Latest / The Habit Lab / Episode 72: Why Sunday nights became non-negotiables

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Episode 72: Why Sunday nights became non-negotiables · The Habit Lab

• 1:08
  Speaker 1: We all have areas in our life we might feel stuck or overwhelmed.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: So join me, jenna Zint, habit Coach, teacher and follower of Jesus, as we go after little bits of better by building offensively small habits that create big impact.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: This is the Habit Lab Podcast.
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Habit Lab.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: This is Jenna Zint, and before I pressed record, I was workshopping some potential titles for this episode and I literally sometimes I just say things out loud to myself.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Maybe that's just me being a highly energetic kind of person, but anyways, this is just in my own brain.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: This is not a list of anything, but this episode is going to be about my Sunday afternoon habits and I was thinking about Sunday habits not so fun day, sunday not fun day and it got really aggressive and grizzlier every time Sunday not your fun day.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: So I just had to and I was actually making myself laugh out loud.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: So hopefully one of you laughs out loud when I shared the inner oddness that goes on in my head.
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: You're welcome for that.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's funny.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: My husband now knows me well enough to know like if I do do one of those things out loud and he's around, he's just not even flustered because he's so used to know.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Like if I do do one of those things out loud and he's around, he's just not even flustered because he's so used to it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes he'll be like and I can't believe that that is only like a 10th of your thoughts, what I hear.
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: It's like, oh babe, maybe a 20th, there's so much happening up in here and he's like I know, I know.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: So, anyways, this podcast episode comes on the heels of gosh.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: My, I don't know if sacrificing my Sunday habits is the right idea, but after this summer, so we're.
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: Our kids got out of school last week in May and that was Memorial Day and all the things.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So we haven't had a normal weekend for a while.
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: Because one of the things I like about summer which I'll get into that episode, that's a different episode I just outlined is being more flexible.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: So I was actually workshopping, like what if I'm not as dogmatic as protecting my Sunday afternoon habits as I have been?
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Like maybe I actually was workshopping.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: I put some of them on Saturday, like the laundry habit we coach in the morning.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: So I've been working on giving the kids the laundry habit and it's actually going well.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: You guys, I think like this would be an example of offensively small, but after a year and a half of doing laundry with them I was like they're ready for an upgrade.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: We're going to try it, we'll see how it goes and it actually has gone.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: I would say we've had five weeks of potentially of doing that, and three of them we've actually done it because they've been out of town the other two weeks and it's gone fine, not like picture perfect, but you know we standardize before we optimize.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Long story short, so that was a Sunday habit.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: I moved to Saturday and then I tried to move some of my other Sunday habits to Monday, thinking that like, maybe I can meal prep Sunday or Monday afternoon.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: You guys, no go.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Those did not go well.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So this is actually talking about my Sunday habits, this whole episode and the importance of them, because they literally set up my whole week and I think that's so essential.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Like I talk about, whenever I work with people one-on-one or they take my class or any of the many courses I've made.
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: I always talk about expect to edit.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: I think some people get it.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: The ones who have worked with me long enough are taking enough classes but the expectation that something that I write on paper, something I design on paper will not go as planned, it'll be a failed attempt.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: Sometimes I think of like how man I can't think of an example but like past bizarre prototypes that never left you know the test room, that never made it to market.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: That's what I think about with our habits.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: So often we're like design it, we think through it and we're like, oh, that's awesome, and then they fail miserably.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: But most of the people, instead of um taking it like, oh yep, I knew I was test workshopping it, no problem, I'm going to try again they take it as evidence that their failure or it's impossible and they just kind of like abandon that area of their life until they circle back around.
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: So with this edit, with my summer habits, I knew that I was going to have to like see how it played out and it has not gone well.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: So that inspired this episode about wanting to talk about my Sunday afternoon habits, because I wanted it to be loosey-goosey and super casual.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: But they're not.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: My Sunday night habits literally like those few hours in the afternoon.
