Slow Days

Things to do when you’re bored and tired

Gentle, screen-free ideas for when you’re bored but have little to give. Most can be done sitting or lying down.

Energy
How long
Where
Who

Indoors · alone · an hour · low energy

Lie on the floor and watch the ceiling

Lie flat on the floor with a folded towel beneath your head. Look up at the ceiling plaster or shadows. Let your thoughts drift without trying to solve anything.

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    About these ideas

    Bored and tired often arrive together, and scrolling can feel like the only thing left. These ideas ask very little: peel an orange in one ribbon, lie on the floor and watch the ceiling, look through old photos with someone. They’re the ideas marked low energy; choose A little energy above when you have more to give. If tiredness has been with you for a while, the feelings wheel has a page on feeling worn out.

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    All 30 low-energy ideas

    5 minutes

    • Five minutes back to back (indoors · with someone · low energy). Sit on a rug back-to-back with someone. Close your eyes and feel the rise and fall of each other’s breathing for five quiet minutes.
    • Stand barefoot in the grass (outdoors · alone · low energy). Step into a backyard or park patch without socks or shoes. Stand still for five minutes. Feel the cool, damp earth and the dew under your feet.
    • Find the moon from your doorstep (outdoors · alone · low energy). Step out onto your doorstep, balcony or back step and look for the moon. Notice its shape and where it sits in the sky tonight, then go back inside. If you can’t find it, it may not have risen yet, or be hiding behind clouds. Either way, the night air counts.
    • Listen for the furthest sound (indoors · alone · low energy). Close your eyes in your room. Don’t listen to the immediate sounds; reach with your ears for the furthest sound you can identify: distant traffic, a wind gust, a neighbor’s chime.
    • Peel an orange in one ribbon (indoors · alone · low energy). Take a small orange or clementine. Peel it slowly in one single unbroken ribbon. Inhale the bright citrus oils left on your fingertips.
    • Smell the rain from the doorway (indoors · alone · low energy). Open the front or back door and stand just inside, out of the wet. Breathe in the smell of rain on earth and pavement, and listen to it on roofs, leaves and gutters.
    • Watch raindrops race down the window (indoors · alone · low energy). Pick two raindrops at the top of a windowpane and watch which one reaches the bottom first. Then pick two more. There’s no prize, just the watching.
    • Count the colors in the sky (outdoors · alone · low energy). Look straight up into the open sky. Count how many subtle gradients of blue, gray, white, or apricot you can identify before you look away.
    • Write down three small things (indoors · alone · low energy). Take a notebook to the sofa or to bed. Write three small things from today you’d like to remember: a taste, a sound, something someone said.
    • Rest your hands on a tree (outdoors · alone · low energy). Find a mature tree. Place both hands flat against its trunk. Feel the deep ridges, lichen softness, and solid stillness that has stood through decades of weather.
    • The window watch (indoors · alone · low energy). Sit in a chair next to the nearest window. Watch the sky, branches, or street without touching any device until you see three birds fly past.

    20 minutes

    • Listen to birdsong and whistle back (outdoors · with someone · low energy). Sit under dense branches. Listen closely to bird calls. Try quietly whistling back or guessing what bird species is answering from the canopy.
    • Write a letter by lamplight (indoors · alone · low energy). Turn off the big light and switch on one lamp. Write a short letter by hand to someone you haven’t seen in a while. You can decide tomorrow whether to send it.
    • A pocket notebook in the sun (outdoors · alone · low energy). Take a small blank pad and pencil to the steps or patio. Write down five mundane things happening right now that will never happen in this exact way again.
    • Tell a story one sentence at a time (indoors · with someone · low energy). Sit together with the lights low. One of you starts a story with a single sentence, and you take turns adding the next. Let it go wherever it wants.
    • Fold paper boats (indoors · with someone · low energy). Fold a few paper boats from scrap paper together. When the rain stops, float them in a puddle and watch which way they drift.
    • Read poems aloud in low light (indoors · with someone · low energy). Light a single beeswax candle. Take turns reading three short poems or book passages aloud to each other while listening without interruption.
    • Listen to the rain with the lights off (indoors · alone · low energy). Turn off the lights and sit or lie down near a window. Listen to the rain change: harder, softer, a steady drip from the gutter. Let it be the only thing you’re doing.
    • Doodle together on one big sheet (indoors · with someone · low energy). Place a large sheet of butcher paper on the floor. Without speaking, draw winding lines, houses, and trees together using colored pencils or crayons.
    • A slow pot of loose-leaf tea (indoors · alone · low energy). Boil fresh water. Put loose tea leaves or chamomile in a clear pot or mug. Watch the dried leaves uncurl and swirl as water warms them. Drink without music or screens.
    • Sort a drawer of forgotten trinkets (indoors · with someone · low energy). Empty a junk drawer, button tin, or key bowl onto the kitchen table together. Sort them into small ceramic dishes and tell the story behind each odd token.
    • A slow tea tasting (indoors · with someone · low energy). Brew two different herbal teas in mugs. Close your eyes and take turns guessing which herbs are in each cup purely by scent and warmth.
    • Wipe the leaves of a houseplant (indoors · alone · low energy). Take a soft damp rag and tenderly wipe the dust from each leaf of a houseplant. Notice the veins and emerald hues up close.

    An hour

    • Lie on the floor and watch the ceiling (indoors · alone · low energy). Lie flat on the floor with a folded towel beneath your head. Look up at the ceiling plaster or shadows. Let your thoughts drift without trying to solve anything.
    • Do the edges of a jigsaw (indoors · alone · low energy). Tip a jigsaw puzzle onto a tray or table. Find only the edge pieces and fit the frame together. Leave the middle for another evening.
    • Turn the pages of old photo albums (indoors · with someone · low energy). Pull down physical photo albums, shoeboxes, or postcards. Look at them together, asking questions about forgotten haircuts, old cars, and faraway places.
    • Read side by side (indoors · with someone · low energy). Sit in the same room with someone you love. Both of you read physical books or magazines with phones placed in another room. No conversation needed; just shared quiet.
    • Sketch one kitchen object (indoors · alone · low energy). Pick up an ordinary wooden spoon or an egg. With a simple pencil, draw its contours and shadow on scrap paper. Not for art class; just to look deeply.
    • Lie back and stargaze (outdoors · with someone · low energy). Wrap yourselves in warm sweaters after dusk. Lie back on a dry tarp in the backyard, or sit together on a balcony or step, and look up into the night sky. Find a constellation you know, a slow-moving satellite, or a shooting star.

    An afternoon

    • A nap under a heavy quilt (indoors · alone · low energy). Pull the curtains halfway to create an amber glow. Crawl under a heavy quilt with no alarm set. If you sleep, sleep; if you just rest your eyes, that counts too.