Do I get bored at home? Sure, I do. As a matter of fact, I’m a workaholic. Working gives me pleasure and keeps me happy.
A good day at work leaves me with a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction. But when I’m home for any reason, I get bored. Severely bored, in fact.
Reasons We Get Bored at Home
Maybe you’re also bored at home. That’s quite understandable nowadays because most of us are working from home. After our work and possibly home-schooling kids, there’s really not much we can do.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has brought our social and outdoor life to a near standstill, with several normal activities remaining shut for the past two years.
All of us have done whatever household chores were there. We’ve watched lots of movies and shows on TV. We’ve also spent endless hours browsing the Internet for interesting information that we could use or add to our knowledge.
What more remains? Clearly, we’ll be bored at home.
Over the years, I found that most of us actually invite boredom, if you ask me. Therefore, if you’re bored at home and don’t know what to do, help is at hand. Continue reading till the end. Because I will be describing 50 Fun things to do when bored at home.
Yes, 50 things because having several different activities ensures that our stay at home doesn’t become boring.
Maybe you’re unaware, but boredom has a bad effect on our overall health. It also affects the health of our family members. Before describing this 50 stuff to do when bored at home, I will tell you about the bad things that boredom actually brings.
Bad Effects of Boredom
Most of us often use these phrases: “I’m dying of boredom,” or, “I’m bored to death.” These sentences may sound simple and harmless. However, they have a much deeper meaning. Because humans like you and me can actually die of boredom.
This might come as a shock to you. So, I will explain further.
Boredom leads to several serious physical and mental health problems. Here’s a list of some of these problems.
Depression
Psychiatrists and mental health experts say that boredom is one of the biggest causes of depression among children and adults.
Depression doesn’t spare kids, women and men. It strikes all equally. This means, your family is also at risk. Therefore, you have enough reasons to do any of these 50 things when bored at home.
Also Read: 15 Best jobs for people with anxiety and Depression
Addiction
Another study in psychiatry and medicine shows that persons that’s chronically bored for any reason can develop serious addictions. These could be substance addictions such as alcohol, drug, and food abuse.
Or they can be non-material addictions such as sex, excessive social media use and shopping, to name a few. This directly affects your family too.
Lower Physical Activity
Boredom also drastically affects your physical activity, according to medical research. Months or even years of boredom take away the initiative from us to do any physical activities because we brood or overthink issues.
This means we become the proverbial couch potatoes. Lack of physical activity causes sedentary life, which can translate as fearful and chronic diseases such as diabetes or high bad cholesterol levels, increasing the risk of heart problems.
Poor Eyesight
The easiest solution to boredom, we find is watching TV and surfing the Internet, playing video games, or fidgeting with our smartphones. That’s fine. However, long hours before a computer, TV or smartphone screen takes its toll on our eyesight.
Understandably, you will not see the difference immediately, but over a period of months or even a couple of years, you will experience difficulties in reading or seeing something. That’s because the eyes are strained due to glares from TV, computer and smartphone screens.
Lack of Concentration
Lack of concentration is one of the serious effects of continuing boredom. Over a period of time, we find that activities that we did happily, no longer continue to interest us.
This could be your work from home job, home-schooling of kids, cooking, gardening, or anything. Once we lose concentration, gaining it back can take some time.
Some people require psychiatric help or have to do courses in meditation or other techniques to regain their power of concentration. This proves to be an excessive affair.
Overweight and Obesity
People that’re bored usually consume more food than necessary. And in most cases, these are fast foods from restaurants that’s laden with fat, sodium and other excesses. Over a period, people that’s bored find themselves gaining weight.
In some cases, these weight gains can prove serious and lead to obesity, which becomes hard to control. Remember, gaining weight is easier than we think. Losing weight is more difficult than we imagine.
Then, there’re other bad effects of getting bored at home too. These can include impulsive spending, a higher rate of irritability and frequent domestic disturbances due to unnecessary differences with our spouse or partner.
In fact, the Covid-19 lockdowns also proved that domestic violence rises due to boredom and longer confinements at home.
50 Things to Do When Bored at Home
This brings us to a very important question: “What should I do when bored at home?” As I assured you earlier, there’s nothing to worry about. You can do any of these 50 things when bored at home. They not only drive away boredom but can also teach you quite a few things.
1. Solve Crosswords
Crosswords are the best way to add more words to your existing English vocabulary. A lot of newspapers and magazines carry one or even two crosswords daily.
