The Power of Scheduled Fun

Cuban sandwiches & a matinee showing of Barbie, for the win

I’m writing to you today from a little lunch cafe; I decided to mix up my usual coffee shop habit and come here instead, where all the music is bumping in Spanish and the food is auténtico and a wind chime tinkles against the teal doors whenever someone comes or goes.

I’m here for the cuban sandwich—it’s rare to find a good cuban, and I don’t take it lightly when I do. At this very moment, some delicious sauce I don’t have a name for is running down my cheek. My keyboard is a little greasy. Whatever. [The older I get, the more type B I become. My A days are over.]

Peep this cuban on patacón from Quiero Cafe 😎

I’m also here for the novelty. Because as much as I love routine—and so structure my days accordingly—I also know that too much routine makes me feel like a caged animal. I know it by the way I start to resent my schedule, by the way I feel like there’s no way out of the week’s preconceived plans. As soon as I start sighing and thinking thoughts like, “I can’t do such and such because I’m booked,” I know it’s time to step outside of the small circuits that I so willingly enslave myself to and to try something new. I constantly have to force myself to remember that yes, I do have a choice here. And then, to actually choose it.

I’ve been reading through The Fun Habit by Mike Rucker, PhD, and his no-nonsense approach to prioritizing fun is SO. LIFE-GIVING. He talks about the false belief that fun can only be fun if it’s spontaneous, and instead suggests that fun can be intentionally pursued—and scheduled.

He talks about creating a Fun File—a list of all the things that we have done in the past or would like to try in the future that sound enjoyable. Then, he encourages us to make a “short list,” choosing between 8-15 of those items that are readily achievable. These become our go-to choices for fun in the upcoming weeks and months.

I read about the short list while nestled in bed earlier this week, feeling somewhat broken in my body and malnourished in my spirit. At 30 weeks pregnant, I was feeling acutely aware of all the things that I cannot do right now. I cannot soak in the hot tub with my husband, for instance. I cannot drink crisp, dry wine on the porch as the sun goes down. I cannot go for long hikes or sun myself facedown at the beach. Heck, I can barely even stand up after sinking into that cozy spot in the corner of the couch. The prospect of fun seemed to be slipping away just like these July days.

Plus, I was feeling overwhelmed by everything on my to-do list. I put off some projects in preparation for the She Speaks writing conference I attended a couple of weeks ago, and now I’ve been paying the piper. I have a lot of content to create and a lot of brain power I need to expend, but my brain has been feeling lethargic, tapped out.

But Mike inspired me. I wasn’t sure what items could still make the cut as “achievable” at this point in my pregnancy, but I pulled out my notebook beside the bed and started jotting down ideas, anyway.

Here’s my list:

My fun “short list”

It was easy. And making the list was fun. I went to bed thinking about which items on the short list I could attain even this week, and I felt more buoyant and hopeful than I had just ten minutes earlier.

So, how’s the list going?

So far this week, I’ve:

• Visited a new coffee shop in Portland

• Eaten the cuban sandwich at this lunch cafe

• Gone to see the matinee showing of the Barbie movie¹

Capuccino & cinnamon bun at The Proper Cup in Portland

And it has given me LIFE! It has:

• Taken my mind off of my aches, pains, and occasional bouts of panic when I realize I’ll soon have 3 children [+ 1 husband + 1 powderpuff] to care for

• Offered a sense of novelty, which has fueled my creativity for personal and professional projects

• Helped me feel replenished, which makes it easier to have patience and open-heartedness toward my people

• Reminded me that time spent away from “work” it worthwhile, too [I actually think I’ve been able to be more productive this week as a result of scheduling time for fun.]

Taken from the opening scene of Barbie [praying this isn’t considered pirating, oops!]

I wrote about this a little bit on Instagram² already, and one dear friend, Kimberly Phinney, wrote that her ability to leave the house right now is limited by her chronic illness. What I loved about her comment, though, was that she didn’t leave it at that. She didn’t say, “Fun is out of the question because I am suffering, and because it doesn’t look the way it once did.” Instead she offered a short list of what was attainable for her right now—things like playing with her daughter and swimming in the cool of their pool.

That’s the beauty of scheduling fun: it’s the chance to look honestly at the lives we have right now, and to say, “What choice do I have here? Where can I intentionally insert some delight, even in the middle of these exact circumstances?”

We might be surprised by how many opportunities really are available to us, if only we’re willing to step outside of our self-created circuits of routine.

So tell me: what’s on your fun “short list?” And, more importantly, which option are you going to schedule for yourself this week?

1. I could write a whole other post about the Barbie movie alone. Have you gone to see it? I want to know your thoughts!

2. Are we friends on Instagram yet? If not, I would love to be. We have fun over there!