reclaiming your 5-9 (making your evenings feel truly yours)
how to make evenings feel like the beginning of a new day
so much of our life revolves around the hours of 9-5, it can be easy to lose your whole day to it. mornings spent getting ready and mentally preparing, evenings spent exhausted and going through the motions before you have to get up and do it all again. sometimes it feels like there are no pockets of time during the week that our truly ours.
thats where reclaiming that time comes in, treasuring your 5-9 after the 9-5. it’s not about making elaborate plans that will leave you exhausted every night, but rather just carving out little moments that feel like they belong to you. it’s being intentional about how you spend those precious hours, instead of letting them pass by in a blur of after hours emails, preparing, and scrolling.
living well doesn’t have to be reserved for the weekend, it can happen at 5:05pm on a thursday.
I. the shut down ritual
have a little ritual to signal the end of work. almost like a little magic wand that you wave and all of a sudden email doesn’t exist, the laptop stays shut, the to-do list that isn’t fully checked off no longer has a voice to scream for your attention. keep this simple, it doesn’t have to be(and shouldn’t be) some big exhausting routine. light a specific candle, take a moment to lie on the living room rug and just decompress—anything that feels like a mental switch off.
II. an evening walk
especially if you work from home like i do, stepping outside really does help. going out for a walk mentally separates the time, effectively splitting the evening into it’s own little bubble of time. a golden hour walk is an instant mood booster.
as we head towards summer and the daylight is lingering later into the evening this is especially enjoyable. even just step out into your garden and take a few moments to breathe and release, leaving the work day behind you.
III. change into something cute
i’m not crazy, i’m not going to suggest you dress up for dinner and sitting on the couch, but don’t underestimate the power of a cute matching pj set. putting on something that you feel good in seriously changes the energy.
feeling a little bit put together sparks something in me—like i can still relax but everything around me feels elevated too when i’m wearing something cute. i tend to lean on cute nightgowns and matching pajama sets for the perfect in between of being comfy and relaxed, but still feeling put together.
IV. a carefully plated dinner
start by prepping your ingredients, and make a moment of it. do your mise en place(aka, everything in its place) to make cooking that much more seamless and easy. pop on a podcast or playlist that feels like a soft restaurant instrumental. i find cooking and prepping ingredients very meditative and relaxing personally. i think its the fact that it is pretty mindless, and i love the finished product.
after that, try eating at the table. i know, i know…
weeknight dinners often center around simplicity and ease—which totally makes sense. but that doesn’t mean you can’t make cooking and plating a little ritual of it’s own. something that helps make the evening feel a little more special and held is putting care into each step of what you need to do. even if you’re just re-heating leftovers, take time to plate them nicely, pour yourself a drink, phones away, and eat sitting at the able or kitchen island rather than the couch (still working on that one myself).
V. re-set the scene
now you’re ready to really settle in to the last few hours of your night, but before you do, take a few moments to reset. put away that last bit of laundry sitting on the chair, tidy up the dishes from dinner, wipe the counter down.
focus on really setting the scene. light a candle, dim the lights, pull the curtains shut once it’s dark out. think of setting this up in terms of your senses—a good smelling candle or diffuser, dim lighting, a soft blanket, subtle music on or a cozy movie in the background.
VI. en evening beverage
make your nights feel a little more special with an evening beverage. treat yourself to a little mocktail (like the sleepy girl mocktail), a nice cup of tea, or perhaps a little cheeky glass of wine every now and then. having these little rituals and treats to look forward to makes the evening feel more like it’s own piece of time rather than solely belonging to prepping for the next day.
making your evening beverage can turn into a ritual of it’s own, much like making your morning coffee. leave your phone in another room and carefully craft your evening beverage like it matters, because it does!
VII. wind down
now we relax. this is my favourite part of every evening. the time you get to spend doing what you truly like doing, no productivity or metrics in mind. this time is so key for my recharging.
you could watch a show or movie, play a video game, curl up with a book, have a spa shower night with oils and dry brushing, whatever feels good. i like to kind of mix it up each night between a few of those activities so that my days don’t all blend together.
i also like to use a bit of this time to write a few evening pages, doing a brain dump, following a journal prompt or just writing a few lines of gratitude.
VIII. bedtime routine & beauty sleep
having a good bedtime routine is the foundation to good sleep. for me that looks like: jotting down to do’s that are on my mind into a phone note, doing my skincare routine, pillow spray, and reading on my kindle or with a book lamp for a bit before going to sleep. if i’m not feeling tired enough after that (i usually am), i’ll watch some ASMR to fall asleep to and it works like a charm for me!
it’s not necessarily a perfect, foolproof system. some nights you just need to be lazy, stay in a pair of sweats, pick up takeout and scroll on your phone for a while. and thats perfectly okay, but if it feels like thats happening more often than not lately, it may be time to try reclaiming your 5-9. even just start small: a short walk before your evening scroll session, eating dinner at the table a few nights a week. anything that feels attainable; a subtle shift to make a little bit more of your time truly yours again.
with love, kyla
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