There’re also special crossword books available from Amazon that you can buy. All you need is a dictionary or thesaurus to find new words that match the clues and help solve the crossword.
2. Solve Puzzles
Those puzzles we see aren’t merely a resource for enjoyment and pastime. As a matter of fact, puzzles help us increase concentration and memory.
Often, employers ask job seekers to undergo a psychometric test to decide whether they’re suitable for a job. Solving different kinds of puzzles helps you to develop Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and creative skills too.
3. Write Your Diary
Most people nowadays seldom write their own thoughts and feelings they experience during a day. That’s because the widespread use of computers has almost destroyed our writing skills.
However, writing a diary can be a pleasant and refreshing experience. A daily diary provides vital insights into our own personality and inherent traits. It can help us avoid repeat mistakes and become a better person altogether.
4. Read a Book
Top billionaires in USA, including Peter F. Drucker and Oprah Winfrey, among others, read daily. These billionaires testify that reading leads them to succeed in business, life and finances.
Therefore, the next time you feel bored, find and read a good book from your favorite genre. It not only helps relieve stress but it also has a magical effect on giving new knowledge and increasing your vocabulary.
5. Start a Blog
Now, this is something you can try when you’re bored at home. Start a blog. You can open a free blog or buy a good domain name and website hosting for as low as $9.99 per month.
Start creating excellent content about anything that you’re truly passionate about, such as your job, profession, hobby or sport. You can also make a lot of money through blogging because Google pays you to display its ads on your website.
6. YouTube Videos
Similar to blogging, you can also start vlogging. This means, starting your own YouTube channel, which is free and uploading interesting and relevant videos that people love to watch.
These videos can be about anything you’re passionate about and know well. Use your smartphone camera to make these videos. You can become a celebrity vlogger too. Monetize your YouTube channel with Google AdSense.
7. Volunteer for Service
Obviously, there would be several charities and community organizations that require extra hands for their activities. Ask them if you can chip in your services and help them in any manner.
Usually, such organizations will happily welcome you to work as a volunteer for their activities, such as serving the public or raising funds for their cause. This is a very noble way to donate your skills and efforts to a worthy cause.
8. Upgrade Your Skills
If you’re working from home, one of the dangers is that your skills can go outdated. This means, you might become unfit for the employment market if you need to look for new jobs for any reason.
Often, employers provide skills upgrade programs. During the ongoing pandemic, such training for staff has taken a hit. Therefore, you can take a good online course and upgrade your skills. Such courses don’t cost much and can help you a lot.
Also Read: Top 10 List of New Soft Skills for 2021
9. Learn a Hobby
When we were kids and students, we had at least one hobby. However, higher education and the focus on the job takes away these hobbies. If that’s your case, try learning a new hobby when you’re bored at home.
A lot of free tutorials on various hobbies are available online. And, you can also buy some inexpensive stuff to revive your hobby or practice a new one. Hobbies are stress busters and known to be healthy recreation for the mind and body.
10. Learn a New Cuisine
Treat yourself and your family to something new for dinner. Try a recipe from some of the famous cuisines of the world, when you’re bored at home.
Millions of recipes from around the world are available for free online. Also, ingredients for most recipes are available easily in USA, either through regular stores or community shops and online.
Cooking can keep you busy, especially when you’re trying something new. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a female or male.
11. Multilevel Marketing
Join any of the top Multilevel Marketing (MLM) companies of America and become their associate. All you need to do is promote their products and services among your social circle and find more buyers through their contacts.
There’re at least 25 top MLM companies that operate in USA and you can register with any of them, according to the products you like and would love to promote. You can make lots of money with MLM too.
12. Online Surveys
Another thing to do when you’re bored at home is doing online surveys. Market research companies such as Swagbucks and InboxDollars actually pay you for these surveys.
Each time you complete a survey, they will reward you with points. These points are worth real cash. You can either get the money or ask for gift coupons on stores such as Amazon and Walmart, to slice off a few dollars on your monthly bills.
Also Read: Online Survey Jobs – 15 Websites that Pay $20 per Survey
13. Learn Music
Another useful skill to learn when you get bored at home is playing a musical instrument such as a guitar, violin or organ. There’re classes both online and offline where you can learn how to play an instrument of your choice.
You can use this skill as a hobby and entertain your family or guests. And, if you want, you can also become a part-time musician for a band that performs at hotels and restaurants, depending on your skills.
