Skills to Learn During The Quarantine

The Coronavirus has bought a lot of previously impossible situations a reality. The whole world is in turmoil and has gone into a global lockdown. Looking on the bright side, as humanity always does, we have a lot of time in our hands. Practically speaking, time is the most valuable thing in the world. However, the ‘value’ comes from how we spend time. We should treat this as an opportunity and use it to reconnect with what makes us happy and improves our overall skill level. According to several schools in India, everyone should have some skills.

Learn touch typing

Touch typing, or just fast typing, is an essential skill in this tech-driven world. It doesn’t seem a big deal until you realize the amount of time you can save after learning it. Many of us are comfortable typing with only index fingers. It takes a lot of patience to learn to type fast. You will be pushed to give up many times in the process. But if you are persistent and overcome that feeling to give up, you’ll reap the benefits. 

I recommend trying Typing.com if you are a beginner. This website starts right from finger-positioning to improving accuracy and speed. There are three levels on this website: Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. Each stage focuses on different aspects of typing and helps you get better. You also get free certificates after each level! 

Once you complete the advanced level on typing.com, try keybr.com. This website focuses mainly on speed. Practice at least 15 mins daily, and I guarantee you that you’ll type considerably faster!

Learn a new language

Learning a new language seems like a very long and tedious procedure. But thanks to technology, learning a language isn’t as difficult as it used to be. There are a lot of apps and tutorials to learn a new language. My personal favourite is Duolingo. This app uses a lot of short and fun exercises to teach a language. It is free and offers almost 30 different languages to learn. It has a lot of in-app rewards, which motivates you to learn daily.

Rosetta Stone is another excellent app for learning a new language. It is not free, but worth every penny. It follows an approach that helps you to involve in real conversations easily. It also has pronunciation training, which helps to speak the language like its meant to be.

Learn to cook

Cooking is one of the essential skills for everyday life. You only realize the importance of cooking when you move out of your parents’ house. Being dependant on your parents or partner for everyday meals may not be a wise decision. Preparing food for yourself is fun to learn and very rewarding at the same time. Start with easy recipes with fewer ingredients. Be careful as ingredients might not be available due to the lockdown. Try your best not to waste anything. Baking is a whole new arena with a lot of new things to learn. It is more of an art than a skill. There are a lot of websites that give useful tips on cooking and baking. MyFridgeFood is a cool website that recommends recipes using the ingredients you already have.

Learn to code

Should everyone learn to code? This question is having a lot of controversies even as you read this. Let’s take a look at how a programmer solves a problem. A good programmer splits a problem into many small parts, which have simple logic and easily solvable. He/She then brings it all together and provide a very efficient solution. In my opinion, this approach is pretty impressive and helps to solve a lot of real-life problems. So, learning to code opens up a whole new perspective which has potential. If you wish to learn to code, Codecademy is an excellent place to start.

I hope you found something interesting here. Start learning!