Originally I decided to take a break from my blog, and then I realized I have nothing to do. If you’re bored like me, here are some interesting and productive things to do during lockdown.
Move a chair into the backyard, watch the lazying clouds, and drift into reverie
Often times, modern city life moves too fast, and seems too ordered. Everyone's in a rush to get somewhere, and catching up with old friends in a coffee shop even needs to be scheduled a week in advance, god forbit someone has a club meeting to go to, or an exam to study for. And don't get me started on the 40 hour working weeks. Why is it that when we have machines aiding us, we spend even more time working? This Ted Talk goes into more depth about this idea, and provides a unique perspective on rural vs city life.
So now is the perfect time to slow down, lay down the alarm clock and put away the calendars; and instead, lay down on the grass, listen to the birds' song, and admire the hardworking ants carrying food bits as treasure to and fro.
But if that's not really your thing, here are 9 other things to do...
Make an excel sheet of your budget/spendings this past year or for next year
Back when I was in highschool, I would just spend all my tutoring money on getting bubble tea or going out to eat, without knowing how much I earned or how much I spent. And that turns into a big black hole of money, where money mysteriously disappears with you not knowing where it went. And the solution is having an excel sheet or budgeting tool.
Now I do not record all of my spendings immediately. Instead, I spent 1 afternoon recently going through all my past credit card bills and debit card history to piece my yearly spendings together. The purpose of this is having a transparent record of where your money is going, and avoiding that black hole of mysterious and evaporated money. Furthermore, you can try to make adjustments to your spendings, for example, I should probably eat out less and make more food at home. I recommend doing this on a monthly or quarterly basis, which would provide more feedback and chances of re-adjustment.
Set some goals for the long haul
I really enjoyed Stephen Dunier’s Ted Talk, How to Achieve Your Most Ambitious Goals.
As a highschool senior, I always wondered why my peers had these executive positions in clubs, or were very involved in a volunteer society, etc. I was more of a skipper, meaning I showed up to the first meeting/volunteer session and then never again. Determined to kill this habit in university, I started making a few goals for the year, like join a design team or get a job. And it actually helped me stick to things.
Read up on personal finance, stocks and investing
A lot of people might think that trading stocks is like gambling or playing a game, where you try to predict when the stock is at its lowest to “buy the dip”. In fact, that was what I thought at first as well. Yet the stock market is so very different than that. If you look at the long term projection of the stock market, you’ll see that stocks always go up, and that the market always recovers from, and outgrows crashes or depressions given enough time1. So accordingly, one should invest in an index fund, which mimics the performance of the overall stock market (by including shares of many different companies), and leave the money in the market for an extended period of time. Then, we can be sure that our money will grow into more money.
What about savings accounts? Taking account that the annual inflation rate is around ~3%, whereas a high interest savings account only gives you ~1-3%, money in a savings account will barely outgrow inflation. An investment of “80% weighting in stocks and a 20% weighing in bonds has provided an average annual return of 9.5%, with the worst year -40%”. Again, one shouldn’t be intimidated by the -40%, since the market always goes up in the long haul.
However that being said, there is definitely risk nevertheless. And this risk is dependent on how long you can put the money in the stock market. If you decide that you need the money before the market overcomes a bad depression, then you may lose money. So a lot of people invest in different weightings of stocks/bonds based on their age (bonds are less riskier, but provide less return long-term wise). John Boggle, the founder of the Vanguard Group and creator of the world's first retail index mutual fund, recommends your "roughly your age in bonds"; for instance, at age 45, about 45% of the portfolio should be allocated to high-quality bonds. This video series provide an excellent intro to the stock market (one of my first financial readings), and details his investment philosophy.
Clean the house
Who knows what treasures are buried in that closet, or tucked away in the garage? This is also a good time to burn those notes from your last term of school. Although the universe always tends toward entropy, some kind of order and cleanliness really improves the living environment.
Make food
Being able to make some simple and healthy dishes that taste good had such a big impact on my life. In 2nd year, I lived on my own outside of campus, and had a kitchen. In the first term, I didn’t really know how to cook, and only made basic food (like stir fry bok choy and microwaved cheese on bread). I thought I didn’t have (1) time to cook and (2) skills to make good-tasting food. So I either ate campus food (which wasn’t that good either), or my own cooking. I got really sick of what I ate, so much that I bought a lot of junk food, and even had mochi and crab stick chips for dinner one day.
During winter break, I stumbled upon a youtube channel full of really delicious food. And since I had more time in the second semester, I spent more time finding good recipes and cooking. And I felt totally different compared to term 1. I even didn’t have the urge to eat any snacks or chips because I made pretty good food anyways. Cooking at home not only saves money, but leads you to eat healthier.
Plan out your courses/academic year plan
Before you say it, yes I’m a big fan of planning and spreadsheets. Plus, time at university actually flies by, so planning out your timeline + things to do (like internships, exchange, research) is a good idea.
Do something active:
Now that summer is near, and the weather is better, why not go outside and enjoy the nice fresh air? Go outside for a jog, throw some frisbees, or go for a bike ride.
A Twitch streamer that I like to watch once said that people who exercise may live longer, but poeple who don't exercise have the same amount of time alive because they are actually using exercise time to do other things. Obviously this is flawed logic, since exercising improves your quality of life, and sports are pretty fun too.
If you have some dumbells at home, you can consider working out at home. And if you're new to this, you might find this guide useful.
Undertake a coding project
If you’re in the software discipline, creating a personal project seems almost obligatory. But if you haven’t coded before, this could be a fun little project you can make while learning new things and potentially helping you in your career.
For those with elementary programming skills or just starting out, I would recommend learning a language first, either on Youtube or some other online course. Then, you could possibly follow a tutorial on Youtube in that language in whatever you want to build (e.g., a game, a website, etc). They would take you through downloading all the right tools, and then building the actual project. However, once you follow through a few of these, and know how to set up/run a project, building your own thing is a great idea. This would provide a better learning opportunity rather than following a tutorial step-by-step.
If you’re interested in web development, I personally followed the Odin Project for a while, and it was really cool. They direct you to helpful resources that help you learn the language and set up a Linux system, while providing projects with structure but letting you build it yourself.
In regards to languages, I recently stumbled across this reddit post. If you’re not familiar with JavaScript, Java, C/C++ or python, you could always start there, since these are pretty basic and broadly used. For my summer project, I am planning to make “an application that is backend Java, has frontend JavaScript, connects to a database using SQL, with some test being in either Maven or Jenkin or Junit”, and “[use] AWS and deploy it to the cloud”, as well as an educational game in C++ using Cocos2d-x. I will definitely make an update once it's completed.
Call people
Since everyone’s at home bored too, might as well give them a call.
