Plan a night of nothing

How to build in time to chill

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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 if life has been feeling a little busy,
you might choose to plan a night of nothing as

(00:23):
a chance to recharge. It is impossible to actually do nothing,
but having no scheduled commitments can sometimes be nice. If
you've been listening to Before Breakfast for a while, you know,
I love the idea of planning little adventures into life.
Especially if your life features a lot of have to dos.

(00:44):
It's important to put in some want to dos alongside
those things. But if you've got a lot of community commitments, kids, sports,
and so forth, sometimes life can start to feel very full.
There is downtime, perhaps after your commitments are done in
the evening, but it doesn't feel like as much as
you want. That's where a night of nothing comes in.

(01:09):
I recently encountered this term night of nothing to describe
an intentionally planned night for staying home and chilling. Now again,
to be clear, I have seen thousands of time logs,
and I can tell you that most people do a
so called night of nothing again and again. It looks
like the routine of dinner, getting kids to bed if

(01:30):
you have kids, and then watching TV or doing some
other sort of screen time. Most people could massively benefit
from joining some sort of community activity that would involve
leaving the house once a week and planning in little
adventures to break up the monotony. But if you happen
to be in a season of life where most evenings
are spoken for, then you might like to proactively plan

(01:54):
in what we will call a night of nothing here
and there. For some families, this looks like using one
night each week where no activities get scheduled, or if
that doesn't work, maybe each partner gets one night of
nothing a week while the other parent handles all activities.
If you tend to wind up with a lot of
community or social plans, you might block out a night

(02:16):
in advance and politely decline or try to move things
from it if possible. Then once the time is free,
think about what you'd like to do with it. I
know why people like this night of nothing terminology, but
it is impossible to do nothing with your time. You
will do something, So figure out what something would feel

(02:40):
low key and RESTful. For some people, that might be
reading a book or doing something at home with the family.
If it's going to be screen time, think about what
would be an enjoyable, relaxing version of this. Do you
have a particular show you'd like to watch, a particular game?
Would you like to watch a movie? As you are
experiencing your so called night of nothing? See what it

(03:03):
feels like, what do you like, what doesn't work? If
you find you particularly like having a long time to read,
you might see how you can make space for this
in your regular life. My guess is that you can
if you try. Being intentional about time helps us see
all kinds of things, and sometimes a night of nothing

(03:27):
can offer useful answers about what we feel like we
are missing in the meantime. This is Laura. Thanks for listening,
and here's to making the most of our time. Thanks

(03:47):
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 production of iHeartMedia.
For more podcasts from iHeartMedia, please visit the iHeartRadio app,

(04:09):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.