How to Waste Time at Home while Bored
By Joan Whetzel
Everybody who shares a house or apartment with others enjoys have the place to themselves from time to time. But what do you do with all that space and time to yourself when you are bored out of your mind, and your kids are at summer camp or your roommates won’t be home from vacation or a business trip for days? There’s plenty of ways to waste time and alleviate the boredom, without doing anything illegal, immoral, or unethical.
- Clean House You heard me! Clean your room, the kitchen, the bathroom. Dust in those areas that haven’t seen a duster in awhile. Mop the floor. You’ll feel a sense of accomplishment for having done it.
- Clean Up Your Computer Well, as long as you’re in a cleaning mood, why not remove all those unused desktop icons and folders? Do a virus scan, a disk clean up, and a defrag. Go through all your computer files and get rid of all that outdated stuff that you no longer need or want (why did you save that anyway?) and update those that you’ve been meaning to update for the last year or so.
- Veg-Out in Front of the TV Watch all the TV shows you always wanted to watch but didn’t because you couldn’t get hold of the remote. Watch some really bad movies. Since your kid free, you can even watch some of those R-rated movies that you can put on when the kids are around.
- Read Turn off everything but your reading light. If it’s cold out, light a fire in the fireplace, then just snuggle under a blanket and read. You even get to stay up all night finish those last few chapters.
- Play Computer Games This is another one you can stay up all night for. The light from the screen won’t bother anybody and the noise won’t keep anybody awake.
- Play In the Yard Go out and swing on the kids’ swing set. Roller skate or jump rope in the drive way. Draw pictures with sidewalk chalk.
- Play with Your Pets The cat or dog will love the extra time and attention.
- Eat Junk food is a great time waster. The more the better. Diet??? You can always start that next week, right? Alright, if you insist on eating healthy, you can waste lots and lots of time in the preparation of those healthy foods. It takes a lot longer to marinate and grill a chicken breast than it does to nuke a grilled chicken TV dinner. So go for it.
- Update Your Phone Book Does anybody besides me keep a handwritten phone book anymore? I keep it more for the addresses than anything else. Besides, when other people in my family want to know someone’s address, they know where to find my address/phone book. So, I update it from time to time.
- Take a Nap Isn’t it funny how, as you get older, the word “nap” ceases to be a dirty word, something to be avoided at all costs. Now you have permission to waste time sleeping in the middle of the day. If you have a hammock out back, even better.
- Take a Long Hot Shower or Bubble Bath Yeah, you get to waste time AND water with this one. Go for it. Light some candles, pour yourself a glass of wine (only if you are of legal drinking age) or a cup of cocoa, and steam up the bathroom.
- Learn Card a Few Tricks or Magic Tricks You’ll have something to show for your wasted time when your family or roommates get back from wherever they went. See, it wasn’t a complete waste of time, you learned something useless.
- Scan the Internet Look at anything you’ve always wondered about. Avoid anything to do with work. Only look for G-rated amusement – well maybe some PG or PG13 entertainment as well.
- Call Your Friends If your friends or far off relatives have time to talk, this is a great way to waste time. You have a lot of free time on your hands, so why not spend it gabbing away with someone you care about. Plus you aren’t really wasting time if you’re catching up.
- Listen to Music Turn on the stereo and play your favorites. You know, the artists and songs everyone else hates. Close the blinds or curtains and have fund dancing while you’re at it. Of course, if you don’t mind whether the neighbors can see you cutting the rug, then leave the blinds or drapes open.
- Play Solitaire Pull out that deck of cards that’s been collecting dust and play solitaire. If you don’t know any games, go online. There are rules for many card games all over the place.
- Exercise Pull out those exercise DVDs you’ve meaning to use since you made that New Year’s Resolution to lose weight. Work out, baby!
These are plenty more time wasters out there. If you can think of any more, please feel free to let me know about them.
