Things to Do When Bored
One small, doable idea at a time, for a slow afternoon on your own or with a friend.
- Time
- 10–30 min
- Players
- One or more people
- Best for
- Slow weekends, lunch breaks and quiet evenings
- Deck
- 150 ideas in 6 categories
How to use these things to do when bored
- Pick a category from the menu under the card, or keep “All categories”.
- Read the idea on the top card. If you can do it right now, put the phone down and go and do it.
- Swipe the card away, or tap “Next idea”, for another. Ideas do not repeat until you have seen the whole category.
- Tap the heart to save an idea on this device, or tap “Make a 10-idea list” for a list to keep for the next slow weekend.
When to pick something to do
Boredom is often just not knowing where to start. One card gives you a small, specific thing to do with what is already around you, so the afternoon gets going.
A slow Sunday at home
At home and Creative turn an empty afternoon into a sorted spice rack, a matchbox beach or a jar of quick pickles.
A lunch break with time to spare
Five-minute fixes and Learn something fit between meetings: a two-finger whistle, a coin walked across your knuckles, every pencil in the house sharpened.
A friend over and no plan
With a friend and Outdoors give the two of you something to do right away, from a thumb wrestling final to a walk down a street you have never turned down.
Ways to use these ideas
Draw one and do it
Make a rule before you swipe: whatever the first card says, you do, unless it truly cannot be done right now. Allow yourself one skip, no more. Most of the boredom goes away in the first minute of doing something, whatever it is.
A list for a slow weekend
On a Friday evening, tap “Make a 10-idea list”, copy it onto paper and stick it to the fridge. Cross off each idea as you do it over the weekend, and keep the list going until the page is full.
Pick for each other
With a friend or a housemate, take turns with the phone: swipe through any category and secretly choose one card for the other person. Read both out, then do them back to back.
Tips for a bored afternoon
- When you cannot decide, start with Five-minute fixes. One small job finished is often all it takes to start a bigger one.
- Match the category to your energy: Outdoors or With a friend when you feel restless, At home or Creative when you feel slow.
- Keep a small box of basics handy, like paper, tape, string, scissors and a pencil. Most Creative cards need nothing more.
All 150 things to do when bored by category
The complete list, grouped by category. The cards above draw from the same list, so you can read ahead here and pick there.
At home
Small jobs and odd little projects that make a slow afternoon at home feel useful.
- Sort the spice rack, sniffing each jar, and toss any that have lost their smell.
- Test every pen in the house and keep only the ones that write first try.
- Empty your bag completely and put back only what you used this week.
- Pair up every loose sock in the house and turn the true orphans into dust cloths.
- Fold your T-shirts into upright rows so you can see every one when the drawer opens.
- Mix a jar of your own taco seasoning and write today’s date on the lid.
- Quick-pickle a sliced red onion in vinegar and sugar, ready to eat within the hour.
- Stand green onion roots in a glass of water on the windowsill and watch them regrow.
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- Balance an avocado pit on toothpicks over a glass of water and wait for a root.
- Roast a tray of chickpeas with whatever spices you have until they crunch like chips.
- Clear the fridge door of old sauces and wipe each shelf until it shines.
- List everything in the freezer and stick the list to the door for next week’s meals.
- Take everything off one shelf, dust it, and put back only what you would miss.
- Cut a cardboard box into small trays and finally sort out the junk drawer.
- Line up every mug you own and pick the three you would keep.
- List ten dinners you can cook without a recipe and tape it inside a cupboard.
- Read a chapter in the one spot at home where you never sit, like the stairs.
- Set up a tea or coffee corner on one tray, with your favorite cup always ready.
- Bake a half batch of muffins with whatever fruit in the bowl needs eating soon.
- Pile up the books you own but have not read, and choose the next one.
- Fill one small tin with thread, needles, safety pins and spare buttons for quick repairs.
- Tour your home like a first-time visitor and fix the first small thing that bugs you.
- Write neat labels for every jar and container in the kitchen that still has none.
- Wipe down every light switch and doorknob in the house, counting them as you go.
- Mix a big jar of dry pancake batter so a weekend breakfast takes only one step.
Creative
Make something with paper, a pen, your voice or whatever is in the junk drawer.
- Write a one-page story that begins with the last sentence you read today.
- Write a six-word story about this morning, then five more about the rest of your week.
- Rewrite a nursery rhyme as a breaking news report, with a headline on top.
- Black out most of an old magazine page until only a short poem is left.
- Build a tiny beach inside a matchbox with sand, a shell and a paper umbrella.