14. Listen to Music
While we’re on the topic of music, here’s something more you could do. That is, listen to music. You can listen to artists of your choice from YouTube, free of cost or subscribe for Spotify, Amazon Music and other such apps to get your favorite music.
You can also try to learn an appreciation of a music genre that you didn’t know about much earlier, such as classical or jazz, among others.
15. Side Gigs
There’re lots of online and offline side-gigs available near your home. Apps such as Gigwalker help you to find such side-gigs immediately.
When you download their app, register and keep location services on your mobile switched on, the app will display various small and odd jobs near home. Take these small tasks since they pay very well. Apps such as Gigwalker pay well too.
16. Walk Pets
For those of us who love pets, one superb pastime is walking dogs for others. Download apps such as Woof or Rover and register. You’re already in business. You can walk one or more pets during a trip. The more the pets,
the higher your income. And spending time with pets helps relieve boredom and stress too. This is an ideal pastime for kids, women and men who have spare time and when bored at home.
17. Paintings
Buy some canvas or painting board and paper as well as colors and start painting a picture. Obviously, I’m not saying you’ll become a Picasso or Van Gogh. However, painting is a hobby that helps you express your creative self within.
Painting is also known to relieve boredom and give you a new perspective of things around you. You will simply fall in love with painting and will never again get bored at home.
18. Empty Your Basement
Should you be among those fortunate to have a basement or storehouse under the house, I would suggest that you start sorting out stuff there and empty it out.
Actually, neglected basements can become a den for snakes and other undesirable reptiles as well as insects and fungus. By emptying it out, you can make extra space at home for something and get money by selling the old junk as scrap.
19. Clear Out Your Garage
And if you have a closed garage at home that requires some attention, clear it out too. Often, we store stuff such as vehicle spares, old tires and other stuff at the garage.
Over a period of time, these things get spoiled due to weather and other elements and can pollute the garage. Instead, when bored at home, take some time daily to clear out the garage and clean it carefully. After all, your car deserves a better space too.
20. Build a Greenhouse
Basically, a greenhouse is made of weatherproof sheets and some natural material such as sticks. You can easily set up one in your garden. A greenhouse is very useful to grow fruits and vegetables or other useful plants.
This can help chop off your green grocery bills to a minimum and help save a lot of money. Actually, most of the material necessary for a greenhouse would be available already at home. It needs only assembly.
21. Detail Your Car
Car detailing costs a lot when you have it done from a company. However, when you get bored at home, it’s a good idea to do car detailing yourself. All that it needs is some careful thought, polishes, scrubbers, mops and other similar material.
By detailing your car, you make it look as good as new and attractive. And you would have saved a lot of money too since car detailing can cost as much as $200, depending on its make.
22. Write a Book
All of us have a story to tell. I mean, our lives are unique in every possible way. Or, maybe you dream of something and can’t expressions.
In such cases, the best idea is to start writing your own book. You can write the book from your own thoughts using a computer or even a paper and pencil, as you wish.
This book can be easily published through Kindle Desktop Publishing, a service from Amazon. They will also sell the book for you and help you earn some money.
23. Compose Poems
Here’s something I will confess. I never thought of myself as a creative person or a poet. However, when I was deeply in love with my girlfriend, who now happens to be my wife, I began composing poems.
It took me several weeks to write a few stanzas but eventually, I succeeded. If you draw inspiration from something, write a poem about it, when you get bored at home. Don’t worry because nobody would see your poem unless you show it.
24. Freelancing
Actually, I wanted to mention freelancing at the top of my list. However, since most of us are working, I mention this later. If you have excellent skills at your job and know that others can use them, become a freelancer.
You can easily register for free on websites such as Fiverr and Upwork. Make a free profile on these websites and quote your hourly fee. This can help make a lot of money when you’re bored at home.
25. Create an Online Course
Again, talking about skills, you can use them and make a superb online course. During the new normal, millions of people around the world are looking at acquiring new skills for personal use or for use at work.
You could help them by creating a course and selling it online. There’re various places to sell your online course, such as Udemy. This can help you earn a lot of money and make you a professional in your field too.
26. Learn Graphic Designing
Understandably, graphic designing requires a lot of skills. That’s why there’re specialized courses at institutes and colleges. However, you can become a novice graphic designer at home too.
