Post written by Chris Allen: Wanting to spend more time with the people you love is an admirable goal. It sounds like it should be easy, but often life gets in the way. The following will explore a few creative ways you can spend more time with your loved ones. The focus will be on how to make time for the people you care about, in addition to what to do with the time you carve out.
Learn To Say No
While this, at first, might not seem like a creative way to spend more time with those you love, it’s perhaps the most important item on this list. It’s far too easy to give all your time and energy to things outside your inner circle; work, exercise, side hustles, home maintenance, annoying obligations, community projects, and so much more can quickly take over your schedule if you let them. You can come up with all the creative ideas you want for time spent with those you love, but if you don’t have the temporal space in your schedule, it’s not going to matter. Learn to turn down things that aren’t as important as quality time with your friends and family in order to make space in your days for the people that you cherish most.
Gather Around Food
Everyone’s got to eat, right? Gather your favorite people around for a meal. This can be part of standard holidays or a little more creative. Maybe you want to cook over an open fire on the beach. Maybe you want everyone working together and cooking in your own outdoor kitchen. Get together for gingerbread house making or a sauerkraut and pickling party. Bake together. Pick cherries together. Gatherings that center around food are incredibly fun but also practical; at some point, if you hang out long enough, people are going to get hungry. It also has the added benefit of creating memories and associations with different foods. When anyone from the group eats that food, later on, they might be reminded of the good time.
Designate Time For Your Significant Other
People get busy; life is demanding. If you don’t demand back, you might find yourself buried in to-do lists and projects. If you’re living with someone whom you’re in a romantic relationship with, schedule out at least twenty minutes a day for just the two of you. You can aim for more time if you wish, but twenty minutes is a good goal for those with really hectic schedules, new babies, or plenty of kids. Use this time to talk or simply sit and look at each other with no one else in the room. Ask about each other’s day. Ask what the other one is struggling with. Some days, this time won’t feel like anything special, but you’d be surprised how often this little devotion to one another can feel magical.
Board Game Night
Board game night can be a wonderful tradition to cultivate with your friends or family. It’s an evening away from screens where everyone hangs out, chats, eats, and attempts to destroy one another at Monopoly. No matter how you feel about standard board games, you need to know that the board game industry is booming, and this means you’re going to be able to find something that works for you and your favorite people. Popular favorites include King of Tokyo, Settlers of Catan, Munchkin, or Sequence.
Trim Your Schedule
There are probably a lot of things you do that you don’t need to be doing. There are probably a lot of things that you do need to be doing, but you don’t need to be doing them the way you do them. Humans are habitual creatures, and often we find ourselves doing what fits with the pattern, even if it’s not really serving us. For a week, keep track of what you do and then look for things that can be trimmed away. How much time do you spend looking for lost keys? Designate a teeny bowl for your keys and get in the habit of putting them there every day. How much time do you spend trying to choose what to watch on TV? Put a page up on the fridge where everyone can write down the things they want to watch when they think of them. On movie night, pick something from this list. How much time do you spend folding fitted sheets? Does it really matter how it looks when it’s sitting in the closet? You get the idea. Get rid of the wasteful time and redirect that towards your family.
Create A Family Bucket List
At the start of each season, sit down together with your family and write out a list of the things people want to do in that season. Winter activities might include sledding and skating. Summer activities might include beach days and seeing that one highly-anticipated film in the theaters. Do your best to get through as many of the things as you can.
The above tips should help you make more space for your loved ones in your life and use that time in a fun way. Of course, every family is different, so don’t be afraid to tweak this list to suit your particular family culture.