We’re all learning how to navigate our jobs and personal lives in this new, socially-distant world. Working from home, homeschooling children, completely changing routines—life with coronavirus is uncharted territory. Our team has created and curated a huge list of ideas to help you and your family make the most of each day both personally and professionally.
On Your Own Time
This is the perfect opportunity to connect with family, learn something new, pick up a project that fell by the wayside, or simply add some much-needed levity and fun to your days. Here are some suggestions:
- Create a dinner rotation—each family member can choose a night and recipe to make. America’s Test Kitchen Kids has some great ideas for the younger ones.
- Teach your children new skills (e.g., does your son want to learn to mow the lawn to earn money?)—now is a great time.
- Establish an exercising/walking/dancing routine.
- Try new fitness routines like this one by Les Mills or this one from the YMCA. Even Peloton is offering a free 90-day trial.
- Start your spring cleaning now (put away winter clothes, donate toys, organize closets, etc.).
- Virtually explore new countries through music, museum tours, art, google street views, and recipes. For example: If you choose Spain, tour the Casa Batllo and Boqueria market Barcelona; listen to the Curious Kids Podcast about the Water Cycle, Spain, Perspectives, and Picasso; attempt to draw a face in the style of Picasso; listen to some Spanish guitar music; learn to play the Spanish game “Siete y Media;” then settle in and watch Ferdinand.
- Take virtual field trips with your children, including virtual museums like the famous Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
- Challenge yourself in some new way (e.g., use up most ingredients in your pantry before going to the store again).
- Make a donation to Feeding America, a local animal shelter, or local homeless shelter.
- Implement distance learning for children at home. There’s something for every age, and many sites are offering services free of charge right now. Try:
- If you’re homeschooling for the first time, here are some survival tips from the pros.
- Visit a zoo via webcams like this one. You can also adopt an animal at the zoo.
- Arrange virtual “dates” via Google Hangouts, a Zoom meeting, FaceTime, Skype, etc. These are good for kids and adults—there’s no reason you can’t enjoy a glass of wine virtually with your friend!
- Meditate or practice yoga daily.
- Spend time in nature—at a safe 6-foot distance, of course! (Walking, bike riding, gardening, hiking, geocaching…)
- Binge watch shows on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, Apple TV, Disney Plus, etc.
- Practice gratitude, especially on days you don’t feel like it.
- Pick a credible news source and stay informed, but otherwise limit your media consumption.
- Protect your immune system (eat healthy, whole foods, limit your sugar intake, get adequate sleep, laugh, dance, hug, and stay calm).
- Bake a cake or make ice cream. Pro tip for little kids: Premeasure all the ingredients so they get to just jump and stir. It will save your sanity!
- Plan fun at-home experiences. For example, invite family members to a pajama party—games, movies, popcorn… and don’t forget the blanket fort. You can also do scavenger hunts around the house.
- Deliver groceries for elderly or ill family and neighbors, or sign up a friend or elderly person for home meal delivery for a week or two. You can even use the recipes as a tool to teach kids basic meal prep. Check out Hello Fresh, Blue Apron, and Home Chef.
- Tackle home renovation and organization projects. The garage is calling!
- Reach out to a local retirement community and send notes to the seniors.
- Reconnect with old friends, and any family member or friend who may be isolated right now. Texts, emails, snail mail—we know it’s all appreciated.
- Go through old photos and finally make those photo albums. Or better yet, digitize everything!
- Discuss conservation—what it means, why it’s important, and how to do it at home.
- Start daily or weekly chores to support the family. Consider adding chores outside of normal responsibilities.
- Design a family board game, like Guess Who, but with pictures of family members.
- Have the kids call a grandparent and tell them what they learned that day. Or have kids come up with questions for grandparents and let them sit and listen to a story.
- Set up virtual story time with family or friends who can read a book to your kids every day. You can also listen to celebrities read stories—we’re all loving this.
- Create a schedule and post it. Everyone will benefit, and kids especially need structure and routine.
- Watch the entire Star Wars movie series. If you figure out which order is best, tell us!
- Make your resident Harry Potter fans happy with this Hogwarts digital escape room.
- Set up designated reading time.
- Listen to a podcast or three.
- Hold a family Olympics in the backyard—include every type of contest you can think of, from races to pie eating.
- Learn the parts of plants and flowers and how they function, then take inventory of the plants in your own backyard.
- Write short stories and illustrate them. Bonus if each member of your family contributes.
- Get kids moving with GoNoodle! It’s sure to be a hit.
- Kids love Lego, and will love visiting the Engineering Lego Club Activities, Lego Challenges, and STEM LAB Lego Cards sites.
- Make bird feeders and try to identify local birds.
- Check out resources for “kid chemistry.” Here are some fun experiments.
- Do a study on the planets in our solar system—how big they are, where they’re located, their conditions, their ability to sustain life, the length of their days and years—then have kids create their own.
- Go a step further and help NASA design a robot that can dig on the moon!
- Check out PuppetMaster, an app where you can animate anything from a drawing to a stuffed animal.
If you get through our list, here are 100 more things you can do while stuck inside.
On the Job
Nothing is status quo at the moment. Which is why we can benefit from thinking differently about our customers and the changing business landscape. Use the ideas below to support your career or company, or to help someone in your network.
- Put yourself in your clients’ shoes and consider the challenges they’re currently facing. Reach out and see if you can help.
- Be flexible. Understand that mindsets are a little off—while people may still be working, things aren’t necessarily business as usual.
- Offer some services for free if they’ll help others at this time. For example, a dance studio can record and offer online dance lessons. A chess club can hold virtual tournaments. Conferences can be offered as webinars.
- Send clear, empathic, resourceful emails. Stay in contact with your client base.
- Offer tele/virtual services.
- Don’t be afraid to temporarily rethink your business model to meet the demands of a rapidly changing climate. James Beard’s award-winning Canlis in Seattle has completely changed their offerings. Louis Vuitton owner LVMH is using its perfume production line to make hand sanitizer. How will you adapt?
- Use this opportunity to tackle low priority projects during the downtime.
- Revamp your website.
- Reach out to other businesses to see how you can help one another.
- Explore ways to diversify your offerings.
- Get organized.
- Assess and prioritize tasks daily.
- Learn new skills online.
- Organize a staff-volunteer group to help seniors or charity organizations.
- Allow staff to work from home (when possible) and put “flex hours” into place to benefit parents with kids at home.
- Add free delivery. Restaurants like Denny’s are doing well with this!
- Offer by-appointment-only services to allow for social distancing.
- If you’re a retailer, offer a virtual personal shopper (via Facetime, Skype, Google, etc.).
- Instead of fully cancelling an event, change the venue to an online webinar and offer a discount to attendees.
- If you’re a big business, consider sponsoring a small business to help them during tough times (e.g., help them deliver products to customers, have staff order at their restaurant, etc.).
- Donate to nonprofit organizations that may be hit hard (zoos, museums, arts organizations, etc.)
- Share resources with your customers to assist with finance, stress and anxiety, mental health and depression, low-cost healthcare, and emergency services.
- Let clients know how your business strategies are changing and how you can help them during this time.
Be safe, be well, and join us in trying to find the silver lining each day.