Simply access websites such as Canva and Adobe and tinker around with their online design creation dashboard. You can learn a lot on how to make simple things such as Facebook and Instagram posts, banners and flyers. You could also sell these skills if needed.
27. Polish Your Furniture
Usually, we forget to polish our furniture because it’s simply lying around the house. At the same time, we want our house and stuff to look new and shiny.
If that’s what you really want, get some cans of polish, scrubbers and mops and start polishing your furniture. This includes sofas, chairs, closets and all the furniture that you can find in the house. It is a worthwhile effort once you complete it.
28. Learn Crocheting
This one is particularly for my women readers. There’s a huge demand in USA and abroad for handcrafted crochet garments and similar stuff. Most people buy them for personal use or collections. Your creations with crochet can also be sold from Amazon.
There’re lots of online tutorials for crocheting available on YouTube and blogs. This is a worthwhile hobby to learn as crocheting is known to release tensions.
29. Fruit and Vegetable Carvings
Have you ever been to a plush restaurant? If so, you would have seen those wonderful patterns and designs that some chefs make using fruits and vegetables for display at buffet tables.
You, too can learn this amazing skill by watching free videos from around the world, on YouTube. The next time you host a party at home, make some of these fruit and vegetable carvings to wow your guests.
30. Make Own Soaps
There’s a huge market out there for homemade soaps and stuff like that. However, such soaps have to be eco-friendly and provide some benefits for our human skin. There’re lots of formulas and recipes available online for such soaps.
All it needs is some raw materials that can be easily bought in the local market. You can make these soaps for the family or sell them for some income.
31. Make Chocolates
I’ve not yet come across any woman or man who doesn’t love chocolate. In fact, we all love chocolate. Making chocolate isn’t an easy craft but it can be learned by anyone easily, if you pay some attention to online tutorials.
The ingredients that go in chocolates aren’t expensive too. You can make chocolates for your home or even sell them outside for some money. This is a superb hobby when bored at home.
32. Bake
Actually, an oven opens up vast possibilities to make smooth and fluffy breads of different kinds, pastries, cookies and lots more. Should you have an oven at home, try your hand at baking different kinds of bread from around the world.
You can also get creative to make cakes and amazing pastries for your family. Usually, an oven isn’t used so much. When bored at home, use the oven to get rid of your boredom by baking different foods.
33. Arrange Your Closet
I am fond of clothes and I buy a lot of them. Often, I end up using favorite ones only while the remaining lie in my closet for several months, unused.If this too is your case, I suggest arranging your closet immediately.
Get rid of unwanted garments. As a matter of fact, you can also sell or trade some of these clothes on certain websites. They pay well and you can also trade them for other stuff of your choice.
34. Learn Investing
Who says that investing on stock market, commodities, currencies and cryptocurrencies needs lots of money? If you have enough money, surely you can invest.
But if you have little money, it’s still possible to invest. Download apps such as Acorns, TD Ameritrade, Robinhood, or anyone that you prefer.
You can invest with as low as $5 through these apps. When you use these apps, you will also learn how to invest your money and make it grow.
35. Learn a New Language
Learning languages doesn’t cost money. There’re countless apps such as Duolingo, where you can actually learn a foreign language for absolutely free.
Of course, learning a foreign tongue can take anything from 400 hours to 2,000 hours. Free courses available on apps will only teach you a few basics of any language.
However, the time you spend on them will get rid of boredom and give you some skills to exchange greetings in a foreign language, if you happen to meet a native speaker.
Also Read: How Long Does It Take to Learn a Language?
36. Practice Handwriting
You will laugh at me when I say that you should practice handwriting. That’s because we’ve already learned it at school and used handwriting extensively during our college or university days.
But there’s a strong reason why I suggest you to practice handwriting. Over the years and with heavy use of computer keyboards, our handwriting has suffered a lot. It gets totally spoiled. You can get back perfect writing skills by practicing handwriting once again.
37. Birdwatching
Birdwatching can be a fascinating hobby and pastime, if you take it seriously. Maybe you’re unaware but there’re lots of new birds that we can observe in our neighborhood occasionally, if we bother to look.
That’s because birds are migratory. They move to areas where the climate is suitable. As a result, you can spot newer species roosting in trees around you or even perched on a wire.
38. Scrabble
Playing Scrabble contests with family is one way of bonding. Additionally, Scrabble games also help to expand your vocabulary as you learn newer words to defeat competitors.
