Monday 28 August 2017

How I Intend To Spend My Weekday Evenings

One of the reasons I felt bad about June and July was that I felt I was wasting a lot of time, or rather, I was doing X when I thought I should have been doing Y. Looked at one way, an employed single person feeling that they aren’t being productive enough is silly, especially when I do all my own shopping, cooking, washing and cleaning.

From 05:30 to around 18:30 my life belongs to work, commuting, cooking and other prep-work. Make that 20:00 if it’s a gym day. Since I go to bed around 21:30, where I read until I fall asleep, that gives me about three hours, or ninety minutes, in which to squander time. Let’s not forget that I’m reading for around an hour a day on trains.

What should I do in that time? Gardening, in the summer; more reading; learn to read music (again) on the guitar; watch a couple of episodes of a box set; (insert whatever project you’ve been thinking of here). What do I do? Watch You Tube videos, read blogs, doodle some ideas on what is widely suspected to be an unsolvable mathematical problem, play guitar for a while, and, you know, all the other ways a man passes time. Except drinking. I don’t do that.

What I did do before my social circle moved elsewhere, was go out for a drink with a couple of the lads, or maybe to the movies, or I’d watch television, or maybe a video from Blockbusters. Look carefully, and some of those things can’t be done with a 21:30 bedtime. Except the video.

But sometimes I get to the end of the day, and I’m frazzled. I don’t have the energy to undertake any more organised activity requiring engaged, structured attention, or the ability to remember what the character dynamics are between the central characters. (This is why I can watch Elementary or even Californication like eating candy, because there are two central characters, and two supporting characters, and I know they all like and respect each other. But I still have to be in the mood.)

So those hours somehow vanish. And while I don’t feel bad, I can think “I should have gone to that 18:15 movie at the local cinema” or “why didn’t I curl up with the headphones and listen to (insert name of any 19-th century symphonic composer except Brahms here) (insert number, usually between 1 and 9) Symphony properly.

I have many theories about this, of which the one I probably believe is plain old moral weakness, and all the others are rationalisations. Let’s go with lacking a plan, and moral weakness.

So here we go: Every day on arriving home, I will shower and change immediately - unless I’m going to hit the garden or I did all that at the gym.
Once a week I will watch a movie - either at the local Cineworld, or a streaming art movie, or even in the West End
Once a week, probably gym night, I will watch a box set episode or two.
Once a week, I will listen, on headphones, to one of the many symphonies or concertos I have on CD Once a week, I will have a couple of hours listening to new music on Tidal
(Reading can accompany listening to music, or vice-versa.)
Friday night is for shopping, washing and reading to musical accompaniment
Blog posts fit in with all this.
And at some point I have an evening meal to make
A sudden attack of binge watching a really good series counts as any of the above
Polishing shoes, ironing or other such counts as well.

If I do this, I will not allow myself to feel that my time has gone wasted.

I will not watch random You Tube videos, nor will I follow links on my regular websites.

If in doubt I will have an early night.

Or fold scarves.


Weekends are kinda the same, but with added gardening and maybe visits to Kingston on other shopping destinations if absolutely unavoidable.

No comments:

Post a Comment