How to Utilize Time at Home | 11 Productive Things to Do

The Work From Home movement is getting bigger and bigger. Employees from all over the world are choosing to work while staying at home, and we can’t blame them. The corporate culture from all over the world is known for sucking up precious time from employees’ lives. It came to a situation when it got very toxic. Employees don’t get enough time to spend with their loved ones or enjoy the precious moments of their lives because of this toxicity. If you’re one of the persons who have chosen to work from home, Heads Up! You’ve certainly made the right decision. 

But when we work from home, we save time that previously went into transportation and coffee stations. So, what do we do with this saved time? 

You don’t have to wonder anymore about how to utilize time at home. Here are some of the most productive things you can try at home in your free time. 

1. Read a Book
2. Learn a New Skill 
3. Start Exercising 
4. Organize your LinkedIn profile 
5. Become a Volunteer 
6. Start a new project 
7. Learn a New Language etc 

Keep reading until the end of the article to learn 4 extra things you can do at home in your free time. 

11 Productive Things to Do at Home When Bored

Here are the 11 most productive things to do at home when bored presented to you so that you can use your time wisely.

1. Read a Book

Books are said to be our best friends for a reason. No matter how busy you are or what your lifestyle looks like, spending at least some time with a good book is going to be the most productive thing you can do while you’re bored. They entertain us, provide us with essential knowledge left by our ancestors and give us company when no one seems to be around. 

But, should you read any books? No, like anything else on the planet, reading is also an art. You have to make sure that you’re reading something that you love. If you choose to read fiction, then make sure that it’s a good one and worthy of your time. Over a million books are published around the world every year; you can not read them all. So, when you choose a book to read, choose a good one. 

But what if you’re not the type of person who loves to read? Then we’ll insist you read at least one or two books related to the field you’re working in. When your interest meets the book’s context, you’re very much likely to finish it. If even this doesn’t work for you, then try listening to audiobooks. 

2. Learn a New Skill

Learning something new in your spare time is the wisest decision you can make when it comes to spending your time wisely. Learning something new will never go to waste. The skills that we learn will be with us forever, and we can benefit from them, if not in the short-term, then in the long-term for sure. 

But learning is a boring thing for most people. What can you do to make sure that you complete that course without procrastinating? A simple hack can be to learn something that you’re interested in. If you have a hobby like gardening, then you can start learning in-depth about it. 

If you’re planning to learn something that you can use in the future to earn money, then make sure it’s something demandable. The most demanding skills right now that bring tons of cash are Machine learning, Coding, No-code web development, Search Engine Optimization and Business Analytics. 

The incredible thing is that you can learn these skills for absolutely free using YouTube or any such platform. You can even do paid courses for free by gaining financial aid from platforms like Coursera and others. 

3. Start Exercising

Do you want to suffer from back pain and other problems at age 35 or 40? If not, then start exercising right away. When working from the office, we get at least some form of physical activity like travelling, going for lunch and others. But when we work from home, it gets challenging to get physical movements. We sit the whole day at our desks, and we don’t even have to walk much. This lifestyle can harm us seriously and cause us a lot of pain when we get to 35 or 40 years of age. 

To avoid this, you can start exercising in the morning. Just make sure you’re going to bed early and waking up at 6 or 7 a.m. Then you can do some cardio to get your body active or go for a walk or run for 30 minutes. This will make sure that your body is active for the rest of the day and that you don’t suffer at your maturity. 

4. Organize Your Linkedin Profile

If you’re not a corporate geek, this option will not apply to you. But we request you as well to try this. LinkedIn is a fantastic platform that many people don’t know about. This can feel a bit vague at the start and you can even feel like everyone is flexing about their corporate careers. But spending time on LinkedIn, showing your skills to your connections and reaching out to people will undoubtedly benefit you in the long run. 

So, what do you need to do on LinkedIn? Nothing much. You just have to set aside 30 minutes per day that you’ll spend on LinkedIn. Post some informative things that people will share or showcase the skills you have by creating content about them. You can even share fun projects on LinkedIn. Don’t forget to make new connections relevant to your field and like and comment on others’ posts. At first, your posts will not reach anyone. But once you do this for a month or two, you can see improvements in your post reach. 

What’s the benefit of doing this? By staying connected with the top people in your field, you’re making sure that you’re staying up-to-date and relevant. You can also find people who may end up hiring you, seeing your awesome skill set. 

5. Become a Volunteer

If you do everything for the sole purpose of earning money, chances are that you won’t be delighted with your life when you get older. Doing some volunteering gives us a fulfilling feeling of being able to do something for society. You can volunteer for any local organization or international ones like blood donation, environment safety and awareness organizations. You don’t even need to go outside for this. Volunteer work can be done entirely online as well. 

It will help you in your corporate career as well. After you volunteer for some months or a fixed time, chances are you will be given a certificate to add to your resume. And the best part is that you can meet and connect with some incredible people through this. 

6. Start a New Project

Heads Up! This part is not for you if you start things and forget about them without finishing them. If you’re the opposite person, then this can be your next favourite thing. Start a side project that can relate to your hobbies or get you some extra cash. You can make a DIY cupboard, for example, if you like crafts. You can even make a new dish or experiment with the ones you love. 

If you want to earn extra money, start a blog and get Adsense ready; start writing an ebook, create a YouTube channel and start making content. The fun thing about side projects is that you are producing something new in this case and not only consuming what has already been created by someone else. 

