7 Things You Need To Do To Have Consistently Incredible Evenings
By: Katie E. Lawrence
Tags: Health, Life, Technology, Self Improvement, Productivity

1 || Put your phone to bed early in the evening

We’ve all heard of the psychological effects of using screens before bed, but they’re usually focused on eye strain and blue light — not about how damaging it can be to be followed around by a pestering technological device 24/7. While most studies point to the time spent on technology as irrelevant, it’s important to note how much time you spend thinking about things related to technology.

In the evenings, how often do you spend time thinking about that work project you have due tomorrow, that assignment you need to wrap up, that text you’re expecting, or the emails you have to check? When you’re thinking about those things as much as you do, you might as well go ahead and check your email, finish that assignment, start your workday, or send a text yourself.

“But with no iPhone to keep my mind wired, I was able to tune into my body and fall asleep according to its needs. Every single night of the experiment, I conked out within 10 minutes of getting in bed. And I didn’t make the connection at the time, but my stories were all written well before their deadlines that week.” — Amanda Montell, “The Benefits of Having an iPhone-Free Bedroom”

plugging in your phone/laptop in another room

2 || Don’t start projects too late

Put work away and don’t start something you know you won’t be able to finish. One thing I’ve found having more regular hours for my job as of late is how detrimental it can be to my evenings to haphazardly start work — especially harder projects that aren’t as urgent as I make them out to be. If there’s something big you need to get done, don’t forget to check and see if it could be done later in the week, before work one day, or earlier in the afternoon.

“If you do nothing else, plan each day of your life with intention, purpose, and passion.”― Jeff Sanders

One trick I’ve found useful, one that’s used by the likes of Jeff Sanders, podcaster behind The 5 am Miracle show, is an end time to the work day. Basically, barring an unprecedented event, at a certain amount of time — you stop working. Whether that’s 6 pm or 4 pm, you don’t do work at that point.

You can also change how you define that. Maybe work for your real job isn’t allowed after 4 pm, and you only allow yourself to write your novel or your blog. However, you want to define that, stick to your plan. You may be thinking, though, “I won’t have time for my work” or “I’ll never finish my projects.”

“Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable.” — Sydney J. Harris, journalist

While that might be the case and you might need to allow more time to get work done, setting a boundary will actually allow you to work more efficiently in the time you’ve allotted for it. Whatever you do, don’t start new work too late in the day. Aim to start early, finish early, and have time to do what you need to do to relax and settle down in the evenings.

3 || Respect a boundary between work and play

One really hard thing, closely tied to projects started too late, is maintaining a healthy boundary between work and play. I have vivid memories of growing up, watching TV with my family, and all of us being on devices, doing work, school, or a personal project that would have been much more enjoyed and efficiently completed without a distracting show in the background.

“W ork refers to the effort someone makes that has value to the person or society or a sustained physical or mental effort to overcome obstacles and achieve and objective or result. Play can be described as any activity someone finds enjoyable and interesting and is valuable in itself for that reason.” — Montessori Child Development Center

Not everything you do needs to be a side hustle. Some things can be done just for fun. One thing that really changed my life for the better towards the end of high school and on into college was the realization that I could write and not worry about doing it for the money.

While I write a blog here as part of my work and am paid for other writing projects, I write fiction for fun — and freeing myself of the hustling aspect has helped me to enjoy myself so much more. It’s also allowed my evening writing time to be spent much more restfully.

4 || Look over/create your plan for the next day

Many people point to the issue of willpower that can become a problem in the morning. If you happen to wake up tired and groggier than usual, having a preset plan to rely on can really save the day. And while you can save some of the planning for the morning of, assessing your current mood and anything that’s come up/come to your mind during your sleep, you can already have a list of things to do, or a calendar with your pre-arranged commitments filled in.

“If you don’t know where you are going, you’ll end up someplace else.”― Yogi Berra

Also, if you happen to wake up a little out of it or otherwise unprepared for the day, you have a plan that you can rely on to get you started — something you’ve thought about beforehand that you can launch into as soon as you wake up. Even if you prefer to plan in the morning, you can at least already have an idea of what your day is going to look like, and leave it to your sleeping self to think of where all the pieces should go.

5 || Enjoy yourself

I know, I know —maybe it’s obvious, but in a world that’s so focused on extreme productivity, going to bed early, and setting yourself apart, it’s difficult to remember that we are designed to relax, reset, and recharge in ways that differ depending on our personality.

Whatever your relaxer of choice is, make sure you make time for it in your evening. That will do you a lot more good than spending an unfocused hour on work or being distracted by email while trying to play with your kids.

“While accomplishing your dreams, don’t forget to enjoy life too.” — Unknown

Whether relaxing is watching a film once a week with your wife, playing a game with your kids before bed, reading a novel, watching a comedy sketch, or talking to an old friend on the phone, find something that fills your soul of and gives you the opposite of stress in your life. It’s worth making time for.

6 || Be realistic with what you can make happen

Let’s be rea,l if you get home from your day job or other vocation-related commitment at 5 pm, and you aim to go to bed at 9 pm every evening, you only have four hours. That’s one hour for dinner, one hour for your spouse, one hour for reading and relaxing and getting ready for bed, and one hour for something else.

“You can do anything, but not everything.” — David Allen

You can’t realistically spend four hours rigorously writing your novel with that kind of schedule. If you can, try and give yourself thirty minutes and really focus on it. That will probably yield much better results and be a much more regular occurrence in your schedule because it fits fairly easily in the time you have.

Some things you’re going to have to reserve for the morning, others for the weekend, and more until you maybe have fewer hours or are on a break/vacation of some sort. Being realistic isn’t always fun, but it’ll yield the best results, give you the least amount of steps, and give you realistic increments of time to do what you need to do.

7 || Reset for the next day

This involves more than just planning for tomorrow. This can be laying out your clothes for the next day, prepping your gym bag so you’ll face less resistance to working out the following day, doing your laundry, cleaning the kitchen, whatever you need to do to create a fresh start for the next day.

[Read: 7 Things You Need To Do To Have Consistently Incredible Mornings]

Whatever you need to do to make tomorrow amazing, make sure you squeeze that into your morning routine. Some go as far as to get a light dimmer for their light switches that will turn on lights in the morning, an Alexa with a routine set to wake you up, or some other system that will alert you to the time and encourage you to start the day.

While in the end, tomorrow lies in the hands of tomorrow, there’s no reason you can’t start preparing for it the day before.

Have a great evening!