Knee-deep in bluescreen burnout? You’re not alone. Join the thousands of people building analog bags to fight their digital cravings with hands-on activities like these.
What’s an Analog Bag?
Viral trends are a dime a dozen, but analog bags might be an anti-online first.
But what exactly are analog bags? Coined by content creator Sierra Campbell, analog bags are bags or baskets filled with hands-on activities — tailored to your interests — as an alternative to excessive screen time.
Typically, people store these bags or baskets in places they frequent to combat the “out of sight, out of mind” mentality. But as a rather analog millennial myself, I think the key to a knock-out analog bag is filling it with activities you actually want to do — no matter how ambitious or juvenile they are.
Analog Activities for a Quick Tech Break
Breaking up with your phone is a hard thing to do, so I suggest starting with baby steps. These are analog activities that you can jump right into, no complicated setup or skill level required. If you’re in the market for a 10-minute tech break, these are the way to go.
- Play with a yo-yo
- Play paddleball
- Play with a Jacob’s ladder
- Jump rope
- Play with jumping frogs
- Play the harmonica
- Play with a rail twirler
- Fire off a rubber band gun at targets
- Play darts
- Try Bananagrams
- Play with spinning tops
- Play a handheld water ring toss game
- Build Legos
- Build with Lincoln Logs
- Build with Magnetix
- Write a refrigerator poem
- Play with slime
- Play with Play-Doh
- Make a blackout poem
- Make a paper airplane
Related: How I Use Art as Grown-Up Play (& How You Can, Too)
Artistic Skills You Can Brush Up On
If we traded in our screentime for practicing old skills or learning new ones, we’d have our 10,000 hours of mastery in no time. From traditional techniques to modern methods, these are some of the artsy projects you can add to your analog bag.
- Knitting
- Crochet
- Satsuma embroidery
- Weaving
- Tatting
- Tambour embroidery
- Beaded embroidery
- Bobbin lace making
- Mending
- Applique making
- Quilting
- Rug making
- Latch hook embroidery
- Macrame
- Needlepoint
- Watercolor painting
- Cross stitch
- Needle felting
- Hand sewing
- Plein Air painting
- Jewelry making
- Decoupage
- Origami
- Whittling
Exciting Crafts to Get Your Creative Juices Flowing
From crochet to macrame, creative crafts are seeing a huge Renaissance. Whether you’re coming back to an old craft or starting something brand new, there are so many creative kits to fill your analog bag with. Or you can always make your own!
- Calligraphy
- Scrapbook
- Carve a stamp
- Create a bullet journal
- Make a card
- Make crepe paper flowers
- Make a collage
- Make paper chains
- Make paper filigree art
- Do a sticker-by-number
- Decorate picture frames
- Create a mosaic rock art piece
- Cut & color shrink film
- Use Perler beads
- Make string art
- Complete a paint-by-number
- Make a zine
- Illustrate a comic strip
- Make a flip book
- Learn to tie knots
- Color in a coloring book
- Make a holiday ornament
- Create a single-line drawing
- Make your own scratch art
Challenging Puzzles & Games to Train Your Brain
If crafts aren’t quite your speed, brain-busting puzzles and games might be. Why not give your brain something to chew on while you retrain its digital-craving habits?
- Crossword puzzles
- Sudoku
- Logic puzzles
- Solitaire
- Whodunit mystery books
- Word searches
- Mazes
- Jigsaw puzzles
- Choose your own adventure books
- Sequence puzzles
- Rebus puzzles
- Hidden object puzzles
- Tangrams
- Rubik's Cube
Say Bye-Bye to Excessive Screentime
Apps don’t have the power. You do! Cut the cord on your digital obsessions with a grounding analog bag filled with your favorite activities and crafts.