7. Learn a New Language

A point that usually everyone will agree on is “People who know more than two languages are perceived as smarter than other people”. We don’t need any statistics to agree on this. In a globalized economy, you usually have to know at least two languages, your native one and English. Knowing more than two will not benefit you directly, but indirectly, it will make many things easier for you. This, again, is one of the creative things to do in free time. 

People will have high perceptions about you, and you will be automatically regarded as one of the most competent people in the room. Having more than two languages also makes your resume look better and stand out when compared to other people. 

Previously, we had to read lots of books or get some mentors to learn a new language. But learning a new language has become a lot easier now. We must download any language learning app from the Play Store, like Duolingo and start learning from it. Once you have learned the basic things about that language, you can try advanced courses to refine it. 

8. Do Some Meditation

We, humans, are social beings. Whenever we get separated from the cloud or do not meet with others for some time, our brain gets agitated and takes it as a red signal. That’s why we start getting frustrated being alone. There are some people who enjoy their solitude, though. But this is true for most of us. 

In this situation, meditation can help us a lot. By combining meditation with mindfulness, we can ensure our brain that we work from home or we have to stay inside the house for some time. This also helps us to focus on the present and perform our duties properly. 

You can meditate after you do your exercise. This will also allow your body to get some rest after the workout. You will gradually start seeing the effect of meditation in your daily life when you become more cheerful and mindful. 

9. Organize Your Residence

When we work from the office, we complain about not having enough time to organize our houses, and that’s why everything is so misplaced. Now that you’re working from home, you should have ample time to do your chores immediately and place everything where it should be. 

Doing your own chores may be a bit frustrating, but this is worth it. By organizing everything, you can focus on the critical tasks as well. And this is a great way to tell the visitors that you’re an organized and responsible person. 

Set aside a fixed daily time to clean the dishes, make your bedroom, or wash your clothes. You may not feel like doing it initially, but once you set this as a habit, you will shift to autopilot mode.

10. Cook for Yourself

Cooking is an art. If you don’t believe me, I insist you do it for a while, and you will understand how crucial it is to have every detail correct in the recipe. You misplace one thing, and the dish is ruined. And it is a fundamental skill for every gender. 

You may already understand the importance of being able to cook for yourself if you’ve shifted to a new place where your taste doesn’t match the menu cards of the restaurants. Besides, food from outside isn’t very healthy, right? This is one of the most creative things to do in my free time as well. 

By starting to cook for yourself, you can take the first step to live a healthy life. You can also control how much calories you are taking. When you add this with regular workouts, nobody can stop you from having your dream physique. 

11. Watch a Documentary

You deserve some entertainment when you’re at home with free time. And the best way to do this is to combine entertainment with education. Did you know that Netflix doesn’t host only terrific rom-com and teenage series? There are a lot of entertaining and educational documentaries available on Netflix for you to watch as well. 

The same goes for other entertainment platforms. If you don’t have subscriptions, you can watch them for free. Now, don’t ask how! Just google ‘how to do that for free’, and it will tell you. We don’t encourage people to bypass the earning sources of these platforms (Stuck out tongue winking eye emoji). 

You can watch documentaries about different social topics, the environment, green living etc. This will entertain and educate you at the same time. 

How to be Productive at Home

To actually do the things mentioned above, you need to be productive at home in the first place. So, how do you actually get productive at home? Here are some additional tips on how to be productive at home. 

• Wake up Early

Just because you’re spending your day at home doesn’t mean you can wake up at any time you want. To get a lot done, you have to make sure you wake up early in the morning so that you have ample time to do other things. 

• Avoid Social Media Sites 

Social media sites don’t contribute even a little bit to our productivity. Besides, you can feel bad that others are going outside and having so much fun (that’s all they show on social media) while you’re at home. It can burn you out without even doing anything. So, the wisest thing to do is to avoid logging into social media sites as much as possible. 

• Have a To-do List

To-do lists are great for writing everything you need to get done in a day. Besides, when you focus on a single thing for some time, you can forget about other things. So, having a written to-do list will allow you to remember when you forget something. 

• Don’t be Reactive

Even small things can move your focus away from the necessary things. So, try to be as less reactive as possible. Just keep in mind that you have to make the most out of this time and get a lot done. 

• Sleep Early 

We asked you to wake up early on the first point. But you can not do that unless you’re sleeping on time. Have a night-time routine and follow that no matter what happens. This is the time when you prepare yourself to make the most out of the next day. 

How to Budget Time

Being productive also requires you to budget your time as efficiently as possible. You can not be productive at home without knowing how much time to spend on things and moving on to the next things. Use this as a guide on how to budget time at home and make the most out of your hours. 

1. Know What Your Priorities Are

You can not do everything in a single day. You have to complete things that are of the highest priority to you and then do the things that have lesser priority. Once you prioritize the important things, you can focus on them more. It will be much more beneficial if you just write down these things on a notepad. 

2. Allocate Time Brackets

Once you identify things that you must do on that day, the next task will be to lock them in time brackets. To be simple, lock works to specific hours and finish them within those hours. In this way, you can complete everything in their respective time brackets.

3. Review Your Day

These tips are very easy to give and hard to follow. You may have allocated only two hours for some task, and due to an unwanted thing, it took you three hours to complete. Then you were lagging behind your next job as well. This is a very common thing. So, what you want to do is note down the things that distracted you from your work and avoid them the next day. 

Conclusion

So, there you go. If you have come to this point of the article, we assure you that you’re now equipped with the best tips ever on how to utilize time at home. Save this post if you want so that you can come back at some later time to remember these. Now is the time for you to start applying these and make the most out of your days at home.

Frequently Asked Questions