For someone who likes to write and create content, it feels weird when I go a week without creating anything. I’ve been itching to write something. But what? There are no events. No travels – except for the few day trips I’ve taken. I don’t like to create content for the sake of it.

Got me thinking. What about something about my daily life? We know COVID has screwed up everything but we’re also surviving.

Technology has been one of the things that have really aided in making the experience more bearable. We’re lucky to have access to such things.

So, I’ve come up with the 5 most used mobile apps that helped me survive COVID lockdown.

Education: Udemy

First thing I was told my family and friends is to take some courses. With no job or work, this seemed like the most productive and responsible thing to do.

I decided to take as many FREE courses as I could, even though Udemy was having huge discounts. On average courses were only $10-$15. Still, I opted for the free courses and if I liked them, I could always pay for the skills I really wanted to develop.

So far I’ve taken a dozen short courses. Each lasting between 2-4 hours. The topics are diverse, ranging from video editing and UX design to email marketing and Google ad-words.

The most comprehensive (paid) course I have taken is the 2020 Web Development Bootcamp, which I have yet to start. It’s a 54-hour course and I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I doubt I’ll actually be coding. It really scares me. Why take it? Because that’s what I was told by many to do.

Fitness: HIIT Workouts

With gyms closed, it was getting hard to workout. So I downloaded the HIIT Workouts and Timer by 7M app. This app has a bunch of routines at varied pace and level. The best part is that it gives you an approximation of calorie burn as well.

The app also lets you know which days you worked out and which days you did not. Great way to keep consistent. I even bought some weights to add more variety to my workouts.

Food: Foodpanda

Next up on my most used mobile apps is Foodpanda for ordering food. While there are (or were) other food ordering services in Bangkok, Foodpanda is my must used. Grab Food is also another good option.

Foodpanda was critical in getting delicious meals when we didn’t feel like cooking.

Also just because we could not go to restaurants, doesn’t mean we couldn’t still enjoy their food. I had preferred to order direct from the restaurants but the app makes it easy to order and pay. These apps take a huge commission from the restaurants, which is a crying shame.

Now I try to order directly as much as possible, especially from non-chain small restaurants.

Game: Marvel Future Fight

I’ve been playing Marvel Future Fight almost since its release in 2015. It’s one of the best games out there in terms of story, game-play, and graphics. If you’re a big Marvel superhero fan, this is a must-download. It’s free to play too.

It’s really one of the best action superhero games on mobile. It’s the only one I have never deleted in so many years. It’s got almost 200 characters with a dozen game modes. I log in every day to collect my daily rewards, upgrade characters, and finish all my missions.

The only sad part is that MFF has become quite greedy lately. The developers bring out boring content every month without much change. Also, 70% of the new content is paywall or requires you to pay in some way.

Unfortunately, this is the case for almost all mobile games.

So why not quit the game? Well, I’ve invested too much time and money to quit it. I like to get the newest characters but I just spend less than I used to.

Social: Instagram

As a blogger, Instagram is definitely one of my most used mobile apps. I have both a personal and blogging account on it so I spend a lot of time curating content on it.

OK, that is not really true. I use it more to watch other people’s stories and updates. At one point it was actually getting a little toxic to see people posting their best self while I was struggling so much. I gave several breaks from Instagram to keep my peace of mind.

I did log in every now and then to post some of my thoughts, ideas or updates.

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Other than these apps, I watched a bit of Netflix, applied (unsuccessfully) to jobs, played PS4 games, and connected with friends as much as possible.

How did you deal (or still dealing) with the lockdown?