For the first time in recent memory, there isn’t clear consensus about how holiday shoppers are going to spend this season. Some forecasts have them dropping less coin, while others are predicting sales will crest the $1 trillion mark for the first time ever. Either scenario, though, packs all the motivation retailers need to go full-bore, pushing discount after discount to get us to hit that “buy” button.
The crush of emails, ads, and mailers started plenty early this year, turning Black Friday and its overconsuming cousin Cyber Monday into a never-ending sale machine fine-tuned to keep us spending. It won’t let up for weeks—if it ever does. The onslaught can be so intense that even those of us who are hyper-aware of what overbuying means for the climate and the waste stream might succumb. Unless you’ve girded yourself against it.
One of the best psychological tricks to kick that “add to cart” urge is to busy yourself with something that gives you a hit of dopamine and keeps those fingertips tappin’. So, as we do every year, we’re firing up one5c’s Distractatron 5000. It’s full of ideas to divert you from shopping. Some are silly, some are science-y, and none are just watching all the extended cuts of The Lord of the Rings movies or going on a hike (though those are good ideas, too!).
Spend some fake money
This one is for the folks who need to scratch the itch to buy something shiny and new, but are fighting the urge to go berserk on Amazon. It’s not a perfect solution, but downloading The Sims 4’s (free) base game, making your virtual character a fictional billionaire, and then building the home of your dreams can fill that shopping void and provide hours of entertainment. There’s nothing like playing with the dollhouse of your dreams from your one-bedroom apartment, if you ask us.
Learn a card trick
A lot of skills need time, tools, and effort to refine—but peak sale season is a perfect chance to hunker down and teach yourself a distracting new skill. And we’ve got one that taps something you surely already have around the house: a deck of cards. All you need to be a step closer to being a wizard is a set of cards, a little free time, and this YouTube playlist, which steps beginners through tricks along The Royal Road to Card Magic, which is kinda the bible for getting started with mind-boggling tricks.
Join a climate action event
If you want to do more for the planet than just not buy stuff, today is full of opportunities to do so. Our pals at Climate Changemakers are hosting their weekly gathering of climate-minded folks in an Hour of Action, which is essentially an expert-led Zoom coworking session. On the agenda this week: advocating for state and local policies to address systemic food waste. Another fun distraction? Filling up your federal representatives’ voicemails: You could, for example, register your opposition to new oil-and-gas leases off California and in the Gulf of Mexico or push for reforms that speed up renewables. Alternatively, you could take a couple minutes to submit a public comment about the EPA’s plans to shrink the scope of the Clean Water Act.
Play a game of virtual pong
The most dangerous time for a flash sale to sneak in can be those 10-minute windows between meetings when you start scrolling Instagram and get bombarded by ads. To keep yourself from falling down that potentially expensive rabbit hole, we suggest redirecting your attention to a fun, speedy game. This digital version of Pong is a simple rendition of the classic 1972 game, and this online Pac-Man also always satisfies. If neither of those is your thing, a free game of Scrabble will easily suck up 15 minutes—and won’t leave you with a dozen packages on your front porch next week.
Do a little citizen science
Geeks everywhere–—from beachgoers to space fanatics—can usually find a citizen science project that helps researchers handle massive tranches of data right from the couch. This one asks volunteers to comb through photos of squirrels to zoologists learn how quickly species are evolving in times like these. If animal cams don’t do it for you, you can go for a trippier route and record the shapes of auroras in the night sky, using that Cyber Monday free time to advance discovery instead of consumerism.
Try a meditative doodle
There’s no one right way to meditate, but doodling is an absolute favorite. There are lots of approaches, but this freeform one’s probably the easiest: Grab whatever pens or markers you have around and a blank piece of paper. (Bonus points if it’s the back of some scrap of junk mail.) Take a black scribbler, put the tip on the page, and close your eyes. Now draw one continuous swooping, swirling, or zig-zagging line while you count to 5. Open your eyes, close off any open sides of the scribble, set a timer for 30 minutes, and color in the interior shapes. Get creative: Some blobs can be solid, others polka dots, other stripes. It’s your doodle—and it’s also way cheaper than an adult coloring book.
Get lost—and found
We’ve lost hours exploring the world in OpenGuesser. This game taps Google Street View images and plops you at a random point on the planet. You swipe through the panoramic view in search of clues, and then drop a pin on a map when you think you’ve zeroed in on your location. It’s super addicting in a way that’s as maddening when you’re dead-wrong as it is satisfying when you manage to be only a few hundred kilometers off the mark. And, hey, the game’s even a little cheeky when it tells you you’ve missed: “At least it’s the same planet!”