We Don’t HAVE to Stay Home – We GET to Stay Home!

Tips and Ideas for Making a Lasting Impression at Home

It’s no secret, when we have the option to be out and about, traveling, going to work, visiting friends, etc., we take full advantage, swearing that one day, if we had the time, we would “fill in the blank.”

Well, folks, that time is now.

Great Ideas to Effectively Use Your Time at Home

How cool is it that we get to take full advantage of this “forced home time” not only to check things off our honey-do list, but also effectively use this time to make a difference.

We created a list of ideas for things you can do from home to lift your spirits and make a lasting impact on your world and the world around you.

1. Organize: Clean out your closets, attics, basements, garages, and sheds. Keep what you love, toss the trash and donate the rest (after you’ve cleaned it, please).
2. Work Together: Turn off the TV and game sets, sit your family down, and play a board or card game. Color together, complete a challenging jigsaw puzzle. Working on a project or playing a game brings people together.
3. Stay Connected: Download “Words with Friends” and challenge your friends to a wicked game of SCRABBLE. We need to stay connected!
4. Teach the Younger Generation: Stay relevant with the younger folks (teach them the value of a dollar!) in your home while pulling out an oldie, but goodie! Play the “Price is Right” game via Amazon, eBay, or Craigs List.
5. Learn a Heritage Skill: Now’s your chance to learn a valuable craft like sewing, woodwork, crochet, knitting, soap making, or gardening. Then you can display, give as a gift, or donate the fruits of your labor to make a friend or loved one smile.
6. Take Virtual Tours: There are some tremendous virtual tours available for you to explore a museum you’ve always wanted to visit. Check it out online then plan your next trip to see it in person!
7. Think “Holidays”: Everyone is always pressed for time around the holidays. Start crafting personalized ornaments and gifts now to avoid the hectic holiday season. Heck, pull out the artificial tree now and start the celebration early. Or take it down, if you’ve been busy. Wink. Wink.
8. Travel Virtually: Google maps allows you to explore the streets of your dream vacation destination without leaving your house. Take notes on what inspires you and call your travel advisor to help you book a trip! Whatever you do, keep on traveling!
9. Try a New Layout: Move the furniture around in your house. Fung Shei your worries and negative energy away.
10. Rock It: Why not start a family band? Compose a song that best reflects your tribe and post it on YouTube or social media! Who doesn’t love an emerging rock band?
11. Stay Safe: Check and change the batteries in your smoke alarms. It’s best to use the ‘TEST’ button for predictability versus burning one of those new recipes your tackling.
12. Get Formal: Have a fancy night at home! Get all dressed up like your attending the Met Gala or formal night on a cruise ship!
13. Try a New Do: Try different hairstyles and updo’s using YouTube as your teacher. Or for the men, get crazy with that facial hair. Can anyone say, “Handlebar Moustaches?
14. Sing and Dance: Ask Alexa to play something from your favorite music era. Get up and dance, sing along. And why not sing loud and proud? Download the lyrics and discover how far off you’ve been all these years!
15. Reminisce: Pull out those photo albums, yearbooks, memory boxes, polaroids, videos from the attic, basement, and buried in the back of your closets (you can find them now). Flip through them, recall every vacation, special event, announcement, and share the stories with your loved ones.
16. Focus on Your Goals: Develop a family mantra or mission statement. You can have these printed try The Simple Stencil
17. Exercise Your Grey Matter: Challenge yourself and your mind with brain teasers, crossword puzzles, or sudoku. Order them online and have them shipped right to you!
18. Catch Up on Film Classics: Work your way through the American Film Institute Top 100 films of all time.
19. Perfect Your Business: If you’re an entrepreneur, get the kids involved in helping you run the business. Assign them roles, give them titles, and reward them with feedback and praise. Imagine how they will view their future if you take the extra step and order them business cards! Vistaprint is your friend here.
20. Reconnect: Call your friends that you see in some of your most favorite memories. Reconnect with them and recall good times together.
21. Seize the Moment: Post your favorite moments on social media. #memories
22. Hold Hands: If you have a spouse or significant other, sit on the couch together and hold hands, not your phones.
23. Enjoy Your Furbabies: If you’ve got furry friends, take time to play with them, pet them, or even just talk to them. They are AWESOME stress relievers!
24. Pick Up a Book: Read one of the hundreds of books you’ve been meaning to get to or re-read one of your favorite books.
25. Be Moved: Watch movies and TV shows that move you and help you to focus on the good things in life.
26. Expand Your Lingual Horizons: Now is a great time to learn a new language! When we get out of this, we’re all going to TRAVEL again! Be ready.
27. Remind Yourself: If you journal, go back to your old ones. Find the entries where you may have been challenged in the past and discover what courage, strength, and resources you tapped into to get you through. I bet it works again.
28. Start Journaling: If you don’t journal, then now’s a good time to start. These are unprecedented times, and you’ll benefit from recalling how you handled this scenario.
