Screen Free Activities - What I Wish I Knew About Thriving Offline

Resisting the urge to scroll on your phone is a lot easier when you have screen free activities that you actually enjoy. Here's what I wish I knew about enjoying time offline.

Most of us feel pretty terrible when we spend an extended period of time on our phones.

Something within us tells us that we should be doing something else - touching grass, observing the shapes in the cloud - living in the real world.

However, it can be hard to truly detach from your phone unless you find an alternative that you actually enjoy doing.

I've recently discovered screen-free activities that I actually enjoy and realized how game-changing they can be. Here's what I've learned about enjoying time offline.

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1. You can find something that stimulates your mind

I've found that there are two main categories of things you can do when it comes to screen-free activities:

You choose an activity that a) stimulates your mind and engages you b) calms you down and relaxes you.

The type of activity that you choose may depend on your personality, personal preference, or simply what you feel like doing on the day.

I tend to alternative between the two types when it comes to my screen-free routine.

When it comes to activities that stimulate my mind, I typically like to either read or do a crossword puzzle.

I picked up a crossword puzzle at my local dollar store but you can find great crossword puzzles on Amazon like the Brain Games Large Print Crossword Puzzle book below:

Brain Games - Large Print Crossword Puzzles

I enjoy doing crossword puzzles because they improve my vocabulary and make me think creatively.

I typically set a timer for approximate a minute per word and challenge myself to get as many words as possible within the time frame.

I've had a lot of fun doing this because I enjoy language and words in general, and I know that other people enjoy doing similar activities like Sudoku, anagrams, word search and cryptograms.

2. You can find something that calms you down

When it comes to activities that calm and relax me, I've really been enjoying colouring and creating art.

Now let me make it clear: I do not believe that I have the patience to complete a regular coloring book, or to create art from scratch.

I am not naturally a skilled artist, so I did not originally view art projects as a viable screen-free activity for me.

However, what I have discovered is that I really enjoy art when I have a degree of guidance, when I have a base to start from, so I do not feeling like I am struggling to create something from thin air.

Everything changed for me when I discovered color-by-number, and I've been LOVING using the 100 Animal Quest Color-by-Number activity book below:

100 Animal Quest Color-by-Number

This coloring book is perfect for me because someone's telling what colours to use, which means that my logical brain is not scrambling for artistic inspirartion.

It makes creating beautiful art accessible, all I have to do is follow the colour/number guide and I'll eventually be left with a cool picture of an animal.

I like the above colouring book for two reasons in particular:

1) You don't know what picture you are colouring in until you've completed it, so it's a surprise :)

2) It has a 12-color palette, which means it's really easy to find colouring pencils for all the pictures in the book.

Many of the colour-by-number books I've seen have 20+ color palettes with very specific shades (e.g. cyan, magenta, tan, etc.) which is more colours than you'll typically find in a coloured pencil pack at your local grocery store/dollar store stationery isle.

3. You can do something that allows you to build a portfolio/track your progress

When it comes to finding good screen-free activities, another type of activity that can add joy to your life is something that allows you to build a portfolio or reach measurable milestones.

Maybe that's building a habit of going to the gym and breaking your own personal record, or maybe it's building a recipe book of your favourite tried-and-tested recipes, or maybe it's creating a scrapbook that curates your most-cherished memories.

This can really add value to your life, especially when you contrast it with doing something a bit more transient and superficial like watching TikToks or bingeing reality TV.

Sticking with the art theme from earlier, another activity I've been doing that allows me to feel a sense of progress is sticker-by-number.

The first sticker-by-number book I've purchased is the Vintage Garden stick-by-number book by Brain Games, shown below.

Sticker-By-Number Vintage Garden

I absolutely love the pictures in this book, and it's so nice to complete each one and slowly build a collection of art that I've created myself.

I look forward to trying out other stick-by-number books - I have my eye on this sticker-by-number book with famous art pieces. It has smaller stickers so I expect it will be more difficult to complete, so I'm practicing with the one above for now.

Final Thoughts

I hope this post has given you ideas for fun screen free activities that you can do when you're bored or have extra time on your hands.

These days it's become such a luxury to be able to unplug from the online world and enjoy being truly present in the real world.

The activities I've shared above also make really good gift ideas for loved ones.

I can think of a few people I know who would love to receive the sticker-by-number or colour-by-number books shown above.

They're unique gifts and are likely to be highly used by a recipient who enjoys their alone time or is a homebody.

Of course, the particular sort of screen-free activity you decide to take up will depend on your personality and interests, and there are plenty of others activities that you can explore other than the ones I've listed above.

I hope you find an activity that's meaningful and entertains, educates, or relaxes you.

Thanks for reading!