Do you ever find yourself mindlessly watching Instagram stories in the few seconds it takes for Netflix to load the next episode of your favorite show? Or maybe while you’re waiting for the oven timer to go off that dinner’s done, you decide to play a game on your phone? Or after putting the kids for bed, finally, you turn on the movie you’ve watched multiple times before? Have any of these happened to you before?
I’ve shared a few of Laura Vanderkam’s rules from her book, Tranquility by Tuesday, already on here. Rule #9 is Effortful Before Effortless. This purpose of this rule is to help you do some type of effortful fun before effortless fun.
This can look like spending 10 minutes reading on the kindle app before switching over to catch up on your Twitter feed. It can look like doing 15 minutes of a puzzle before sinking into the couch with a blanket to watch that episode of Friends for the 8th time. It can look like making homemade pasta and meatballs for dinner before relaxing with a glass of wine. It could be doing 20 minutes of yoga before deciding to catch up on Instagram stories from the day.
Social media and other forms of entertainment aren’t bad, but before going to them as your first option, put in a few minutes of effortful fun before you go to effortless fun.
