Things to do alone, graded from easy to hard

Every list of this kind puts "take a bath" next to "travel the world" and leaves you to work out which one you are ready for. This one is sorted by difficulty, on a fixed scale from one to five, so you can find your rung and then find the next one.

What makes one thing harder than another

Not how long it takes, and not how much it costs. What makes a solo activity hard is how visible you are, for how long, and whether you have to speak. A thirty-day gratitude journal is easier than one dinner. That is the whole reason a flat list of ideas does not help anyone: the ideas are not the difficult part, the ordering is.

So everything below sits on the same five rungs:

1Ten minutes, and nobody is looking.
2Visibly alone, briefly.
3Visibly alone, for a while.
4An unfamiliar setting, plus talking to strangers.
5Several days, and your own logistics.

The rungs matter more than the categories. A level 1 in food and a level 1 in travel ask about the same amount of you, which means you can move sideways when you get bored and upwards when you are ready, without guessing.

Food: from a coffee sitting in to a table booked for one

Food is where most people start, because eating is already something you do every day, and it is also where the fear concentrates, because a restaurant is the one public place with a chair that says how many people were expected. The jump people try to make is straight to dinner. Do not: there are four rungs beneath it.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Order a coffee and drink it in the cafe, alone. Sitting in counts. A takeaway cup on the way to work does not.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Take the window seat in a cafe and eat lunch facing the street. The seat everyone walking past can see, a proper plate rather than a snack, and you stay until it is finished with your phone in your bag.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Eat dinner somewhere with tablecloths, alone. A proper restaurant, a proper table, and you stay for the whole meal.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Book a seat at a shared table and eat dinner beside strangers. A supper club, a communal long table or a shared-seating restaurant; you go alone, sit where you are put, and speak with at least one neighbour during the meal.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Take a weekend away built around eating somewhere new. Two nights, your own bookings, your own table every evening.

If the level 3 is the one you actually came here for, eating at a restaurant alone has the whole thing broken down: what to say when you walk in, where to sit, and what to do in the twenty minutes between ordering and the food arriving.

Culture: the gentlest place to be visibly alone

Culture is underrated as a starting point. A cinema is dark and everybody faces the same way. A museum is quiet, and looking at things slowly on your own is not just accepted there, it is the intended behaviour. Neither has a table for one, and neither has anybody asking whether somebody else is joining you.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Spend twenty minutes in front of a single painting or object. A free museum or gallery, one thing chosen on the way in, and you stay with it for the full twenty minutes before you look at anything else.

Difficulty 2 of 5 See a matinee at the cinema, alone. Buy one ticket, sit in the middle, stay until the credits finish.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Spend an afternoon in a museum, alone. Two hours at your own pace. Skip the rooms you find boring.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Go to a gig by a band you love, alone, and dance. Stand in the crowd rather than at the back wall, and move to at least three songs the way you would if nobody could see you.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Go to a multi-day festival by yourself. Two nights or more, your own tent or room, your own schedule.

Both of the easy ones have their own page: going to the cinema alone, which is the single least observed thing on this list, and going to a museum alone, which is the one most likely to make you forget you were nervous.

Movement: your body gives you something to do

Anything physical comes with a built-in advantage. You have a reason to be there and a task to perform, and nobody reads a person swimming lengths as a person who could not find company. The awkward parts of movement are the edges, not the middle: the changing room, the first two minutes of a class, the moment you do not know where the equipment lives.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Walk for twenty minutes with your phone in your pocket. No music, no podcast, no screen. Just the walk and whatever is around you.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Swim a few lengths at a public pool, alone. Changing room, lane, shower. All of it on your own.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Take a gym class where you know nobody. The back row is fine. Staying until the end is the mission.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Walk a marked day hike on your own. A marked trail, in daylight, in boots that actually fit.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Walk a multi-day route on your own. Two days or more, huts or hostels booked, your own pack on your back.

