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 find a hobby, or, if you
Speaker 1: already have one, to schedule some more time for it.
Speaker 1: This is especially true if you feel like you have
Speaker 1: no time at all, because time is all about perception,
Speaker 1: and consciously choosing to spend time on leisurely activities can
Speaker 1: make you feel like you do have time for leisure.
Speaker 1: I recently read Celeste Hedley's new book, Do Nothing Now.
Speaker 1: To be clear, Hedley doesn't want people to actually do nothing,
Speaker 1: nor has this public radio host and speaker ever spent
Speaker 1: a day doing nothing in her life. However, she does
Speaker 1: argue that many of us could use some higher quality leisure.
Speaker 1: In general, people work less than they think they do.
Speaker 1: We have free time, even busy people like Hedley. But
Speaker 1: when we tell ourselves a story that we have no
Speaker 1: free time, when we get a spare moment, we don't
Speaker 1: have anything particularly purposeful ready to do with it, and
Speaker 1: so we spend this leisure time in the most effortless
Speaker 1: ways possible, such as scrolling through social media, or we
Speaker 1: do fake productive activities like deleting email so one thing
Speaker 1: Hedley suggests is pursuing an actual hobby. There are all
Speaker 1: kinds of interesting things you can do that use entirely
Speaker 1: different parts of your brain or that require less intense
Speaker 1: thinking than your job. Headley has a moss garden. You
Speaker 1: can do crossword puzzles or jigsaw puzzles. You can cross
Speaker 1: stitch or knit, or do other sorts of needlework. Legos
Speaker 1: are great, or building model trains or dollhouses. My ten
Speaker 1: year old son and I are building a ship in
Speaker 1: a bottle. You can plan an elaborate garden. Anything artistic
Speaker 1: is great. I just read an article about someone who
Speaker 1: makes lodges out of illustrations from old books, which sounds
Speaker 1: both fascinating and time consuming. Now I know my listeners
Speaker 1: are doing great things in the world, and so you
Speaker 1: may be listening to this and thinking that you do
Speaker 1: not have time for making collages out of old books.
Speaker 1: I get it, but I'm guessing that this is not
Speaker 1: entirely true. If someone offered to start paying you a
Speaker 1: hundred thousand dollars apiece for those collages, you'd probably find
Speaker 1: the time somewhere. It's more that this is not a
Speaker 1: priority for you, and that's okay too, But scheduling just
Speaker 1: twenty minutes for a hobby a few times a week
Speaker 1: can do a lot for you at the cost of
Speaker 1: one of your one sixty eight weekly hours. First, most
Speaker 1: hobbies are kind of fun. That's why people do them. Second,
Speaker 1: a good hobby gets you off your phone. Sure, you
Speaker 1: can use your phone for reference, but you may be
Speaker 1: marginally less inclined to scroll on Twitter while you're using
Speaker 1: your hands to knit. And most importantly, a good hobby
Speaker 1: changes the story you tell yourself. You can tell yourself
Speaker 1: that you have no free time whatsoever if you scroll
Speaker 1: through Twitter for three hours a day because it's adjacent
Speaker 1: to your inbox. But it's hard to tell that story.
Speaker 1: If you spend an equivalent quantity of time building a
Speaker 1: ship in a bottle, you are forced to acknowledge that, yes,
Speaker 1: I have some free time. Maybe not as much free
Speaker 1: time as I want, but some, and that is a
Speaker 1: very different story. It puts us back in control of
Speaker 1: our time, so we can start living the lives we want.
Speaker 1: If you make time for a hobby, I would love
Speaker 1: to hear about it. You can send me pictures of
Speaker 1: your moss gardens or ships in a bottle at Before
Speaker 1: Breakfast podcast at i heeart media dot com. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: this is Laura. Thanks for listening and here's to making
Speaker 1: the most of our time. Hey, everybody, I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. You can send me your tips, your questions,
Speaker 1: or anything else. Just connect with me on Twitter, Facebook
Speaker 1: and Instagram at Before Breakfast pod. That's B the number four,
Speaker 1: then Breakfast p o D. You can also shoot me
Speaker 1: an email at Before Breakfast podcast at i heeart media
Speaker 1: dot com. That Before Breakfast is spelled out with all
Speaker 1: the letters. Thanks so much, I look forward to staying
Speaker 1: in touch. Before Breakfast is a production of I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i
Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
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