29. Look to a Greater Power: Read Scripture, books, or whatever supports your faith. If you don’t have one, study a philosopher. It is proven that believing or relying on something greater than yourself brings comfort in tough times.
30. Be Charitable: Find a non-profit in which you can immerse yourself. Since you can’t volunteer in person, call and find out what you can do and adopt them as your signature charity for the year.
31. Get Takeout: Order food from a local restaurant at least once a week.
32. Stretch Yourself: Master a challenging Yoga pose, then have your travel advisor plan a yoga retreat for you later this year to show off your stuff!
33. Support Local: When you find yourself in need of anything, first check online to see if there is a small business in your area that carries it and give them your business. After all, small business is the backbone of America.
34. Dust of That Pen and Paper: We can still connect and be supportive even while practicing social distancing. Send a letter to your neighbors, even the ones you don’t know. Let them know you’re there for them if they need you. It’s easy to find your neighbors online.
35. Clean Up Your Social Life: Go on a social media purge. Stay connected with the kind folks that bring you joy, make you laugh, and genuinely care about you. You know what to do with the others. #byebye
36. Check on Others: Scroll through your contacts and call someone you haven’t spoken to for a while. Check in on them and catch up, especially those that are alone. They will need you now more than ever.
37. Connect Via Video: Get comfortable with FaceTime, Skype, or Zoom. There is no stronger connection than hearing and seeing someone’s face. Host a neighborhood “get together” or read a book to a niece or nephew. We crave connection, and this helps a lot!
38. Get That Blood Flowing: Dust off that old Jane Fonda or Richard Simmons workout tape or discover more current workouts online and get a living room workout going. Endorphins, baby!
39. Put on Your Apron: Get in the kitchen and learn to cook something new or even make up your own recipe.
40. Train a Chef: It’s proven: we bond around food. Teach someone in your home to cook something. You’ll have fun, feel connected, and you’ll get to eat something yummy!
41. Start Planning: Most of us have had our vacation “stolen” from this darn virus. Now’s the time to plan your next big or little adventure. Call a Travel Advisor – they are experts in this area.
42. Clean the Fridge: and go ahead and throw out the one-time use condiment that expired three years ago.
43. Get Rid of Dust-Bunnies: Clean out the lint behind your dryer, pull out the refrigerator and stove to clean behind and under them. You’ll be amazed at how accomplished you’ll feel after doing this. Plus, you’re not going to have time to do this later when we’re all back to work and traveling. ☺
44. Clean, Clean, Clean: Wash your windows, curtains, tablecloths, and wipe down the ceiling fans, blinds, and walls. There’s nothing like a sparkling clean home to make you feel better!
45. Tackle the Dreaded Junk Drawer: We’ve all got at least one. Clean it out and re-organize it! You’ll feel so much better.
46. Delete Unwanted Pictures: Photo-purge your phone. Delete all the fuzzy pics, duplicates, and “where was this?” photos. Then group the images you keep into albums and tag them. You’ll be grateful that you did this. If it’s too overwhelming or you get confused, connect with org. These incredible small business owners will do it for you or help you do it!
47. Sing On Key or Off: Conduct a family Karaoke night using YouTube. There is talent in that crew of yours. Now you’ve got time to uncover it!
48. Identify Through Tunes: Create your own Spotify or Amazon music Playlist that best represents YOU and rock out!
49. Remember Some Good Times: Look up and listen to the Billboard Top 100 from pivotal years in your life like your High School Graduation, the year you got married, the year you were born, the years your kids were born, or when your parents got married. Pick your top 3 from each year and share them with others.
50. Record Your Family Tree: Interview an older relative and write down a living history of your family for your kids and grandkids. Determine if there is a city, country, restaurant, national park, beach, or mom and pop restaurant your loved ones yearn to visit again and start planning that trip now.
51. Grow Your Vocabulary: Challenge yourself to learn one new word per day. Try to use it that day and then again three days later. Bonus points if you can use it in a positive comment and share it with others.
52. Get Creative: Solve a mad lib and have your family turn it into a play to perform on Facebook live for friends and family. You can also record it on your phone to send it directly to friends and family.
53. Immerse Yourself in Cinema: Watch the Best Picture Movie and your favorite movie from pivotal years in your life. Have a house vote on which one is the best.
54. Be Artistic: Have everyone in the family either draw or paint a family portrait, then turn it into a digital collage for this year’s holiday card.

It’s Time to Rearrange Your Thinking

As scary, unnerving, and downright frustrating this moment in time is, if we can take one proactive action to enhance ourselves and surrounding relationships, imagine the longterm effects of doing just one or two of the suggestions on our list? There’s no reason we have to feel like this is wasted time, or focus on the fact that we HAVE to stay home. Try to rearrange your thinking and think, “we GET to stay home.” You GET to make memories together as a family. You GET to reconnect. You GET this time to organize and tackle tasks you’ve thought about getting to for years.

These are just a few ideas we came up with.