- Design a postage stamp that shows off the best thing about your town.
- Paint on paper with leftover coffee or tea and see what shapes the stains suggest.
- Tear scraps of colored paper into a mosaic of a fish, a sunset or a pear.
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- Write a museum label for an ordinary object at home: its name, date, material and story.
- Invent a new word, write its definition and slip it into three sentences.
- Draw a flip book in a notebook corner: one ball, bouncing across forty pages.
- Make up a secret alphabet and write your grocery list in it.
- Letter a sign for your front door in big bubble letters, then color it in.
- Hang a mobile from a coat hanger with shapes cut from old cereal boxes.
- Write the first page of a mystery set entirely in your own kitchen.
- Weave strips of paper in two colors into a checkerboard placemat.
- Cut a potato in half, carve a simple shape and stamp a pattern across plain paper.
- Squeeze aluminum foil into a small animal and stand it on the windowsill.
- Invent a superhero whose only power is something tiny, like never losing a sock.
- Turn the front of an old greeting card into a bookmark with a ribbon tail.
- Hand-sew a small pouch from an old shirt sleeve to hold keys or earbuds.
- Build a robot from the recycling bin out of boxes, lids and bottle caps.
- Write a fable starring two things on your kitchen counter, with a moral at the end.
- Compose a jingle for the toaster or the kettle and sing it at every use.
- Photograph twenty things around you that share one color and arrange them in a grid.
Outdoors
Walks, small missions and things to notice within a short trip of your front door.
- Walk to the end of a nearby street you have never once turned down.
- Spell your name in letters you find outdoors: a bent branch, a crack, a gate.
- Walk downtown looking above the shop signs, at the carvings, dates and faded painted ads.
- Look down for once and photograph every different manhole cover on a half-hour walk.
- Pick a color and count every front door painted it on a walk around the block.
- Plan a walk on a map that traces a giant star, then go and walk it.
- Explore the one park you have only ever passed on your way somewhere else.
- Walk the whole outer edge of the biggest park nearby, never cutting across.
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- Kick one small stone the whole way around the block without losing it.
- Take a magnifying glass to an old stone wall and study the moss up close.
- Eat your lunch outside, at a spot where you have never sat before.
- Pump up the bike tires and ride a slow loop of streets you never drive down.
- Find three murals or statues in town and look up who made each one.
- Walk your town’s main street from end to end, then back along the other side.
- Set a shallow dish of water outside and list the birds that stop to drink.
- Stack flat stones into a tower in the yard or on a beach, then topple it.
- Spot the farthest thing visible from your window and walk toward it for half an hour.
- Watch a building site from the sidewalk for ten minutes and guess what goes up next.
- Sweep the front step and the sidewalk, then sit out there with a cup of tea.
- Ride a bus or train two stops past your usual one and walk back home.
- Stop at a park where a pickup soccer game is on and watch a whole half.
- Visit a neighborhood you only know by name and find its busiest corner.
- Hunt for house numbers in the best lettering and crown a winner at the end.
- Take a walk where you follow the birds, turning toward each new song you hear.
- Stay outside until you have spotted ten different animals, bugs included.
Learn something
One small skill or curious fact you can pick up in an afternoon, for free.
- Teach yourself the two-finger whistle, the kind that can call someone in from the yard.
- Memorize the phonetic alphabet, from alpha to zulu, and spell your full name with it.
- Learn to count to ten in a language you have never studied, then say it fast.
- Practice walking a coin across your knuckles, from first finger to little finger.
- Master the riffle shuffle and the bridge that slides the cards back together.
- Spend twenty minutes on a free touch-typing lesson without peeking at the keys.
- Work out your initials in Morse code and tap them on the table.
- Read the contour lines on a hiking map and find the steepest slope near you.
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- Learn every capital city on one continent and test yourself on a blank map.
- Figure out how to fold a fitted sheet into a flat, tidy square.
- Poach an egg, and keep trying until one holds its shape in the water.
- Learn Roman numerals well enough to read the year carved on an old building.
- Try the pencil-mark method for sudoku and finish a puzzle marked hard.
- Find north using the sun and a watch with hands, then check it with a compass.
- Go through every setting on your phone camera and take one photo with each.
- Cook fluffy rice in a plain pot on the stove, no rice cooker needed.
- Find your home’s main water shutoff valve and tie a bright tag on it for later.
- Try the memory palace trick and use it to remember a twenty-item list.
- Pick up a crochet hook and learn the chain stitch with some leftover yarn.
- Copy out the Greek alphabet and write your first name in its letters.
- Learn the notes on a music staff and hum your way through a simple melody.
