Finding ways to get rid of boredom
So, my friend Tiffany and I had a discussion last night about being bored. She says that she gets bored pretty often because she travels a lot and isn’t home. I thought about my own situation while I drove back up to Berkeley from San Jose, and realized that I am and have been pretty happy and most of the time un-bored, so I thought that maybe I could come up with a list of ways that I keep myself occupied and roll it out to other bored people out there.
1) Google Reader - For those of you who use Gmail, Google Reader is another awesome Google application that allows you to keep up with your day-to-day blogs and websites without having to spend the time to visit all of them because they take all the blogs and put them on one interface. If you want to visit the actual website, you can click from the reader and go directly to it, but it saves you time because it’ll show you when blogs have been updated or new news has been added. If you’re bored, just subscribe to a few blogs that you read or browse and find a few that you want to read, and it’ll keep you entertained for at least half an hour. Sometimes I get behind on my blog reading (I think I have at least 30 blogs subscribed) and can easily spend an hour sifting through entries that I haven’t read yet.
2) Blogging – Duh. Haha, in an effort to try to keep in touch with people that I don’t see very often without picking up the phone to call (it’s hard when you work 8am-9pm on some days) I have found blogging kind of a fun way to get news out about things that you find cool, things that you have been doing, or just getting ideas out there. I’ve set up my blog so that when I post, the posts are sent to Facebook as well, so that those who check Facebook more often can read if they choose to. It’s also a journal/diary of sorts since you’re keeping your thoughts in one place which you can eventually refer back to.
3) eBay, half.com, Bookmooch.com - I like browsing these sites every so often because eBay is my way of seeing how much things are valued at these days. It may seem like I’m always buying new technology, but really, I trade in things that I’ve used and use the money to upgrade. If you think about it this way, it’s kind of like renting a gadget for a year or two and then getting a new one. Let’s say I bought a digital camera for $175 and after using it for two years, I see one that is the same price but a newer model. I check on eBay and my current camera is being sold for $130, so if I sold it, I would have paid $45 to rent a digital camera for 2 years.
I browse half.com mainly for books that I see at bookstores and want to read, but don’t want to pay for a new book. Today, I went with my sister to Barnes and Noble and found about 10 books that I was interested in. I used my phone to take pictures of the covers of the books and came back home and looked for them online. Half.com has many sellers that have thousands of books in their inventory and I was able to find a seller that had a few books that I was interested in getting, which will save me money on shipping. I found a few books at $0.75 (shipping is usually about $3.49 a book via media mail) which is a steal compared to the $10+ that you would have paid at the bookstore. Of course, libraries are cheaper as well (i.e. FREE).
So, what do you do after you’ve read those books? Bookmooch them or put them back on half.com to sell. Selling books is easy on half.com and is a great way to get rid of old textbooks. I like Bookmooch because since the books that I’ve bought are paperback and not worth very much, putting them into my Bookmooch inventory allows me to trade it with others who may have a book that I would like to read.
4) Fantasy football - This makes Sundays and Mondays much more fun. Unfortunately I understand that not EVERYONE likes football, but to tell you the truth, I’m not really that into football either except for the fact that I’m playing fantasy football and I kind of want to win. You basically put together a team of players via a draft and you get points for how well your players do during their games for the week. I like it because there is no way to predict who is going to do well or what is going to happen, yet you can still do research and pick the better match-ups based on information that you can find. I’ve got a league going with my sister, my brother, his friends, and some of my friends so there are 10 teams in our league which makes it pretty fun. We use Yahoo Fantasy Football because it’s easy to set up and manage and is also free.
5) Stock market - I like to keep up to date with news on companies that I am investing in or can eventually invest in.
6) Read the news - seriously, I think we don’t do enough of this on a daily basis. I always browse, find a story, and then find another story connected to it, and so forth.
7) Twitter & facebook (reconnect with old friends) - a random message to someone you haven’t spoken to in awhile may make their day, or actually make yours. You could also take the time to stalk a few of your favorite celebrities on twitter.
Read a magazine or a book - (amazon usually has cheap magazine subscription rates) Blast back into the past (just kidding) and pick up some reading material. I have internet multi-tasking disorder which makes me feel like I need to be doing/keeping track of a million things at once. Doing some old-fashioned reading definitely makes you feel human again.
9) Organize your digital pictures/your music/your LIFE - You know you’ve been meaning to do it, NOW DO IT! haha, even just the folders on your computer.
10) Find someone whose day you can make happier – this one is on you.
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