#9 Getting bored...? No excuses

Mar 29, 2020

Happy Sunday, 29 March 2020

😮yaaaawn — OK… so it looks like it’s not just me who is guilty of getting a little bored being stuck indoors all day. Google Trends shows it’s now becoming a worldwide trend. So I’m here to show you that we have no excuses! :)

Of course we all know why we all need to stay at home and no one’s looking to make light of what’s unfolding around us, but seeing as we all know that this feeling isn’t going away any time soon, let’s take a minute to look for the SL* in ‘being bored’.

Boredom is both a warning that we’re not doing what we want to be doing, and a push that motivates us to switch goals and projects.

🤔 New hobbies are booming

People in the UK are finding new hobbies and using this time to educate themselves, master new skills, and spend more time together.

📈Projects for parents & children — check out Cardbored Kids facebook group by Jude Pullen (that’s him above with David Jason on Channel 4’s Great British Inventions),

Jude is a former Dyson engineer, Super-Dad and a good friend of mine who is sharing his endless knowledge of fun projects that you can do with your children, using limited tools and stuff lying around your house (or the recycling bin!)

From Willow whistles to T-Rex masks, even how to build vertical LEGO cities at bath time!

Jude’s latest video is a how-to make your own hot wheels ramps using cardboard and coffee stirrers — genius.

📈 Education — online education is finally having it’s moment and there are almost endless places to watch and learn from online these days — from YouTube to TED.com, Linkedin Learning to Skillshare — look out for more on this in a future SL*

📈 Gardening — Guardian has a good piece on gardening in a time of crisis — YouTube is your best place for inspiration to get green-fingered, here are some to get you started — Charles Dowding, MIGardener and Dr. Surja Prakash Agarwala from West Bengal, India (seriously this man is a gardening wizard!).

📈 Baking — Wired reports there is a stay-at-home ‘bread-boom’ happening, and if like me and you can’t find yeast ANYWHERE right now you’ll be thankful that US Today has written this guide to baking bread without yeast!

And check out Brad Leone and the gang at Bon Appetite for some amazing how-to videos on baking your own bread.

💤 💥 Boredom leads to creativity

What are sports commentators doing while there is no sport?

Andrew Cotter might have been better know for his commentary of BBC golf, rugby, tennis, athletics and the Oxford Cambridge Boat Race, but he’s just hit SIX MILLION VIEWS in the last 24hrs(!!) with his boredom-fuelled video commentating on his dogs having their lunch!

Andrew Cotter @MrAndrewCotter

I was bored.

I know some of you might recognise Nick Heath from SL* #6 Reasons to be cheerful, but seeing as he’s now fast becoming a global sensation I thought I’d include him again, I mean now he’s just been featured in the New York Times for goodness sake!

FootballJOE @FootballJOE

“Some of the most humbling responses have been frontline workers saying ‘you made me laugh for the first time today.’” With sport cancelled across the world, commentator @nickheathsport has earned tens of thousands of followers for his brilliant #LifeCommentary videos.

🤲 Boredom leads to greater altruism

Aimlessness when you’re bored makes you question your life as a whole, but the SL* here is it can also trigger us all to think of others and what we can do to help them — helping to give us a sense of purpose when it feels like we’re all lacking one.

Did you know? Studies have even shown that people who are bored are more likely to donate their money, time and, believe it or not, their blood — something the NHS are keen for us all to keep doing during the crisis.

🚨 If you only click one link in this newsletter… CLICK THIS 🚨

This is a list of groups that are popping up across the UK to help those most vulnerable during the current crisis – CLICK IT and just keep scrolling and scrolling, it never seems to end. * Faith in humanity restored *

🥘 SWAT team

I used to work on The Strand in Central London and would often pass by the Sikh Welfare Awareness Team (aka SWAT) once or twice a week giving out free food to lines of hundreds of homeless people on the street.

Now they are also delivering food to hospital staff around the capital :)

David B🇿🇦🏳️‍🌈🇪🇺 @DDoNDB

Lovely donation of food from Nishkam Sikh Welfare Awareness Team @NishkamSWAT THANK YOU for support our teams.

📱 Can you see me now… can you see now?

Let’s be honest, about a week ago none of us would have bet that our parents would have picked up video calls quite so quickly, right?

But one week later and we’re all on Facetime, Zoom, HouseParty and Skype — keeping our family & friends in good spirits while we are all separated, thank goodness for technology that lets us all connect so easily.

For anyone struggling to explain how to do video calls with parents or grandparents, the BBC has created this simple guide.

♖♟️ Grandma-ster

Harvard Medicine have written a useful guide for grandparenting in these strange times — some ideas include reading bedtime stories, sharing meal times and playing games together, like chess online.

𝗗𝗿. 𝗶𝗿 𝗝𝗼𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗲𝘀 JD 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗼𝗴𝗵𝗮𝗮𝗴 @DrJDrooghaag

🔵 Grandson and Grandfather playing chess on #Facetime ❤️ #StayHome #StayHomeSaveLives @Dahl_Consult @AkwyZ @Dkell999 @Fabriziobustama @fogle_shane @treasadovander @loveGoldenHeart @mvollmer1 @NutritiousMind @Victoryabro @JohnMaynardCPA via @nowthisnewsm

💙 An army of volunteers 💙

Over 700,000 people have now answered the call to volunteer to help support the NHS — starting next week they will start to be mobilised across the country to help as Community Response volunteers - Patient Transport volunteers - NHS Transport volunteers and Check-in and Chat volunteers.