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When our schedules are jam-packed with meetings and events, even the act of wasting time feels like a luxury. How often do you have time at home to spend at your will? How often do you prioritize self-care activities at home during your limited free time?
You can still be productive when you have things to do on a self-care day.
When you’re home with precious spare time, it’s easy to fall into the old, tired narrative of needing to “get things done.” But, if you can shift your perspective and look at your free time at home as an opportunity to engage in self-care, even the activities that feel like a chore will provide insight and meaning.
50 Productive Things To Do on a Self-Care Day:
- Video chat with friends and family
- Call your oldest family member and ask them about their childhood
- Arrange a virtual happy hour night with all of your best friends, and enjoy the night together
- Spend time with people that make you the happiest
- Indulge in your favorite self-care rituals
- Take a nap
- Practice a glam make-up look that makes you feel like your best self
- Thoroughly clean your make-up brushes
- Have an at-home spa day
- Work through every single step of your skincare routine
- Transform your mindset through answering self-reflection questions
- Set an intention for your day and practice mindfulness
- Unplug for an hour and reset
- Meditate, and relax in the stillness and peace
- Sit outside in the sunshine and soak up the Vitamin D
- Stretch
- Make a list of people, moments, and memories you’re grateful for
- Call those friends you haven’t spoken to in months. They want to hear from you!
- Practice patience and kindness with the people you live with
- Make a To-Do list full of tasks you know you are capable of accomplishing today. This way, you’ll feel satisfied, knowing you had a productive day!
- Order and safeguard all of your important passwords
- Organize and back up your computer files
- Manage old paper documents and scan to store the records you need to keep
- Organize your schedule by writing all of your upcoming events in a planner or online calendar
- Compile a folder with all of your financial information and vital documents, and create a budget
- Learn how to handle your finances for your long-term financial health like savings accounts, or your retirement plan
- Look through and understand your insurance policies
- Plan your next trip! To New York City, perhaps?
- Listen to music that brings you joy
- Read that book you’ve kept on your to-read list since last year
- Listen to a podcast on a subject you’ve wanted to learn about
- Catch up on your favorite TV series, or start a new one
- Cozy up on the couch and watch a movie you’ve been dying to see
- Do some virtual window-shopping on your favorite stores’ websites
- Practice a new skill, like learning a language, drawing, etc
- Get creative! Learn to paint, sew, draw, use a Cricut machine, write calligraphy, or learn a monologue. Stimulate your artistic mind!
- Journal. Write about you; your life, your thoughts, the state of the world.
- Create a vision board. What do you want to accomplish this week? This month? This year?
- Take a course online in a subject you’ve always wanted to study
- Plan out your meals for the week
- Try cooking a family recipe
- Bake something sweet that will make your whole kitchen smell delicious
- Stay hydrated and eat balanced, nutritional meals
- Clean the clutter spaces in your home
- Then, do the chores you’re always putting off, like vacuuming, washing the windows, mopping the floor, and worst of all – cleaning the bathroom
- Complete a home improvement project
- Purge your closet of all of the clothes you’re really never going to wear again
- Lace-up your sneakers, or roll out your yoga mat, and move your body
- Get outside and take a leisurely walk through your neighborhood
- Spend time reliving memories while compiling your favorite pictures into a photo book or scrapbook
It’s madness, absolute madness. Even when we have time to be productive, we get derailed, sucked into our digital worlds. Somehow, the day passes by, and by the end, you’re not quite sure what you did that day.
However, when you find yourself with an opportunity to step back, reset, and make changes for the better of your physical, mental, and emotional health, do it. Use your time wisely. Take advantage of this list of productive things to do on a self-care day, but above all – relax. You deserve it,
What are your favorite things to do on a self-care day?
