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 keep a leisure log, that is
Speaker 1: a record of how you spend your free time and
Speaker 1: how you feel about it. This will help you notice
Speaker 1: what you're doing with your leisure time and identifying moments
Speaker 1: that you find especially fulfilling, and that in turn will
Speaker 1: lead to more of these sublime moments. Even if we
Speaker 1: don't get paid by the hour, most of us have
Speaker 1: a reasonable sense of a work day's landscape. Evenings and weekends,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, can feel unmoored from the passing
Speaker 1: of time. If you come home from work at six
Speaker 1: o'clock and go to bed at ten thirty, for instance,
Speaker 1: that is four and a half hours. But if you
Speaker 1: are like a lot of people, you have no idea
Speaker 1: where all that time goes. Dinner, taking care of kids
Speaker 1: that certainly accounts for some of it, as does tidying up,
Speaker 1: but that generally doesn't account for all two hundred seventy minutes.
Speaker 1: You likely have some leisure time in there, and on
Speaker 1: weekends too. According to the most recent American Time Youth
Speaker 1: Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, American women,
Speaker 1: on average had just over five hours of leisure time
Speaker 1: per day, while men averaged almost six hours per day. Now,
Speaker 1: that is averaging week days and weekends to gather, but
Speaker 1: however you cut it, thirty five to forty two hours
Speaker 1: a week is a lot of time. Even parents, including
Speaker 1: those of young kids, have a few hours a day,
Speaker 1: coming out generally to north of twenty hours per week.
Speaker 1: So it is worth finding out where this time goes
Speaker 1: so you can make the most of your leisure time
Speaker 1: instead of frittering it away on things that aren't relaxing
Speaker 1: or even particularly enjoyable. A time log can help you
Speaker 1: do that. I have guided thousands of people through tracking
Speaker 1: their time, and almost invariably, time tracking prompts people to
Speaker 1: realize that they have more leisure time than they thought.
Speaker 1: Many people also realize that they could be using their
Speaker 1: leisure time better. If you are interested in tracking all
Speaker 1: your activities, you can go to my blog Laura Vanderkamp
Speaker 1: dot com and enter your email to get a free
Speaker 1: time makeover guide, which includes a template to track your
Speaker 1: time for a week. But if that sounds like more detailed,
Speaker 1: then you're truly interested in just try tracking your leisure.
Speaker 1: Your leisure log can be a line on your planner
Speaker 1: each day, a page in your bullet journal where you
Speaker 1: write an entry for each day, or calendar items in
Speaker 1: your digital calendar, recording how you spend each chunk of leisure.
Speaker 1: Write what you did with your leisure time and also
Speaker 1: how you felt. This can be as simple as walked
Speaker 1: with Holly left and enjoyed myself, or made risotto, relaxing
Speaker 1: love the smell of cooking onions. Perhaps during your leisure
Speaker 1: time you felt absorbed in in a state of flow
Speaker 1: while working on a sewing project, or maybe you were
Speaker 1: transported by an engrossing book or movie. You might have
Speaker 1: felt a sense of accomplishment after mastering a tricky phrase
Speaker 1: on the piano or figuring out how to design a
Speaker 1: treehouse for a tree with an inconveniently placed branch. Sometimes
Speaker 1: people feel more like themselves when they pursue a leisure
Speaker 1: activity just for them. When you keep a leisure log
Speaker 1: and pay attention to how you're spending your time and
Speaker 1: how different uses of leisure make you feel, you're able
Speaker 1: to make choices about how to use your leisure time. Well,
Speaker 1: if you know that scrolling Facebook leaves you feeling irritable,
Speaker 1: you can do something else. If you know that watching
Speaker 1: TV makes you feel lethargic, you can make a different choice.
Speaker 1: Or maybe you can see that mindfully chosen TV, like
Speaker 1: watching a favorite series with your partner, feels fun, but
Speaker 1: channel surfing because you can't figure out what else to do,
Speaker 1: feels like a waste of time. Knowledge is power, and
Speaker 1: a leisure log equips you to make wise choices about
Speaker 1: how you spend your time. Yes, some people have a
Speaker 1: lot more leisure time than others. Yes, we can sometimes
Speaker 1: ponder why this is, and sometimes we need to make
Speaker 1: changes when things feel inequitable. But all of us have
Speaker 1: the power to make more of the leisure time we
Speaker 1: do have. However many hours that may be. So keep
Speaker 1: track of your leisure time and how you feel about it.
Speaker 1: You'll soon start enjoying it more and maybe even looking
Speaker 1: for ways to make more of it. That is a
Speaker 1: win all around. In the meantime, this is Laura. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening, and here's to making the most of our time. 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 for Breakfast
Speaker 1: podcast at iHeartMedia dot com that before Breakfast is spelled
Speaker 1: out with all the letters. Thanks so much, I look
Speaker 1: forward to staying in touch. Before Breakfast is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.