My flatmate is returning back from home next week (hopefully no more flight cancellations…) and will be sending us both into quarantine for ten days. As much as I hate the thought of staying inside despite not actually having managed to travel myself, it had me wondering what I could do for ten days and thinking back to all the cool things I learned over the past year that did not involve leaving the house.

Anyways, if you too will be quarantining, here is a list of things I have done indoors this year or want to do in the upcoming time, hoping this might help give you some ideas.

• Languages – Over the past year I have been learning Dutch and I am getting pretty decent at it. With so many online resources, learning a new language is easier than ever and your choices are endless. An added bonus is being able to count my Netflix binging as educational just by switching the language.
• Cooking – A skill everyone should have, being stuck indoors is the perfect time to try new recipes, plus you will be able to wow others once bring a dish socials are back on.
• Fake travelling – Since we cannot actually travel much of anywhere, I have brought travelling into the flat. Adventure holiday? Climb the height of a specific hill on your stairs in full gear, cook dehydrated food on your stove out the window and camp in the living room. Prefer a chill holiday in Italy? Try cooking or ordering in some local food, watch a documentary or read up on the place you are pretending to go, see if you can find local traditions to replicate or explore the town you are visiting on street view. With flatmates and some creativity, this can turn out really fun, once you can leave the flat there are so many possibilities to add to this.
• Art/Music – Learn something new or work on something you already do, I have been painting and drawing but other possibilities would be instruments, singing, photography, filming or editing.
• Mending/altering clothes – Back in February I altered a dress for a ceilidh, this is such a useful skill to have, being able to find a great piece of clothing and perfecting it to be exactly what you want. I still have quite a lot of material from that dress and have a very specific dress I would love to own so I was thinking of attempting completely using my own design during the upcoming quarantine. On the topic of clothes, cleaning out your closet or trying pieces in different combinations can be a great way to pass time inside too.
• Workouts – I have spent way too much time this year doing indoor workouts this year, even though I do not care much for the actual core workouts they are a pretty useful way to pass time and I have definitely benefited from them for sports I actually enjoy. Of course it does not have to be straight up core or strength, one of my friends has been doing Disney themed dance workouts for example, so find something you enjoy. While you are at it remember to stretch too.
• Taking care of things – For me this was mostly doing a better job at bike maintenance and remembering to water all our plants, but you can easily adapt this to whatever is in your flat.
• Tricks – Learn something cool, the possibilities are endless and many things do not require too much space. Some ideas would be acrobatic skills, magic tricks or ball tricks but there are many more, I have been trying to track stand on the bike in our hallway (yeah my flatmate loves living with me).
• Documentaries/Podcasts – What you can learn is endless, of course less educational shows can be a pretty good way to spend time too.
• Employability/Degree related things – Practice whatever is relevant to you, this could be general things like brushing up your excel skills or trying to improve your writing or more specific things.
• Learn from/teach flatmates/friends – A great way to learn is from someone who knows their stuff so see about teaching each other skills one of you has. Another thing you could try is introducing each other to things you like, for example trying each other’s favourite music, food, tv shows, etc.