What do you do when you've got nothing to do?

Anyone that photocopies Times crosswords and does them whist eating a sandwich is nearly beyond help. Would take me a week and I would need all sorts of help.

Learn some interesting relaxing technics and practice them. You could then review them for gransnet and we could give them a try.

Do you ever have a really good laugh? That's relaxing

I read a book or do knitting or needle work, but mainly, just read.

My DM used to say that 'a woman's work is never done'

The trouble is that she was much better at doing it than me

I was going to say most of you make me feel guilty but I'd be fibbing.
I do housework and shopping in the mornings what's not done by lunchtime gets done another day. Afternoons are for reading, playing solitaire GN or other "stuff" on the Kindle, colouring watching crap on TV or doing a jigsaw. Sometimes I have notion to clear out my wardrobe or the junk draw or whatever, other times I have a notion to do b'*""r all ! I'm amazed some of you never have nothing to do.

Oh you are never finished but you are frequently interrupted! Lol!

If you're doing nothing how do you know when you are finished?

I'm in an obligatory post op state of doing nothing apart from physio . I picked up a sampler which I had started umpteen years ago and decided in the preceding nerve racking weeks I would use it as a soother. I'm filling in the spaces very randomly and I'm enjoying doing nothing watching the squirrels eat the windfalls and the clouds scud by. We've changed roles. DH is doing the cooking and wrestling with dishwasher and washing machine and I am feeling rather sorry for him as he and I had the old fashioned sort of marriage . I could carry on doing nothing. Quite happily.

I rarely have nothing to do, but quite often don`t feel like doing what there is to do, so I either visit my laptop, or sit and have a read, which is why I get through so many books!

I go so slowly trough my jobs these days that any sitting down time is illicit.

One of my DD's friends who we have known since she was a little girl (now in her 40s) said to my DD recently 'how's your mum? Is she still
running around everywhere like a mad thing?' I didn't realise that was how I was viewed

Love it!

My late son ( then in his very early 20s) shared a flat with a lad who used to sit for hours staring into space. It drove my lad mad so he persuaded his flatmate to try reading. Once led to water, as they say, the said flatmate was never seen without a book...

From Punch 24th October 1906.

(Cartoon featuring the vicar's wife talking to a rustic old man laid up by an injured foot.)
Vicar's wife: Now that you can't get about and are not able to read, how do you manage to occupy the time?
Rustic man: Well, mum, sometimes I sits and thinks and then again I just sits.

By Gunning-King.

Or you could just sit and think ( be a philosopher!)

Tell you what kitty clean all the kitchen cabinets, and when you have done that, come and do mine.

THIS!

Or read a book, read the papers on line, do a codeword, make a cake, make a phone call, reassess the pile of ironing lurking in the corner of the kitchen and then do a bit of it, not all, just enough to see the pile diminish a bit!

DH has taught himself to play bridge and plays this on line and backgammon when he wants to relax. I go and get him a drink ad/or food. I tend to take a nap if I haven't got anything to do which isnt often.

There is an implication in the OP that doing anything that is not active or contributing the community is doing nothing. I do not subscribe to this idea. I do loads for my community but value equally the sitting and reading and listening to music that I do. Being "not busy" is as valuable as being busy.

Me too gilly if I do end up with a few minutes spare I then spend the time wondering what I can do and that tiny window has vanished

Before we moved in with DD when I was finished work and had covered everything that needed done in the house I liked nothing better than to curl up with a book in the quiet. But there is no such thing as a quiet moment in here while the kids are up and when they are in bed I am usually catching up with jobs I cant do with a 21mth DGS.

Kitty, I think that we stay at home Mums have been programmed for years by always being busy with the children, then cooking , cleaning, washing, ironing, being a giver of lifts to various activities. Then we often went out to work, and fitting all the sundry necessities around the hours we worked. I loved my job, but when I retired I missed the routine, the people, and the salary, but not actually the job in the end as it had changed so much. Then came retirement and I had all that time on hand to do with as I chose, boring sometimes. But I do have lots of hobby handicrafts, books to read, the garden to tend and volunteer work, but I found it very difficult to just read or potter. The time has come, after 12 years retirement that I can easily relax now and sometimes even have the dreaded snooze in the afternoon

Like others have already said I don't know what it is like to have nothing to do. On the very rare occasion that I do have a "spare" hour or two I can always be assured that someone will only be too willing to fill it for me.

Bellanonna good idea! Too many people still have that fear of being idle and have to cope with the guilt. It's left over from the wonderful Victorians... I'm of the 'time to stand and stare' clan. Doing is vastly overrated.

If ever I said 'I don't know what to do' when I was young DM would find me a task such as cleaning the silver, ironing the tea towels and hankies, going to the shop etc. So I learnt the art of looking busy even if I wasn't

I have plenty more to do today but I'm on here, having a coffee - so I'm 'busy' on the tablet
The only thing I read in the daytime is the newspaper, although the Saturday and Sunday ones are still unopened.
Sometimes I get out all my unfinished projects and look at them or think about compiling the family history into some sort of order.
That all takes quite a bit of time.

mollie - The Skilful Art of not Doing Anything. Maybe we could give lessons ? I find this iPad a useful tool to aid with procrastination, mainly to go on to Gransnet. I do then feel a bit guilty after a while and I get up and do the things I've been trying to put off. I don't usually watch daytime telly or read. The latter feels terribly decadent but somehow I do allow myself the luxury of frequent sorties into Gransnet until the niggling guilt sets in. I then tackle what needs tackling, or some of it, with vigour. Then another little break ...

I'm another who never has ' nothing to do '. When I have finished or don't feel like doing the thing that have to be done or should be done I get out my patchwork, knitting, crochet or some other project and loose myself for a while.

I'm glad you didn't say you were bored kittylester as in our house the rule has always been 'only boring people get bored'. Something my DDs still remember now and pass on to their families.

What do I do? Feel guilty because I'm doing nothing! I've never got nothing to do - I just have days when I don't feel like doing it. At the moment I have all sorts of things on the go but on Saturday when DS and DH had gone to football and left me on my blissful solitary ownsome, I did something I haven't done for ages - I sat and watched an old film. When they came back DH asked me what I had been doing and when I told him, he said "is that all? Not like you to waste an afternoon! Thought you might have been doing x,y,and z!"