YouTube is more than a purveyor of funny dog videos. If you have been cooped up in your house for months now because of the coronavirus pandemic, you surely have spent an enormous amount of time watching random YouTube videos. But to keep things interesting, why don’t you try to learn some skills while you’re busy entertaining yourself during these extraordinarily difficult times?
You don’t have to learn anything serious. You might not have enough time for that, what with you needing to attend your online classes or work-from-home responsibilities. But this is exactly why YouTube is such a fun way to learn. You can pull up some random videos from its millions of channels and try to find the time to learn these unusual and very random skills.
Unclogging Your Kitchen Sink
So, this is not random or unusual, but it’s worth putting it here, anyway. Knowing how to unclog your kitchen sink will save you a lot of time. There are plenty of tutorials on YouTube about how to use vinegar, baking soda, and boiling water to unclog your sink. It saves you the hassle of having to call the plumber.
Bottling Your “Creations”
Do you know that the little mixture of regular shampoo, lavender, and tea tree essential oil that you use in your hair can be bottled up by a reputable hair product manufacturer? If you have been receiving raves about how great your hair looks and smells, why don’t you let the company bottle up some of your mixes and give them as gifts to your friends. There’s plenty of YouTube videos about the proper ratio of regular shampoo, lavender, tea tree oil, and other essential oils. Who knows? Maybe you can even turn this into a profitable business.
Singing the Alphabet Backwards
Sure, you know how to sing the alphabet by heart. You’ve been doing it since you’re a toddler. But do you know that you can sing it backward? Yes, you can learn how to sing from Z to A in under five minutes. There are some great YouTube videos there that will teach you a trick how.
Improving Critical Thinking With the Socratic Method
Critical thinking is a skill you should learn as early as you can. If possible, apply the skills you will learn here on your toddler (or future children). The rise of artificial intelligence will bring a focus on critical thinkers. They will be more in-demand as the years went on. Socratic method is a technique that critical thinkers use. You can learn about applying this method from various YouTube videos.
Making a Kombucha Tea
Instead of spending $5 for every bottle of Kombucha tea, why not make one at home? A lot of YouTube videos will claim to be the real recipe for a Kombucha tea, so be careful when choosing what to follow. It can be a little intimidating at first, but after the part about bacteria and yeast, all you need to do is to add tea bags, water, and sugar to make a Kombucha tea.
Learning Calligraphy
This is probably one of the most interesting things you can learn on YouTube. Snail mail is still a thing when it comes to wedding invitations. Perhaps, you may even enjoy writing in your journal once you learn calligraphy. You need calligraphy pens to start learning how to do this. It might take longer for you to perfect your strokes but try not to frustrate yourself. Remember that this is for fun. There is no competition. You can learn in your own phase.
Doing the Cartwheel
Do you remember when you were young and your body was so limber and flexible? Where did that flexibility go? If you want to remember how you did cartwheels before, these YouTube videos are perfect for you. There are a lot of videos, mostly hosted by young girls, teaching you how to do a cartwheel. They make it sound so easy that you might actually believe you can do it.
Saying Hello in 50 Languages
Do you plan to see the world? If so, you should start learning how to say hello in 50 different languages. A YouTube tutorial is exactly what you need. These tutorials will help you with your intonation and pronunciation. You never have to feel left out once you start visiting these countries. So, forget about namaste and Konnichiwa for now. Try saying kumusta and annyeong instead.
Spend your quarantine fruitfully by not only watching memes on YouTube but learning a skill or two. You can even bring in the whole family to learn these very random but useful skills. It’ll be a fun way to while away the hours.