This is one game you can buy very cheap online or even offline. It’s a fantastic game that everyone enjoys. When bored at home, play a Scrabble game. You can play solo too, on online Scrabble forums.
39. Hunt for Bargains
Millions of people miss bargains from online stores for one main reason: they are too busy and prefer to order from the same place.
Therefore, when bored at home, one of the best things to do is browse the Internet to find bargains for household stuff and other necessities.
Often, you will come across unknown but reliable online stores that will offer the same product or an option, at much lower prices.
40. Lego
If you believe that Lego blocks and games are only for kids, then you need to do a rethink. As a matter of fact, adults also can use Lego blocks and build wonderful things that your kids will love.
Lego has its own theme park in Denmark and most of the visitors are actually adults without kids. That’s because a lot of adult love Lego and making various models with it.
41. Groom Yourself
Personal grooming is one of the biggest casualties of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic. We wanted to look good when we would attend the office or go outside for some work.
However, prolonged hours at home and working from home have caused grooming to suffer. Use the time available for getting back those looks which you always wore for work and special occasions. The stuff necessary for grooming will be already there at home.
42. Meditation
Meditation is hard to practice for most humans. It requires a considerable effort for every beginner to start meditation. Above all, meditating for a long time is often impossible because our attention breaks often.
Try to learn meditation from any online forum or YouTube videos. You can improve concentration, eliminate stress and do a lot of wonderful things by meditating for long.
43. Yoga
Yoga is an ancient Indian science of wellness of the body and mind. That’s the reason there’re countless videos on how to practice Yoga at home, for beginners. When bored at home, watch these videos on Yoga.
You can begin with one or two postures daily and add more to your routine as you become an expert at practicing Yoga. It holds a lot of benefits for your physical and mental wellness.
44. Mixing Cocktails
Almost every bartender in the world is there at her or his job because they have one major skill. And that’s mixing cocktails. Every country in the world has its own and unique cocktails, made with various kinds of liquor, juices and mixers.
You can easily find such recipes online and try them at home. Serve adult members of your family with these cocktails while enjoying some yourself. This is a superb skill to learn if you’re a moderate drinker and not prone to addictions to alcohol and other intoxicants.
45. Play Chess
If you know how to play Chess, you can match your skills online through games with other players or even the computer. It’s also possible to play Chess on mobile phones, solo or with an unseen contestant.
A good game of Chess can last for a long time because each player thinks of the next few moves while anticipating those of the rival. Chess works as an excellent brain stimulator and helps learn how to make strategies for winning in life.
46. Make Own Fragrances
No famous designer or brand of fragrances became popular overnight. Instead, they experimented and tested various scents from fragrant oils and other stuff, till they found the magic formula.
Get hold of some such fragrant oils the next time you visit a supermarket that sells them or order online. If there’s a perfumery in your area, consider a visit there too.
You can test and experiment by mixing various fragrant oils and making your own signature scent.
47. Monopoly
There’re some board games such as Monopoly that you can play solo online or with other contestants. You can also engage the family to play a game of Monopoly. This game teaches you money management skills, that’s useful for life.
A board of Monopoly costs only a few dollars and can be easily bought online and offline, depending on your needs. There’re lots of websites where you can play Monopoly for free too.
48. Tune the Radio
The good old radio is almost forgotten nowadays. Though radio stations continue to play, few get listeners because people nowadays prefer TV.
If you have a radio set at home, try to tune into foreign stations that broadcast to USA. You’ll surely be surprised to find radio stations from various countries beaming their services to America.
49. Sky Watching
There’re countless stars in the night sky. Maybe you know of some and don’t know about the others. Stars in the sky change their positions frequently as the Earth rotates on its axis.
Therefore, there’s a new scene to be seen in the skies, only if you bother to look. If you wish, buy a telescope. Or, you can simply observe the stars at night and identify them using star maps that’re freely available online.
50. Weeding
While writing about weeding, I consider that you’re already paying good attention to your garden. Weeding your garden to remove unwanted plants and herbs is important because these weeds sap the nutrients that your good plants could use.
You can find newer weeds in your garden almost daily. Weed them out and kept your garden looking well maintained and neat.
In Conclusion
There’s no shortage of things to do when bored at home. All it needs is to find your hobbies and passions and choose what to do when bored from my list of 50 activities. While at home, it’s worth using the time fruitfully through any of these 50 things.