the metaphorical similarity of your “cage” of a house and a, well, metal cage with bars and food bowls and millions of invisible peeping Toms.
And, the clincher:
40. Read blogs with tips for things to do during quarantine and proceed to try none of them.
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