That leaves 8 hours for fun
“Lucky, lucky, lucky me!
Lucky, Lucky, Lucky Me (1950) Evelyn Knight with the Ray Charles Band
I’m a lucky son of a gun.
I work eight hours, and sleep eight hours.
That leaves eight hours for fun. “
Written by Buddy Arnold, Milton Berle and (traditional)
I love that song, I catch myself singing or humming it all the time and it certainly gets stuck in my head on repeat for long periods of time. It always gets me thinking, wouldn’t it be great if that was how it worked out in life itself! Equal hours of work, sleep, and fun, perfection. In reality, once you begin to factor in traveling to and from those eight hours of work, making and eating meals, housework and trying to maintain those all-important eight hours of sleep, what is left is better described in minutes than hours.
That is why it important to minimize the amount of our eight hours of fun time that we use up each day on all the necessities of everyday life. Making a routine can help, fine-tuning a morning ritual to accomplish mundane tasks and fit in a few moments that make you smile along the way.
I find that I don’t get anxious or stressed much nowadays, big life events in recent years have taught me what is and isn’t worth getting worked up about and it certainly isn’t the little things.
I also found that being a little bit more organized with my daily routine can help reduce any stress or anxiety that might otherwise build up. Now, this isn’t all that straightforward or easy to do, especially when trying to run a business and freelance career, every day isn’t always the same and things can and do get in the way to hamper the best-made plans. Those little annoyances that disrupt a nicely planned day don’t have to be viewed as a bad thing, in fact, they can be embraced for adding a little bit of variety or unknown into a day that could otherwise be considered repetitive and a little dull.
By being more prepared, it cuts down on time we can lose in a day by trying to make decisions, daft things like what to eat for breakfast, lunch or dinner, what to wear or time lost looking for things we need to help complete the days tasks ahead.
I like to start and end my day by writing out what I need to do both work wise and in those as close to eight hours I’d like to be spending on fun. So I make two lists, one for the items of work I’d like and need to complete and then one which highilghts the tasks I want to achieve in the home and personally for that day, making sure I get a good balance of both.
This helps keep me happy, I’m glad when I complete my work day and even find myself enjoying having time to those mundane house chores because I know I still have plenty of time to fit in the things I want to do too.
So start planning out your day more closely and start reclaiming has many of those eight hours of fun for yourself as you can,
