In a situation where you don’t have nothing doing because there is an emergency and you are supposed to stay at home, you might be compelled to watch movies, listen to music, chat with friends on phone or even sleep all day. But this is the time for you to do useful things. This is the time to acquire new skills or developed ways to get extra income stream from somewhere.

This article is to talk about some of the useful things you can do with your life to during this lockdown period.

Learn a new skill

There are a lot of skills that you probably do not have or you might not even have any skill at all. One of the useful things during lockdown is to learn and acquire new skills. If you have a smartphone and internet, which I know you have, then do not waste it. Use it to your benefit by learning something from the internet.

YouTube is one of the biggest platform which many people exhibit or teach whatever skill they have.  I know a lot of people go there to be entertained, but there is a lot more you can get from YouTube. Learn new things from there, how to cook specific dishes, how to use Microsoft office, Photoshop, how to become a digital marketer, how to use social media to market your products or services, and a lot more. Any skill you want to learn or master just search from YouTube starting with “How to”. Videos are the best way to understand whatever you study.

Earn money by solving other people’s problem.

If you have a skill which can allow you to work from anywhere in the world, then this is the time to use your skills to maximum use. You can be a freelancer.

A freelancer is someone who offers his /her services to people without being attached to one particular client even though there can a working relationship between them. A freelancer can work with multiple client in a day without those client knowing.

There are a lot of freelancer jobs available. Anybody can be a freelancer as long as you have a skill or you can provide a service that someone needs. There a several platforms or website that provides freelancing. You can register and help solve other people’s problems for them.

Top 11 freelancer websites that I know are as follows.

1. Fiverr.com
2. Freelancer.com
3. Upwork.com
4. Skyword.com
5. Designhill.com
6. Guru.com
7. Hireable.com
8. Flexjobs.com
9. Nexxt.com
10. Peopleperhour.com
11. WriterAccess.com

Teaching on YouTube

If you are a teacher or if you have the skill of teaching, then this is the time to use your teaching skills and your knowledge to help your students who are at home and other people around the world who also want to learn something. The goal is to do useful things during lockdown, so make sure what ever you are teaching are useful to your learners.

Follow these simple steps to start teaching on YouTube.

1. Create a YouTube account. If you don’t know how to create a YouTube account please read How to create a YouTube account.
2. Create your first video. The first video should be an introduction about your channel and the content to cover in your videos or course.
3. Design a simple course with some lessons and objectives you want to achieve. Make a video for each lesson. And upload them on YouTube every day.
4. Compile all the lessons in each course together and make it an E-book and give it out for free or for a small fee at the end of each course.
5. Remember tell people or students to subscribe to your channel and to share your videos with friends and families. This will help grow your channel and in a couple of time you will start earning money from YouTube.
6. NOTE: If you don’t have to record yourself in the video if you are a camera freak like me. You can do a Power point presentation videos covering every lesson and record your voices and use a video editor to edit your videos then you upload them. Make your videos professional and simple to understand.

Earn money by creating E-books

In the digital marketing world, they always say content is king. Yes a good content is king and will make you rank higher in search results. For people who are good writers, this is the time to put your writing skills into practice. One of the useful things during lockdown is by creating e-books

Write good content about a niche and make them into e-books. You can share to your friends on Facebook or WhatsApp for them to read and get comments from them. If your content is really good the feedback will be good. If you get bad feedback, don’t worry just make sure to listen and make changes in your next e-book.

It doesn’t cost to create an e-book because all the tools you use are free. Microsoft PowerPoint is the best free tool to use in creating your e-book. Be sure to add pictures to your e-book to make it look attractive to read. People love to see pictures when they are reading.

Make your message clear and simple. Use simple English for everyone to understand. Even if you use technical terms, be sure to explain it to the layman’s understanding. Make an attractive cover for the e-book that depicts the message you have in the e-book.

Conclusion

Be useful every day in your life whether it is lock down, stay home or your normal day without any emergency. Use your time wisely, learn a new skill and stay safe.