Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Good Morning. This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast.
Speaker 1: Today's tip is to spend some time exploring your own city.
Speaker 1: Little adventures make time feel more rich and full, and
Speaker 1: the upside of staying local is that you don't need
Speaker 1: to spend much time in transit. I know that a
Speaker 1: lot of people feel so busy during the week that
Speaker 1: they get to the weekend and have no real thought
Speaker 1: about what to do. The net result is that people
Speaker 1: tend to putter around, or at best, do the same
Speaker 1: things over and over again. There's nothing wrong with routine,
Speaker 1: but over time, too much sameness tends to make time
Speaker 1: collapse into a memory sinkhole. That's too bad, because almost
Speaker 1: any location has some cool stuff. Some places are destinations
Speaker 1: in their own right, and if you live in one,
Speaker 1: be sure to capitalize on this. People pay good money
Speaker 1: to deal with t s A and turbulence to fly
Speaker 1: to your town. You get the town without needing to
Speaker 1: do any of this. A listener from Los Angeles recently
Speaker 1: wrote me that she tries to adopt this attitude. I
Speaker 1: subscribe to l a magazine and keep a running list
Speaker 1: of things I really want to see. She says, I
Speaker 1: keep Google maps of the city with things I want
Speaker 1: to do clustered together, then add new things to the
Speaker 1: appropriate map as I learned about them. So, for instance,
Speaker 1: on a recent day, her family toured a stained glass
Speaker 1: production facility, and while they were there checked out two
Speaker 1: unique shops, a quote unquote secret garden that was open
Speaker 1: to the public and a venue where you pay for
Speaker 1: a table and food and then get access to their
Speaker 1: library of board games that you can play all night.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, that's a more memorable day than you'd
Speaker 1: get by doing chores and watching Netflix. It's amazing to
Speaker 1: me how many people don't ever truly explore their own city.
Speaker 1: Our listener says, when I mentioned the things we've done
Speaker 1: to people who've lived in l A their entire lives,
Speaker 1: they are always surprised that such a thing even exists.
Speaker 1: She notes that sarah pity happens too. While in that
Speaker 1: secret garden, they happen to strike up a conversation with
Speaker 1: someone working in law enforcement who talked about careers with
Speaker 1: the listeners son. Of course, creating such a day requires planning.
Speaker 1: You have to know about places and events, and you
Speaker 1: have to make a decision to go to them. Subscribing
Speaker 1: to a local magazine is a great idea, as is
Speaker 1: checking out local online bulletin boards. Performance venues will be
Speaker 1: happy to send you their schedules. In Any large institution
Speaker 1: like a library, museum, university, or house of worship likely
Speaker 1: has plenty of programming. Build in ten to fifteen minutes
Speaker 1: a week for perusing such listings, and if you see
Speaker 1: something that strikes your fancy at least get it on
Speaker 1: the calendar. You're not committing to it unless it's, say,
Speaker 1: Hamilton's production, and you need to get tickets in the
Speaker 1: first minutes they're available. The vast majority of events won't
Speaker 1: require a decision until a day or two ahead of
Speaker 1: time at most. You can also make a local version
Speaker 1: of my favorite list, the list of a hundred dreams
Speaker 1: past episodes we've talked about, this long list of anything
Speaker 1: you might want to spend more time doing. Try making
Speaker 1: a different version of this list that involves anything you
Speaker 1: might like to try within two hours of your house
Speaker 1: that's feasible for a weekend day trip. Again, you're not
Speaker 1: necessarily committing to anything. It's more that when you have
Speaker 1: such a list, the perpetual question of what are we
Speaker 1: doing this weekend can involve a more fruitful conversation than
Speaker 1: the usual I don't know, what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: You can look at the list and remember that you
Speaker 1: thought it might be fun to go to a pick
Speaker 1: your own farm, and hey, your calendar of events shows
Speaker 1: that the library near the pick your own farm is
Speaker 1: having a concert that night too. Now you're making memories
Speaker 1: in your local landscape, which can give us a profound
Speaker 1: sense of belonging while also making time feel rich and full.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks for listening, and
Speaker 1: here's to making the most of our time. M Hey everybody,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from you. You can send me
Speaker 1: your tips, your questions, or anything else. Just connect with
Speaker 1: me on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod
Speaker 1: that's b E the number four, then Breakfast p o D.
Speaker 1: You can also shoot me an email at Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at i heeart media dot com that Before Breakfast
Speaker 1: is spelled out with all the letters. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: I look forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is
Speaker 1: a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from
Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.