- Look up where a word you say every day came from, and how it has changed.
- Measure a tree’s height with a stick and the length of both their shadows.
- Read the rules of mancala or go and play a practice game against yourself.
- Get the hang of ironing a collared shirt, starting with the collar and cuffs.
With a friend
Easy plans for you and a friend or two, with nothing to buy and nothing to book.
- Blindfold each other in turn and guess five spices from the cupboard by smell alone.
- Hold a backyard games day with an egg-and-spoon race, a boot toss and paper medals.
- Settle it with a best-of-nine thumb wrestling final at the kitchen table.
- Pick three ingredients from the fridge and each cook something different with them.
- See who can toss a pancake highest and still land it back in the pan.
- Throw a ball back and forth, naming a fruit, city or animal with every catch.
- Explain your job in five minutes, using only things on the table as props.
- Hold a two-minute debate on a silly question, then swap sides and argue the other one.
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- Toss balls of scrap paper into a laundry basket, stepping back one pace after every hit.
- Pick any object in the room and give a thirty-second sales pitch for it.
- Sit back to back: one describes a simple drawing, the other copies it from words alone.
- Find an old photo of the two of you and recreate it pose for pose.
- Rank the five best breakfast foods together and argue over every place on the list.
- Invent a version of rock, paper, scissors with five moves and play best of nine.
- Read the manual of an old appliance aloud in your most dramatic voices.
- Make noises with things from the kitchen while the other guesses each one with eyes closed.
- Bake a simple cake and decorate it as badly as you possibly can, on purpose.
- Guess how many grains of rice fit in a teaspoon, then count them out together.
- Play musical chairs with two people, one chair and a song you both know.
- Race across the room in slow motion, where the last one to the wall wins.
- Put on a living room talent show with one act each, any talent at all.
- Play a game of HORSE at a public hoop, copying every trick shot.
- Fold a cup from one sheet of paper each and see whose holds water longest.
- Roll a can, a ball and an orange down a propped-up board: which goes farthest?
- Hold a no-laughing contest: one tells terrible jokes while the other keeps a straight face.
Five-minute fixes
Tiny things to do right now, when you have five minutes and nothing to fill them.
- Open a window wide and take ten slow breaths of outside air.
- Water every houseplant and turn each pot a quarter turn toward the light.
- Make your bed with the corners tucked in tight, the way a hotel does.
- Write three things you want to do this weekend on one sticky note.
- Wipe down the kitchen counter and leave the sink completely empty.
- Find five things you no longer use and bag them up to give away.
- Sing one song at full volume while you have the place to yourself.
- Unsubscribe from five emails you always delete without opening.
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- Sharpen every pencil in the house and stand them point-up in a jar.
- Peel an orange in one long, unbroken spiral, then eat it slowly.
- Make a cup of tea and drink it at the window, doing nothing else at all.
- Polish the bathroom faucet and mirror until they sparkle.
- Delete twenty blurry or doubled photos from your camera roll.
- Take out the trash and recycling and put fresh bags in both.
- Write tomorrow’s to-do list with only three things on it.
- Try to balance a spoon on your nose for a count of five.
- Put away ten things that are out of place, counting out loud.
- Match every food container to its lid and recycle the ones left over.
- Pull a book off your shelf, open it at random and read one page.
- Jot the day’s small wins on a scrap of paper and pin it to the fridge.
- Sign your name ten times with your other hand and watch it improve.
- Wipe your phone screen and keyboard until they shine.
- Look at the nearest window and write a rhyming couplet about what you see.
- Tape a postcard or photo you love where you will see it every morning.
- Decide on tonight’s dinner now and move what you need from the freezer to the fridge.
Frequently asked questions
How many things to do when bored are there?
There are 150 ideas, 25 in each of six categories: at home, creative, outdoors, learn something, with a friend, and five-minute fixes. Nearly all of them are free or use what you already have. The cards and the list on this page use the same set.
What can we do when we are bored as a couple?
Try at home date night ideas, which are written for two people sharing an evening in, from dinners to games and slow, cozy nights. The ideas on this page are for one person, or a friend or two, on any ordinary afternoon.
Do these work on a work break or at a family gathering?
Yes. Five-minute fixes and Learn something fit a coffee or lunch break, and many need nothing but a pen. With a friend works just as well for grown-up siblings, cousins or housemates on a slow afternoon at a family gathering.
What should we play after a bored afternoon?
Try things to draw, a deck of drawing ideas for a quiet doodle on your own or a guessing game with a few friends. All you need is a pencil and any scrap of paper.