Pick your long weekend leisure

Enjoy downtime more by choosing what to do first

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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 pick your long weekend a leisure. Before
you go into a long weekend, more so, even than

(00:23):
just a regular weekend, make sure that you have a
first choice for how to spend your downtime. This increases
the chances that you'll spend time on that and less
time on other things. Today's tip is first airing right
around the fourth of July in the United States. This
is a national holiday, and this year it happens to

(00:43):
fall on a Friday, which is pretty exciting. We have
a ready made long weekend. I know a lot of
folks are taking advantage of that to get to the beach,
or go see family, or go to an amusement park
or watch some great fireworks. Even in a weekend with
a lot of stuff going on, there is always some downtime,

(01:05):
hopefully more than a little. The problem is we don't
always think about exactly when this leisure is going to happen,
or perhaps we just don't know. You're hanging out at
Grandma's and no one is up, or you didn't go
on that group boat ride at the lake, and they're
late coming back, and you're sitting around in the quiet.
Now what the easiest thing, as usual is to pick

(01:27):
up the phone. But then precious leisure time is spent
looking at influencers you don't even know. It doesn't feel
all that rejuvenating. So instead, going into any long weekend,
figure out what your first choice leisure activity is going
to be. For a lot of people, that might mean
reading a really good book. So you need to make

(01:48):
sure you have that really good book. Go get it
from the library, or go visit the library if you
don't know what you want to read, and see what
looks alluring. If you don't always win at the library
and I get it it happens, go to a bookstore.
Sometimes the newer stuff is more readily available there. Books
are cheap as entertainment goes. Whatever it is, though, make

(02:11):
sure you are really looking forward to reading this book,
because then you will pick it up as soon as
you realize that no one else is up at Grandma's
or the boat is coming back later than you thought
or whatever. Of course, books aren't the only option, or
you might need a break from reading. I love doing
one thousand piece puzzles, so before any long weekend, I

(02:33):
make sure I have a new one ready to go.
Puzzles are pretty cheap entertainment, just like books. Twenty dollars
for something that often takes me at least ten to
fifteen hours. But you could swap some puzzles with friends
if you're looking to save cash there too. You might
buy a new crossword puzzle book or get a new
cross stitch pattern. You could buy a new art kit

(02:56):
or set yourself a goal like sketching three different kinds
of wildflowers the course of the weekend. Even if your
chosen leisure is screen time, I still think it is
helpful to figure out exactly what this is so you
know what to seek out and you know what you
are excited about. Maybe you download a new game and
decide to play that, or set up an online tournament

(03:17):
with friends. You wait to stream the next season of
a favorite show and tell it's the long weekend so
you can really savor it. During that time, you and
your spouse decide to go to a movie marathon based
on a particular actor's work. Or maybe your favorite baseball
team has three games over the holiday weekend. Maybe you
can go to one and make watching the other two

(03:39):
on TV into an event. The point is you are
going to have some leisure time, even if it's not
as much as you want. You will be more likely
to notice that this time is happening and really savor
it if this downtime is intentional. When you finish a
fun summer read by the end of a long weekend,

(04:00):
and it's hard to tell yourself the story that you
have zero time. When you are halfway through a one
thousand piece puzzle by the end of a long weekend,
it is hard to tell yourself the story that you
have zero time, because in general we do have time.
Time is big enough for all sorts of things, so
it is good to make sure that the long weekend
helps paint an accurate picture of life in the meantime.

(04:25):
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 got questions, ideas, or feedback, you can reach
me at Laura at Laura vandercam dot com. Before Breakfast

(04:54):
is a production of iHeartMedia. For more podcasts from iHeartMedia,
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