All around the world people are having to stay in their homes and reduce the social contact they have with friends and family (unless you are lucky enough to live in New Zealand), and so often it feels as though we are just wasting the days away. So what can we do that doesn’t feel like too much of a task but helps us get through each day?

Take a daily walk

You don’t need a dog to get out and about. If you are lucky enough to live in the countryside, you can walk for miles without seeing anyone else. If you live in a town or city, hopefully, you have a park you can walk around or perhaps there is part of your town you have always wanted to discover!

Walking is an extremely underrated form of exercise, since I have upped my walking in May, I have lost a stone in weight (6.3kg) without even trying. I walk two hours a day with Baxter and cover between 7-10km. The frosty mornings are the easiest, the raining afternoons are the hardest, but I always feel better for the walk when I get back home and relax.

Bake a cake

It has been proven that baking and cooking is a great stress reliever, it is thought repetitive and simple activities are the most calming, so you don’t have to create a masterpiece, something simple and tasty!

Start reading

There has never been a better time to escape the world and that is exactly what a book will do for you. It’s during these times I like to get lost in a fictional story, I would highly recommend the Shopaholic series if you haven’t already read them, they are fun, relatable, and easy to read. Reading will also keep your brain working so helps shrug off that sluggish ‘I have not done anything’ feeling.

Try a jigsaw

I went jigsaw crazy in the first lockdown and have just started getting into them again. Jigsaws take hours of brainwork, so like a book, will stop you from feeling like you have done nothing all day. Jigsaws exercise both the left and the right sides of your brain at the same time. A jigsaw attracts your undivided attention and is one of the only things that will keep you off your phone for a prolonged period of time. Jigsaws also help with your short term memory, something that has taken a total battering for me since the pandemic start, does anyone else keep forgetting what they had for lunch!?

Find a binge-worthy series

Throughout 2020 we discovered some great tv shows. So whether you want to divulge in 30 somethings selling million-dollar houses on Selling Sunset or you want to step back in time for a few hours as you get through Bridgerton, there are a ton of shows out there that will help you pass the time.

Learn a language

This will make any British person grown, we are notoriously terrible at learning languages, but when will we ever get this much time to learn again? Whether you want to brush up on the french you learnt at school or you want to learn how to order pasta in Italy, social media is a great place to find people of different nationalities that can help you learn, and vice versa!

Listen to a podcast

I had no idea what a podcast was until 2020 came around and I started listening to them on my walks with Baxter. And just like with TV, there are a huge range of genres, from true crime to reality TV, history to science, there is SO much. I find all my podcasts on the Apple podcast app, I listen to Gemma Collins (don’t judge me) for some light hearted listening, and then when I want something a little more serious I will just search a topic and pick the first thing that comes up. I also find the Frankie Bridge podcast ‘Open Mind’ brilliant, she chats to a different person in each episode about their journey with mental health.

Help a neighbour

Are you taking a trip to the supermarket? Do you have any elderly or shielding neighbours that need some food too? Getting an online delivery slot with supermarkets is not easy at the moment and vulnerable people shouldn’t be going into shops, so do a good deed, it will help both them and you.

Work on your bucket list

I don’t think we have ever felt so appreciative of all the things we have available to us in life, especially the ability to travel. I have had great fun organising future trips that I have been dreaming of for years and finally want to put into practice. I have organised every last detail from the flights to the car hire, the hotels, and all the itineraries, I am ready to go as soon as the borders are open and it has also helped me come to terms with the inability to travel right now.

Start journaling

I was never one of those teenagers who wrote a diary or wrote my feelings down at all. Yet I was faced with a major break up early on in 2020, I wrote down all my feelings. It cured me within about two weeks and this is why I love to blog, sometimes it is a form of journaling for me. We are unlikely to ever live through a time like this again, so why not record it all in a notebook?