Speaker 1: Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
Speaker 1: This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
Speaker 1: tip is that if life has been feeling a little busy,
Speaker 1: you might choose to plan a night of nothing as
Speaker 1: a chance to recharge. It is impossible to actually do nothing,
Speaker 1: but having no scheduled commitments can sometimes be nice. If
Speaker 1: you've been listening to Before Breakfast for a while, you know,
Speaker 1: I love the idea of planning little adventures into life.
Speaker 1: Especially if your life features a lot of have to dos.
Speaker 1: It's important to put in some want to dos alongside
Speaker 1: those things. But if you've got a lot of community commitments, kids, sports,
Speaker 1: and so forth, sometimes life can start to feel very full.
Speaker 1: There is downtime, perhaps after your commitments are done in
Speaker 1: the evening, but it doesn't feel like as much as
Speaker 1: you want. That's where a night of nothing comes in.
Speaker 1: I recently encountered this term night of nothing to describe
Speaker 1: an intentionally planned night for staying home and chilling. Now again,
Speaker 1: to be clear, I have seen thousands of time logs,
Speaker 1: and I can tell you that most people do a
Speaker 1: so called night of nothing again and again. It looks
Speaker 1: like the routine of dinner, getting kids to bed if
Speaker 1: you have kids, and then watching TV or doing some
Speaker 1: other sort of screen time. Most people could massively benefit
Speaker 1: from joining some sort of community activity that would involve
Speaker 1: leaving the house once a week and planning in little
Speaker 1: adventures to break up the monotony. But if you happen
Speaker 1: to be in a season of life where most evenings
Speaker 1: are spoken for, then you might like to proactively plan
Speaker 1: in what we will call a night of nothing here
Speaker 1: and there. For some families, this looks like using one
Speaker 1: night each week where no activities get scheduled, or if
Speaker 1: that doesn't work, maybe each partner gets one night of
Speaker 1: nothing a week while the other parent handles all activities.
Speaker 1: If you tend to wind up with a lot of
Speaker 1: community or social plans, you might block out a night
Speaker 1: in advance and politely decline or try to move things
Speaker 1: from it if possible. Then once the time is free,
Speaker 1: think about what you'd like to do with it. I
Speaker 1: know why people like this night of nothing terminology, but
Speaker 1: it is impossible to do nothing with your time. You
Speaker 1: will do something, So figure out what something would feel
Speaker 1: low key and RESTful. For some people, that might be
Speaker 1: reading a book or doing something at home with the family.
Speaker 1: If it's going to be screen time, think about what
Speaker 1: would be an enjoyable, relaxing version of this. Do you
Speaker 1: have a particular show you'd like to watch, a particular game?
Speaker 1: Would you like to watch a movie? As you are
Speaker 1: experiencing your so called night of nothing? See what it
Speaker 1: feels like, what do you like, what doesn't work? If
Speaker 1: you find you particularly like having a long time to read,
Speaker 1: you might see how you can make space for this
Speaker 1: in your regular life. My guess is that you can
Speaker 1: if you try. Being intentional about time helps us see
Speaker 1: all kinds of things, and sometimes a night of nothing
Speaker 1: can offer useful answers about what we feel like we
Speaker 1: are missing in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,
Speaker 1: and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've got questions, ideas,
Speaker 1: or feedback, you can reach me at Laura at Laura
Speaker 1: vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a production of iHeartMedia.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.