30 minutes can change your evenings

Setting one intention can make weekday evenings more meaningful

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Before Breakfast, a production of iHeartRadio. Good Morning.
This is Laura. Welcome to the Before Breakfast podcast. Today's
tip is that thirty minutes can change your evening. Setting
one thirty minute intention for a weekday evening can make

(00:25):
the evening feel like it is something to look forward
to and can make this time feel like it truly exists.
Today's tip comes out of my recent September reset project.
I had people track their time during the month of
September and then try out several of my favorite time

(00:45):
management strategies. One of these strategies was to set evening intentions.
That is, to try to make what I like to
call the golden hours of each weekday better. Weekday evenings
have been something of an obsession for me lately because well,
very few people use them well. People are tired after

(01:07):
a long day at work or school, or spent caring
for family members. This time can feel like a second
shift of doing chores and getting people to bed, or
sometimes it is spent mindlessly on screen time and puttering
things that feel so forgettable that people don't even notice
they are doing them. The issue with all this is

(01:28):
that many people's evenings are actually quite long. In my projects,
I have found that many people are done with work
by five thirty or so, and most people are not
in bed before ten thirty pm. That is five hours.
It's a lot of time to write off as unusable. Now,

(01:51):
in my perfect world, people would think through all five
hours and think of how to spend this time in
ways that were meaningful and enjoyable for themselves and the
people they care about. In the real world, I know
that it's unrealistic, and we do have obligations for this time.
I know I spend a lot of time driving kids around,

(02:12):
cooking dinner, supervising bedtimes, and so forth. But almost all
of us have some discretionary time. Even if you are
caring for kids, or even if you work late or unpredictably,
you can probably find thirty minutes. And thinking about what
you'd like to do for thirty minutes ahead of time

(02:35):
can completely change your evenings. So if you are listening
to a show called Before Breakfast in the morning, think
about tonight. What could you do for thirty minutes tonight
that you would find genuinely enjoyable. What would you look
forward to? Maybe it's reading a magazine that just came

(02:55):
in the mail. Maybe it's reading a book. Maybe it's
doing ah or puzzles, or maybe it's something creative like
cross stitching or sketching. Maybe it's having a glass of
wine with your partner. Maybe it's calling a friend. Maybe
it's going on a family walk or hitting the gym.
Maybe it's watching something you have chosen and you are

(03:16):
looking forward to, not just whatever the algorithm served up.
Whatever it is, think about what you would like to
do tonight. Think about where this could go, right when
you get home from work, right after dinner, after the
kids are in bed, When do you have at least
a few minutes of discretionary time do you need to

(03:39):
do anything to make your intention happen? When you set
an intention and set an intended time and think through
the logistics, the odds of you doing something are just
much greater. And then when your fun happens, suddenly evenings
become or fun. The day isn't over after dinner. There

(04:06):
is still time that can be used. I promise that
even just thirty minutes can change your evenings. Now it's
possible that you will find space for thirty minutes of
fun and decide you can stretch this a bit. Thirty
minutes of reading becomes forty five. You decide to draw
for thirty minutes, and you are still at it an

(04:27):
hour later. You won't get any complaining from me about
this possibility. But even if only thirty minutes fits, I
am guessing you can do thirty minutes and evenings won't
be forgettable or draining. They will be a source of
real joy in your life. In the meantime, this is Laura.

(04:52):
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a

(05:20):
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
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your favorite shows.