Micro-adventures make downtime more fun

Figure out what you can do at home, or in small bits of time

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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 micro adventures make downtime more fun. Real

(00:24):
time management masters know how to make even bits of
time confetti feel memorable. So my other podcast, Best of
Both Worlds, has a Patreon community where we meet virtually
once a month for a discussion. Had a recent one
we discussed adventures and how to build more into our lives.

(00:48):
Now everyone knows how to take a vacation, but it
was a little harder to come up with ideas for
adventures you could do without leaving home, or adventures that
would take the thirty minutes or less. But those are
far more regular scenarios than flying to the Bahamas. Many

(01:08):
of us wind up with times when we probably aren't
going anywhere or else we don't have a ton of time,
but we would rather not sit there scrolling around on
our phones seeing this time disappear into nothingness. So why
not brainstorm a few microadventures? Make a list with these

(01:29):
two categories at home and then less than thirty minutes.
There will probably be some overlap between the two, but
also some separate things as well. For instance, in thirty minutes,
I could make a quit stop by my local library,
or let the kids bike down the street to a
neighbor's house where they have this really awesome swing. In

(01:53):
thirty minutes, I could go walk around a nearby farm
that has been turned into a meadow and trails at home,
suggests some other ideas. A few people recalled doing taste
tests of different categories of food. Maybe it's apples or
different kinds of chicken nuggets. Maybe, if we're dealing with adults,

(02:14):
it's tasting a wine flight with three different wines from
the same region of New Zealand. There might be seasonal festivities,
like wrapping a person up in green paper and then
decorating them as a Christmas tree. A new baking project
could be an adventure with the upside of potentially producing
something tasty at the end. If you can go outside,

(02:35):
maybe you could climb a tree. No, not just your kids,
maybe you two. Maybe you use your outdoor fire pit
or light a campfire and toast marshmallows. Maybe you tell
ghost stories. Maybe you make a collage from a lot
of old magazines. If you want to be more fancy,
you could call it a vision board In any case,

(02:57):
I am sure if you think about it and ask
family members and get ideas from friends, you can come
up with a handful of items for each list. Remember
those lists are at home and less than thirty minutes.
What adventures could you have? Then, as you are going

(03:18):
about your day and see a spot of time, you
can put one of these adventures in. Just because you
are home on a Tuesday night doesn't mean you need
to count the hours until bedtime. This little spot might
be ripe for a microadventure. You just need to put

(03:38):
a little thought into it and you can make life
a lot more interesting in the meantime. This is Laura.
Thanks for listening, and here's to making the most of
our time. Thanks for listening to Before Breakfast. If you've

(04:04):
got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach me at
Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast is a
production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

(04:26):
your favorite shows.