Free Time Free Fall

You know those moments that aren’t sucked up by work and home life and other obligations? Those few minutes captured just for yourself. Maybe when you wake up in the morning or just before you go to sleep. A few stolen moments as dinner is being cooked or maybe you unexpectedly have the house to yourself for an hour or two. How do you spend your time?

Of late, I have to admit, I’ve been overdoing it on phone time and it occurred to me last night that I needed to step away. I’m usually refreshing Twitter to get a fix of what everyone’s talking about and often times I have to look something up just to get the gist of what’s being said. It is a foxhole I go down and before I know it an hour may have passed. And with Trump dominating my news feed, it is also mentally exhausting. Could I have instead been doing something more constructive like writing in my journal, meditating, reading or the many other things I love to do but don’t seem to find time for anymore?

I also have to put my house back together. For four months I have let it go to pot as construction ensued in the dining room, office, master bath and finally the kitchen. We are 95% complete! But the heavy lifting is still ahead as I go through our boxes and boxes of belongings to root out what we actually need and use. How have we accumulated so much stuff?! Last night I put down the phone and while Jim and Liam were at a baseball game I forced myself to focus on emptying out a few of the boxes. At the end of two hours, I felt more accomplished than if I’d spent that same time frustratingly trying to reach new levels at Candy Crush (an admittedly poor choice of how I use my free time).

I’m am not advocating for not doing frivolous or even mindless things with our free time because I think sometimes our brain just needs a break to chill out. I just need to be wary of how much time I spend this way.

What are some ways you like to just chill out and how do you set limits for things you know are time wasters?

MC