Are you wondering what to do with the extra hours in your daily schedule? Now that so many people are in virtual quarantine and other forms of lock-down due to the coronavirus, it seems like everyone has at least two or three hours to spare. Until mid-2020, that time was spent going to movies, attending church, socializing with friends, catching some relaxation at the local coffee house, and dining out.
The strange thing about extra time is that it’s easy to lose track of it. Too many little things creep into our lives and eat up minutes by the dozens. Before you know it, surfing the web or flipping TV channels has devoured half of an otherwise productive afternoon or evening. Don’t let this happen to you. Make a plan to take on some constructive activities, like honing a skill you already have, learning a craft, tacking a foreign language, creating your own blog or vlog, delving into yoga, studying meditation, acquiring online trading skills, or figuring out how to improve your credit score. The fact is that there are hundreds of things you can do to make the most of being stuck in the house for months on end.
Blogging and Vlogging
Creating your own blog or video-blog (vlog) takes about an hour of setup time, maybe another hour to get used to the mechanics of the process, and then you’re good to go. These two activities can be more than a hobby or time-filler because if you stick with the effort for a few months and attract plenty of followers, it’s possible to sell advertising space on your site.
Online Trading
During the COVID crisis, millions of people have turned to online trading for the very first time. Some do it out of economic necessity, hoping to turn unemployment into a profitable affair. Others take to the avocation in the hopes of acquiring new skills and taking part in the excitement of buying and selling securities from the privacy of their bedroom or living room office. An easy way to get started, many have discovered, is to open a CFD trading account. Contracts for difference are much simpler to trade than traditional stocks and bonds because of the way they are structured. Account holders choose to go long or short when they buy in, and earn a profit if their guess is correct. They never have to actually hold the asset in ownership, which makes the whole process more speculative than anything else.
Crafts
The craft industry has been enjoying a boom of late, particularly since mid-summer when it became apparent that the then three-week lockdown that was imposed for the sole purpose of flattening the curve and preventing hospital overload was a fiction of historic proportion, industrious patriots stuck it out at home and went to work learning new skills like macrame, jewelry making, quilting, and many more.
Online Courses
When the planet-wide illness hit with a vengeance, primarily among the elderly, the millions of otherwise hearty, hardworking adults got busy and began taking online classes to learn subjects they had always wanted to master, like a second language, the basics of economics, creative writing, and dozens more. The companies that offer online study have been among the stars of the retail sector, alongside delivery services, video-conferencing apps, and others.
Meditation and Yoga
There’s no better time to learn yoga and meditation than when your life has been rudely interrupted by a series of unpleasant events. This is such a time. Apps that teach people how to meditate have been enjoying a newfound popularity, as have online yoga classes and DVDs that teach the ancient method of exercise. Yoga was already one of the hottest fitness and health trends even before coronavirus came along. Now, with a captive audience of eager learners, it has added millions of new adherents. Meditation websites, many of which are faith-based, have also seen significant increases in enrollment.
Personal Finance
When working adults are out of work or forced to work from home, they often begin to think about what might happen if they lost their jobs. In addition to learning new skills, like coding and programming, they tend to investigate the finer points of personal financial management. That entails mundane but vastly essential skill sets like creating detailed monthly budgets, finding out how to boost and monitor credit scores, and hiring someone to beef up and update their resumes. Some folks respond to personal crises by opening or adding to retirement accounts. This is especially true for those who were behind on their contributions or had never even created an account in the first place.