4 Ways to Occupy Your Time During Social Distancing

4 Ways to Occupy Your Time During Social Distancing

(HealthyResearch.com) – COVID-19 is changing how many of us live. People are being furloughed from work, working from home or learning online instead of going to the campus. We’re spending free time at home. Social distancing has closed restaurants and clubs.

Fortunately, technology provides ways to keep busy and have fun — even if you’re inside and alone. The internet provides a wealth of activities, so let’s look at some ways you might occupy yourself while you distance yourself.

1. Virtual Museum Tours

Good Housekeeping compiled a list of over 30 places that offer virtual tours. Here’s your chance to explore the inside of museums you might not have seen in real life. You can see the Ford’s Theatre Museum where President Lincoln was shot. You might choose to visit The Louvre without standing in lines or waiting for tour groups. There are plenty of other famous museums on the list, including the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and The Vatican Museum.

2. Virtual Amusement Park Tours

There’s a haunting beauty and a sense of eeriness to an empty, still amusement park. It’s an awesome sight, and you can see it for yourself because GoogleEarth offers 10 fantastic theme parks that you can tour virtually and they are currently free of visitors.

3. Learn a New Language

Have you ever wanted to learn to speak Spanish to help you get ahead in your job? Or maybe you always dreamed of speaking French or Italian. Duolingo is offering free language classes in the following languages: Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Dutch and Japanese.

If you already know a little bit of a language, you can test out of the beginning levels and start at the level you know. Another advantage to Duolingo is that you can learn for as little as 5 minutes per day up to an hour or more — you choose based on the time you have available and the speed at which you want to learn.

4. Take Free College Classes Online

Big-name universities like Harvard, Stanford, Duke University and Penn State are offering free courses, or certificates of completion for a small fee, in a multitude of subjects and topics. There are even international studies available from Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and more. These classes are offered for varying durations, depending on the class, but most run about 6-7 weeks, and you get an actual grade or a pass/fail after your final exam.

These classes can keep you busy, may be fun and educational, and can be used on your resume or on job applications to help show additional education credits. Several of these classes offer continuing education credits needed for jobs that require CEUs for licensure, such as teaching and nursing. Coursera.org collaborates with over 190 colleges and universities that offer special programs during the COVID-19 pandemic and has been around since 2012, providing almost a decade of continuing education experience on the internet at little to no cost.

You might be stuck inside the house during social distancing, but that doesn’t mean you have to be bored. These activities might help keep you busy and take your education and knowledge to a whole new level. Who knows? After the pandemic is over, you might come out of this with new skills and abilities that will make you more valuable as an employee. And in addition to potentially saving your sanity, some of these virtual activities are fun.

~Here’s to Your Health & Safety!

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