Go on a lunchtime adventure

Make your workdays a little more memorable

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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 to go on a lunchtime adventure, particularly as
it starts getting darker Earlier. Adventures might be harder to

(00:25):
have after work than, say, during the summer, but if
you have a little bit of autonomous time in the
middle of the day, you might be able to use
it for all kinds of interesting things. So in some
kinds of jobs, breaks are formalized and many others they aren't,

(00:45):
but most people take some breaks for no other reason
than that people need to use the restroom or procure
things to eat. Handled right, breaks can make you more
energized for the work ahead, so there are big productivity
breakthroughs to be had by taking breaks intentionally and actively
choosing activities for those breaks that boost mood and energy levels.

(01:11):
If you aren't taking regular lunch breaks, commit this week
to doing so. Then, once you are regularly stepping away
from your workspace for at least a few minutes in
the middle of the day, see if you can increase
the fun factor by going on at least one lunchtime
adventure a week. A lunchtime adventure is obviously going to

(01:33):
be short. Most people aren't going to take more than
thirty to forty five minutes or so away from their desks.
But if you have your food ready to go, then
you don't need to spend time standing in line to
buy it, and you can do something else with these minutes.
Perhaps you can do something really interesting. It's worth a shot.

(01:53):
Doing so could make a random work day far more memorable.
So wherever you work, look around at places you could
get to in a very short walk, or, if it's
that sort of place, a quick drive. Make a list
of potential options. Maybe there are some interesting stores a
few blocks away that would be fun to peruse. Maybe

(02:14):
there's an indoor garden in the lobby of a nearby
office building. Maybe there are a few food trucks parked
in a parking lot that's a three minute drive from
your office. If you hauled yourself over there, you'd get
something more interesting than your cafeteria fair. Maybe there's a
trail nearby you can walk. Maybe there's an actual destination,
like a museum. Most people won't go to a history

(02:38):
museum for just twenty minutes, but if you get a membership,
you could come back once every week or so and
see a lot of it. If you have more control
of your time, then there are lots of other options.
One of my favorite lunchtime adventures is to go over
to Chanticleer, a botanical garden that is about a twenty

(02:58):
minute drive from my house. I have to plan this
out since I'm usually gone about an hour and fifteen
minutes on days I do that, but once every two
to three weeks during the spring, summer, and fall is
good for seeing something beautiful. If I check the traffic,
sometimes it's only about twenty minutes to the Philadelphia Art
Museum in the middle of the day. If I go

(03:19):
for less than an hour, my parking is free. I
can't do that every day, but can I do it
once a month. Absolutely. The point here is to shift
a few mindsets. First, there is the story that you
can't do anything that is not work during work hours.
The truth is that people do things that aren't work

(03:41):
during work hours. All the time we eat, we go
to the bathroom. Often people read headlines or answer texts
that are not required for their work. The breakthrough is
to decide that since there is going to be time
spent not working during work hours. It's best to use
this time intentionally to rejuvenate. This actually allows you to

(04:04):
get more done. Here's another mindset shift. You can do
something occasionally and have it be a fun part of
your life without trying to do things every day. Will
you go on a lunchtime adventure daily? Probably not. If
you look at your schedule. Could you try to do
something fun and interesting at lunch once a week? You

(04:27):
probably can. These things are not either or. And finally,
I think a lot of us are walking around with
the story that we can't do things, so we don't
do things. But what if you told yourself the story
that you could get outside and see the fall color
and see the sunshine in the middle of the day,

(04:48):
Probably at least one day during the next week or two,
you'll be just puttering around during a thirty minute chunk
in the middle of your work day. Probably one day
in the next week or two, you could make something
interesting happen, and then you have an entirely different story.
I am not starve for time, I am not put upon.

(05:14):
I am the kind of person who can go browse
that cool comic bookshop in the middle of the workday.
It opens up all sorts of possibilities. So look at
your schedule, look at when you take breaks, Think about
what sort of lunchtime adventures might be possible for you.
Choose a day over the next week to try one.

(05:37):
Choose a backup slot in case the first time is
taken away from you. I'm guessing if you do all that,
you can make it happen and that workday won't be forgotten.
We don't ask where did the time go when we
remember where the time went in the meantime. This is

(05:59):
low Biah. 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

(06:28):
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
please visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
listen to your favorite shows.