While you’re doing your part and practicing social distancing, you’re going to be spending a lot more time inside at home. It’s easy to get into a slump and lose motivation to do much of anything.
The key to staying sane while self-isolating is staying productive. This doesn’t mean you have to have a plan for every minute of every day. But even checking off just one to-do each day might help you feel accomplished and set you up for success once we’re all let back out of captivity! Here are a few tasks you can keep yourself busy with over the next couple of weeks:
Get Your Taxes Done Early
Try to find the silver lining here: We’re being encouraged to stay home just as the tax deadline is approaching.
Okay, there are better things to get excited about right now – decreased air pollution, companies offering freebies, and everyday people doing good things to help those who need it – but you’ll have to get your taxes done anyway. Think of this as your opportunity to get ahead of one of your chores.
Do Your Workouts
One amazing way to reduce stress and anxiety (two emotions which are likely high right now) is to get moving. You don’t need gym access or hours of time to dedicate to a workout, either.
Plenty of free, at-home, bodyweight workout videos are available online. Choose from activities like HIIT cardio, yoga, Pilates, bodyweight strength training, Zumba, and more – whatever is most likely to get you exercising.
If you’re working from home, find a shorter video to keep you active during your lunch break. Just ten to fifteen minutes is all you need to begin to feel the benefits!
Spring Cleaning
If Marie Kondo has taught us anything, clearing your space has more benefits than you might initially think.
The state of your home can actually impact your mental health. Decluttering your space helps to declutter your mind and is another way to bring stress levels down. Not to mention it may be a bit of a workout in itself!
Organize Photo Albums
Spend some time reminiscing on vacations, family gatherings, and pictures of the kids when they were little. Print out your favourite photos and put them in an album. No printer? No problem – some great apps like Chatbooks exist to help families document their memories. Simply upload and organize your photos, and they will print and ship a memory book to you.
Spending a couple of weeks at home might sound like a relief from busy everyday life and, for some people, the idea can sound downright exciting! But when you factor in that the “retreat” from society wasn’t a planned vacation you had time to prepare for, you can’t spend the time visiting friends and extended family or travelling somewhere sunny, and that all the places your kids love to visit are closed, a couple of weeks starts to look a lot longer.
So, how do you avoid 2+ weeks of the kiddos
watching streaming services from morning ‘til night? Try scheduling a couple of
evenings each week for a fun family activity.
Here are a few of our favourite ideas for when
you need to turn off the TV or video games and get the fam together for a bit
of quality time.
Cook Dinner Together
If you want to keep the kids busy for an hour, encourage them to appreciate healthy, home-cooked food, and get some help in the kitchen. This one’s a no-brainer!
Do a quick online search for kid-friendly
recipes and get cooking! Classic kid favourites like spaghetti and
meatballs are simple enough to keep those little hands busy.
Don’t be afraid to get a bit more adventurous
with your recipes, either. Even if your kids are picky and claim not to like
the meal you want to make, remember they’re more likely to try eating something
they had a hand in making themselves.
If your kids are younger, game night is a great way to teach them how to be good sports. It can also teach them important life skills like patience, how to take directions, and how to take turns. Many board games also give kids the opportunity to learn how to strategize and learn from their own mistakes.
Organize Family Memories
Remember that family trip to Florida when the
kids were little? They might not. Gather everyone together to go through some older
photos on your phones, on your Dropbox account or housed on your social media
accounts.
Once you’ve had your fill of reminiscing, choose your favourite pictures and print them at home for a fun arts and crafts project: building scrapbook pages together! Have every family member take charge of a specific page – for example, one person can design a page for a specific family vacation, one for events with the extended family, and one for documenting how the kids have grown year over year (we think school portraits are the perfect way to show this off). Personalize your pages by decorating with stickers and coloured construction paper cut-outs.
If you don’t have a printer at home, why not
build your scrapbook digitally? Upload your favourite photo memories to a
service like Chatbooks, where you can organize your photos and add
captions and designs to the pages.
Missing any schoolyear memories? It’s never too late to order your digital or printed photos with Edge! Visit our online ordering site to get started today.