Travel: it starts with a bus, not a flight

Solo travel is what most people picture when they think about doing things alone, and it is also the thing they use to prove to themselves that they could never do any of this. The picture is wrong because it starts at the top. A bus route you have never taken, ridden to the end and back, is solo travel. It costs the fare and an afternoon.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Take a bus route you have never used to the end of the line. Ride it out, walk about for ten minutes, ride it back.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Take a train or bus to the next town and have a coffee there. Out, sit down somewhere, back again. Half a day at most.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Take a day trip somewhere you have never been, alone. Leave in the morning, come back the same day, and plan it yourself.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Spend one night away on your own. One night, one bag, somewhere you booked yourself.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Go to a country where you know nobody. Arrive, work it out on the ground, come home with a story.

Everything at level 4 and above carries the same note, and it is not decoration: tell one person where you are going and when you will be back.

Everyday: the errands you have been avoiding

This is the category nobody puts on a list of things to do alone, because none of it sounds like an experience. It is also the category that changes the most, because it is made of the things you already have to do and have been quietly arranging your life to avoid.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Buy yourself a bunch of flowers and carry them home through town. Choose them at the counter, say they are for you if asked, and walk home with them in plain view rather than in a bag.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Get your hair cut somewhere you have never been. New place, new person, and you say out loud what you want.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Work or study in a busy cafe for two hours, alone. A table in the middle of the room, not the one facing the wall.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Do a volunteer shift somewhere you know nobody. Sign up, turn up, and work the whole shift.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Take two days and clear every appointment you have been putting off, alone. Dentist, optician, bank, a repair, the form you keep avoiding: book them across two consecutive days and go to each one on your own.

Solitude: being alone without an audience

Every other category is about being alone in front of people. This one is about being alone with yourself, which turns out to be a separate skill and, for a lot of people, the harder of the two. An hour with no phone is level 1 by the ladder and can still feel surprisingly difficult.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Spend one hour with no phone and no music. Put it in another room. Sit, walk, or do nothing at all for the full hour.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Spend a whole evening offline. From the moment you get home until you go to bed.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Spend a whole weekend day alone, on purpose. Plan it as carefully as you would plan a day with somebody else.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Spend a full day outdoors on your own. Daylight hours, food you carried with you, no company.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Spend a weekend alone in a rented cabin. Two nights, booked by you, with your own food and no visitors, and at least one full day where you speak to nobody at all.

People: going out alone and speaking to somebody

Going somewhere alone and staying silent is one thing. Going somewhere alone and saying something out loud to a stranger is a different nerve, and keeping it as its own category is what stops a whole month of missions turning into a month of not talking to anybody. Nothing here treats a stranger as a target. It is small talk, a question, a compliment about something a person made or chose.

Difficulty 1 of 5 Say hello to five strangers on one walk. Out loud, with eye contact, five different people before you get home; a nod on its own does not count.

Difficulty 2 of 5 Make small talk with whoever is serving you at the till. Ask them how their day is going, listen to the answer, and say one more thing back before you pay.

Difficulty 3 of 5 Start a conversation with the person next to you in a queue. Ask what they are hoping to get and keep talking until one of you reaches the front.

Difficulty 4 of 5 Go to a public speaking meetup and take a speaking slot. Turn up alone to a group that practises speaking, and stand up for at least the short impromptu round.

Difficulty 5 of 5 Book a weekend group trip where you know nobody. A guided walk, a hobby weekend or an organised excursion with two nights away; talk to everyone in the group by the end of it.

More solo ideas for an ordinary week

You do not need a big trip. These activities come from the expanded Solo Era library. Pick one that fits your time, access needs and budget.

Food · Difficulty 2 of 5Visit a farmers' shop for a seasonal snack.Choose one ready-to-eat seasonal item at a staffed farm shop and enjoy it at a permitted seating area.

Food · Difficulty 2 of 5Eat at a restaurant during its quiet first hour.Check opening times, arrive alone when service starts and stay for a small meal.

Culture · Difficulty 1 of 5Explore a public postage-stamp exhibition.Visit an exhibition or museum display about stamps and choose one design you would send on a letter.

Culture · Difficulty 2 of 5Visit a small transport heritage collection.Check public opening hours and spend half an hour exploring a collection of historic transport.

