Skip to main content

How to use our time at home

Image
By
Suddenly we're spending a lot more time at home. Sometimes we're unsure what to do with our time.

We didn't choose for this to happen, but we can choose how we deal with it.

Shutdown Schedule

Daily planner for extra time at home
Here's my daily planner template. It's flexible so feel free to move things around and put other things in. The main idea is that it gives you a default activity to be doing at any given time.

Click the image for a larger version to download, and see below for more details.

Key Actions

I've designed this to give us the things we'll miss while being at home all the time.

Purpose

Find a project that you want to work on. Time will pass quicker if you're working towards a goal. There are some suggestions in the planner. You may have some of your own.

Joy

Events and activities have been cancelled, but we can make our own fun. I've included some time for playing (or listening to) music, playing games (I still love Uno) or watching a movie. You might choose doing art or looking back on old photos.

Social interaction

There are two prompts to call someone. Not a text, or an email - though you can do that too - but an actual phone call. The sound of someone's voice and physically having a conversation is good for us at this time.

Exercise

For mental exercise I've included an hour for a podcast or reading a book (here are my book reviews). There's two prompts to do physical exercise. It can be a run, if that's OK where you live, some frisbee in the backyard, a work-out in your garage or even gardening. The idea is to get some healthy movement into the day.

Project ideas

If you are taking up the decluttering and selling unwanted items, here's my guide to selling items online. An average household could make thousands. Having less stuff can also save you even more again. See how decluttering is currently saving us thousands.

If you're now schooling your kids at home, here a some handy resources:

Learning something new

It might be learning a new skill yourself, particularly if future income is looking shaky. Or it might be a good time to look at having less expenses. I recently did an article on how to waste a year's salary (do the opposite of that) and another on how I got a month's free electricity. Even really small savings can really add up over time.

All the best

Hope this helps you make the most of your time and to stay healthy. For email updates, you can subscribe here.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How to waste a year's wages

By
A friend recently asked me why it is that so many people (on good incomes) are struggling to save. Often the big three money areas are housing, transport and food. In one sense these are necessary items. But what we spend on them is often way more than necessary. I crunched some numbers on how much extra my wife and I could spend on these things - if for some reason we wanted to burn our money. 1. Housing Our apartment is fairly nice, but also cost-effective. I've mentioned how choosing it saves us $1,800 per year , compared to a similar one we saw. The high end of 2-bedroom apartments in our suburb is $305 per week more than our apartment. Not $305 per week. $305 per week more than ours is. I cannot get over that. Sure it's new and modern-looking, but that's a lot of money. It's an extra $15,860 per year above what we pay. 2. Transport The Australian Automobile Association lists the costs of owning and running a car. It includes many often-overlooked c
4 comments
Read more

Don't dump on charities

By
Netflix causes mass dumping. Here's an alternative. January is usually a big month for physical donations to charity. In 2019 it's been over-the-top (literally) as charity donation bins have been overflowing with items. The Netflix series "Tidying Up" by famous declutterer Marie Kondo (see her book ) has inspired many to declutter their homes. But in the process they've cluttered the streets. What's so bad about donating? When the bins overflow the extra items are thrown away. Having been in the weather, the rain and on the ground, they are classified as contaminated and cannot be sold. To make it worse, much of what fills the bins is not good enough to sell, and is also dumped. Bad donations hurt charities 13 million dollars. That's how much it costs charities to deal with all the junk we dump on them - 60,000 tonnes a year. Lifeline says half its stores have stopped accepting donations. We might think we're helping, but that's a lot
4 comments
Read more

This could all be yours

By
This cartoon kind of happened to me on the weekend. Joking about death My dad has his own unique sense of humour. Flippantly he joked that when he passes away, the first thing I'll need to do is get a rubbish skip (maybe two) and jam it full with all the junk from the garage. I was reminded of Marie Kondo, who says in her book that we have to deal with items either now or later; so it might as well be now. For people who have retired, I guess there's a third option: Ignore it for a few more decades and let descendants deal with it. Don't get me wrong - my dad has plenty of years left yet. But from his joke I'm guessing he's reasonably happy to let it all sit there while he enjoys retired life. Why not deal with it? I can kind of understand. It's an overwhelming task (even to look at). There's also the "I might need that" factor. Which is fair enough, but even if an item is needed, is it findable in amongst everything else? About half the
3 comments
Read more