Random Activity Picker

For the free afternoon that gets wasted

Everything here takes between twenty minutes and two hours, needs no planning, no booking and no equipment you would have to go and buy. That is the constraint that makes the list work — anything requiring preparation would never get done on the afternoon you spin for it.

The last entry is serious. "Do absolutely nothing on purpose" is a real answer, and it is better than scrolling for two hours while feeling like you should be doing something. Deciding to rest is different from failing to decide anything.

Replace the entries with things that fit where you live. "Go to a park" is better as the name of an actual park.

What's on the Random Activity Picker wheel

All 16 options are on the wheel to start with. Edit, delete or add to them — the wheel redraws as you type.

• Go for a walk
• Call someone you haven't spoken to
• Read a chapter
• Cook something new
• Go to a park
• Tidy one drawer
• Try a new coffee place
• Watch a documentary
• Take photos of something
• Write for 20 minutes
• Stretch or do yoga
• Visit a bookstore
• Learn one new thing
• Bake something
• Go somewhere you've never been
• Do absolutely nothing on purpose

Making it a weekend habit

Add ten things you have been meaning to do — the exhibition, the walk, the recipe, the friend you have not called — and spin on Saturday morning.

The wheel is doing something specific here: it converts a vague intention into a decision that has already been made. "I should do more things at weekends" produces nothing. "Spin says: bookstore" produces a trip to the bookstore.

Turn on Remove the winner after each spin and it becomes a list you work through over a few months rather than the same walk every time.