Hello, scrap-pals.

I’m John Forcolin, and I’m truly, truly glad to have you here, in this blog and virtual terra franca that I created to have a little respite from the real world. You may stay for as long as you like. Don’t mind the mess, and if you’ve got virtual sand sticking on your avatar, well, just refresh the page.

How were your holidays? Pretty good, eh? Granted, work’s good, but free time was really something else. We could do whatever we wanted, be it sunbathing on the beach (or in the garden, because Covid) or dealing with anything we’d been procrastinating for months. Like that friend we wanted to catch up with, or that insomnia that needed to be taken care of…

We had time to get back in touch with ourselves while being in a less frenetic, more clear headspace. And now that holidays have ended, the ground vanishes off our feet once again, and everybody expects us to walk on air as easily as before.

But it’s nothing we can’t handle if we are dedicated enough. After all, we still have free time after work and on weekends, and we can dedicate that precious time to ourselves. How can we do that without falling into the rabbit hole of social media and recommended YouTube videos? The answer to this is planning.

“Whattayamean, John? That I have to do more work after work?” Yes. Suck it up and clench your teeth, chip, ‘cause it’ll do you good in the relatively short run. Plus, you’re not gonna do this extra work alone. You’ll do it with me.

Are you ready?

Phase 1: the planning

Take anything that can write and any surface you can write on. You’re not allowed to do this in your mind. The act of writing will allow your brain to dump the load of information, be less stressed about the whole process, and think more clearly. Remember Dumbledore’s Pensieve, and how he used it to store and review memories and all that? Writing is pretty much the Muggle version of that.

Now write this question down:

A. What were the things I enjoyed doing the most while on holiday?

Answer this with five to ten items (the more the better), one per line. Don’t judge yourself! Just drop those words on that writable surface.

Examples could be:

• Traveling
• Visiting museums or other public spaces
• Learning a new skill
• Meeting new (or old) friends, or visiting your family
• Reading, watching TV series or movies
• Consuming funny herbal medicines and having a shamanic experience on your couch

All done? Good. Time for the next question.

B. Why did I enjoy those things?

To answer this bad boy, go back to the list of enjoyable things and write down at least a couple of reasons per item. We’ll call these items True Delights (wow, what a nice chocolate-y name I came up with).

Here are mine:

• Traveling: because it allowed me to learn about a new culture, because the new environment cleared my mind from any routines I had back home
• Visiting museums: because it gave me inspiration, because I enjoyed the quiet
• Learning a new skill: improves my confidence, strengthens my discipline

Again, no space for judgment here. As there are stupid things you loved about your holiday, there might be stupid reasons why you enjoyed doing them. The point is to be honest to yourself.

C. What after-work activities can I do to achieve my True Delights?

Now that we have our list of True Delights, we must find ways to fulfill them. How? Through more brainstorming, of course.

Examples of such higher-need-fulfilling activities would be:

• Learning about a new culture: reading a book about the culture, watching documentaries;
• Changing environment: going to a new coffee shop or restaurant, taking a walk to a new park or a new street, driving to a nearby town
• Gaining inspiration: reading about artists, watching art on Google, looking for writing/art prompts
• Quiet: putting a couple of headphones/earplugs on, shutting yourself in your bedroom and have a nap, meditating

Reality check

Congrats! Now we have a nice list of possible free time activities. Should we do them all? That entirely depends on you. Some activities might be a one-off, while with others (generally hobbies) the learning process might be long or even tedious. It all depends on how we see those things, how much time and money we want to invest into something, and how we’re willing to experiment and mess with things.

I think you should start with three casual activities, or one casual activity and one hobby. Have you come up with less than that, even after brainstorming? It probably means you’ve been very selective and you really, really like doing those few things, and you’ll have a great time anyway.

Note: To those of you who think this process is not necessary because they, say, read books during their holidays and know they’re going to read books after work, I suggest you still give it a shot. It will allow you to be more aware of why you do what you do in your free time.

Battle plan

The last phase of planning is setting up a timetable. Fill up your after work hours and your weekends with your new (or revised) habits. There’s a ton of apps out there that allow you to do create spreadsheets and timetables of any size and shape, but my favorite (especially because it synchs across multiple devices) is Google Calendar.

And there you go! Now you’re nice and ready to fight your after-holiday doldrums.

Phase 2: the doing

This point might sound stupid to some of you, but sometimes, even if you’ve got your free time planned out, you might be tempted to ditch it all in favor of ‘more useful things.’ It happens more often than you think, and it’s a surefire way to get yourself burnt out.

Schedules aren’t written in stone, that’s, true, but there’s a reason why we’re making them in the first place. Here’s a few tricks to avoid getting off track:

– Have a schedule that’s always accessible. If you’re a phubby, or if you’d rather have your schedule in your phone, take a picture or a screenshot of your timetable and set it as your phone’s background. You could also use alarms, but be sure not to drive yourself crazy because of too many ring-a-ding-ding’s and cock-a-doodle-doo’s. You might want to use the free app Timely Chimer on Android, which just gives you notifications at the time you want (even repeated times) and you can set it to work either as an alarm clock or a simple notification. (also let me know in the comments if there’s anything similar on pc or the apple store okay thanks bye)

– Modify your environment so that there’s no way you can forget what you were supposed to do. For example, you want to do sports? Then bring your running shoes at work and put them in a spot where you can always seen them. Post-its might be worth using too, although personally I think post-its should be pasted exclusively on documents and not all over the house or office. You do you.

Phase 3: the enjoying

When it’s time to indulge in your True Delights, embrace the moment. Seriously, I’ll never stress this enough. You have created this time for yourself, so congratulate with yourself. Make your time count! If you’re not mindful of what you’re doing, you’ll never recharge your batteries.

In conclusion

Once my dad told me, “Work is nothing but a treadmill of problems. You don’t have the time to solve that another one shows up.” And you know, sometimes we can get so overwhelmed by an endless cycle of issues that we lose focus on ourselves. It’s easier to get off the treadmill during holidays, but through organization and awareness we can make the time for ourselves even when holidays are months away.

Thank you for having reached the bottom of my first actual transmission, folks. As a reward, I’ll now sing you a cover of Oh My Darling Clementine in Venetian Italian.

[REDACTED: IRRELEVANT TO TOPIC. PLEASE GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR WAVECAST RELAY PROVIDER TO EDIT YOUR REDACTION SETTINGS.]

Let me know in the comments if you have any feedback or suggestions on how I should talk about next. Hear you next time, scrap-pals.