Movement · Difficulty 2 of 5Try a beginner chair-yoga class.Choose an instructor-led chair-yoga session suited to your mobility and take the modifications you need.

Movement · Difficulty 4 of 5Book an adaptive climbing introduction.Contact an established climbing centre about suitable support and attend a supervised introductory session alone.

Travel · Difficulty 3 of 5Visit a public lighthouse visitor centre.Plan a daylight trip to a lighthouse open to visitors and use only its designated public paths.

Travel · Difficulty 2 of 5Take a daytime canal passenger boat.Book a seat on a licensed canal service and complete a short return trip by yourself.

People · Difficulty 2 of 5Ask a guide how they chose their favourite exhibit.During an invited question period, ask a museum guide about one exhibit they enjoy and listen to the answer.

People · Difficulty 3 of 5Join a public citizen-science briefing alone.Attend an established project's beginner briefing and learn how to take part within its published rules.

Everyday · Difficulty 2 of 5Collect a repaired pair of shoes in person.Take a pair needing repair to a staffed repair shop, agree the work and collect it yourself when ready.

Everyday · Difficulty 2 of 5Ask a hardware shop for the right small part.Bring the measurements or a photo of a non-hazardous household item and ask a staff member which part fits.

Solitude · Difficulty 1 of 5Make a small paper model from a printed guide.Choose a simple paper model and spend half an hour assembling it for yourself.

Solitude · Difficulty 1 of 5Learn one short poem by heart.Choose a short poem you enjoy and practise it alone for twenty minutes without aiming for perfection.

How to choose the first one

Pick a level 1 in the category you are least frightened of, and do it this week. Not the one that would impress somebody. Not the one that sounds like a story. The boring one, in the category that already suits you, at a quiet hour.

Then do a second level 1 in a different category, because the point is not to get good at cafes. After three or four of those, a level 2 will feel like the obvious next thing rather than a dare, and that feeling is the actual signal you are looking for. If you would rather have the first week decided for you, the seven-day version lays out one thing a day, starting at ten minutes.

Write down a number before and after

A list has one weakness: it can only ever tell you what you have done, never whether it is getting easier. Two numbers fix that.

Before you go, rate how nervous the thing makes you from one to ten. When you get home, rate it again. That is all. The pair on its own is mildly interesting; twenty pairs over a few months is a line, and the line is a record of how those experiences felt to you. It also catches the failure case early. The numbers do not have to fall every time. Your notes can help you see which situations felt manageable and what you would change next time.

Repeats count for this, and repeats are the part lists never mention. The third time you eat dinner alone is worth more to the line than the first time you do something new, because it tells you what changed.

Solo Era keeps the list and the numbers

One mission a week, assigned from the same library and the same five levels you have just read. It records the two numbers, draws the line, and ticks things off permanently so the list only ever goes one way. An iPhone app.

Questions people ask about doing things alone

What is the easiest thing to do alone first?

A coffee you drink sitting in, at a quiet hour, somewhere nobody knows you. It takes ten minutes, you can leave whenever you like, and nothing about it requires you to speak beyond ordering.

Is it normal to prefer doing things alone?

Yes, and it is a separate question from whether you are able to. Plenty of people who enjoy their own company still cannot walk into a restaurant on their own. Preference and capability are different things, and only one of them is trainable.

How do I stop feeling like everyone is looking at me?

You mostly do not argue your way out of that; you outlast it. What changes is not the belief but the evidence, which is why writing the number down matters. The first time, the feeling and the reality are equally vivid. By the sixth, the number you wrote after the first one is the more convincing of the two.

What if I run out of things to do?

Repeat them. A mission stays ticked off permanently, but doing it again earns a new entry and a new pair of numbers, and the second and third attempts are where the line actually moves. The library is also still growing.

Is doing things alone the same as solomaxxing?

Partly. Solomaxxing is mostly used in the press to mean choosing to stay single, with the activities as examples. The activities are the part you can practise, and they are what this page is about.

Want one idea right now? Get a solo idea in one tap, then make it easier or harder.