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: They predict how peaceful or chaotic my whole week goes, and I actually think it's super important to know that, because there are some habits that I will be more flexible and because consistency is like I'll pivot more often because I'm like, ah, it's not that crazy if it doesn't happen.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But then this is that I think it's essential to know the ones that have like huge ramifications, even if they're not that big a habit.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: It's like on your week, like, oh, the ROI on doing that habit is worth it, 100% of the time Almost sometimes, because the flip side, the ROI on not doing my Sunday afternoon habits, like I said, it affects my whole whole week.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: I think I used to just think of it as like gosh, the Sunday slot it just holds more than I realized.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: I knew that it was helpful.
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of thought like, oh, that was a helpful time, but I don't think I realized sorry, meaning it was a corner of our schedule in our lives that wasn't really high commodity, it wasn't like a ton of social things.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: We were kind of home already.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: So I thought, by happenstance, and I knew there was some strategy, that it would be helpful to set up my week.
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: But now I realize like, oh, it's actually essential.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Moving it to Monday doesn't work and Saturday is too far away from the start of the week.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: Like it has to happen Sunday afternoon.
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: So to give you an idea of what my Sunday afternoon habits.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: It's not.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: It's not crazy.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: We did successfully move laundry.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Laundry used to happen while I meal prepped, aaron and the kids would do it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: We moved it to Saturday because I was trying to find different ways to take chores off of Aaron's life, because he works 40 hours a week and then he coaches, sometimes up to six hours on Saturday.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: So finding another way where he didn't have more house chores.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: So that worked.
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: So I have successfully relocated that Sunday chore to another time.
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: But my meal prep, with summer and more flexibility, I thought I could do it Monday.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I thought I could break it up and it just doesn't happen If I don't do Sunday.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: I have actually, you guys, wasted more food in the last three or four weeks than I have probably in years, frankly, and I've still done some of the meal prep.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: I haven't, like, lost it entirely, but it's just been so evident that my attempt to be more flexible in this is not helpful.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: So Sunday afternoon is my meal prep.
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: The other thing I do is I actually map out our week.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: So I sit down and I take my calendar and then my actual month calendar and I literally write it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: If you've ever taken one of my courses, I literally write it on a piece of paper.
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: And why I do this is because I see the things that don't work, like, oh, that meeting, that play date, is actually only starting 10 minutes after I'm finished coaching.
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: There's no way I could actually pivot that quickly.
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: So then when I adjust things as I'm going through on Sunday, it doesn't count as failing to me.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: So asking the friend if we could push it back to 3.30 instead of 3.10 is like, oh, I actually caught it versus on the fly.
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: I just recorded a podcast a couple of weeks ago about being on time-ish and that habit of mapping out my week and thinking ahead of time and like, oh, is that actually a feasible amount of time of turnaround, or are we actually going to want four nights out in a row?
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: No, I'm going to go ahead and make the call to postpone the fourth thing right now to next week.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: So to me, when I sit down and actually work through my week on Sunday afternoon, I'm not failing, I'm actually being realistic, and that's when I catch things that maybe I didn't catch when I put them onto my calendar.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: Of course everybody adds things to their phone calendar thoughtfully.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: But then when I sit down on Sunday of every week, there's things I'm like, oh, that doesn't actually work, okay, I'm gonna have to edit, which I don't do.
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: Like I don't actually catch them if I don't look at my whole week almost to think of it as like a interactive organism.
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: That makes sense.
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: Not just my coachings did that line up and my double books.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: But like, oh, do I have enough turnaround timer?
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, we're gonna have them.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know an example of we're going to VBS Monday through Friday.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Realistically, we're not gonna do a youth group on Wednesday and we had chatted about carpooling with that one friend, so I should tell her now like, hey, we're not gonna be at youth group this week.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: I'd love to talk in the future about it, but anyways.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: So that habit of actually looking through methodically seeing if the pieces of my week work on Sunday has been huge.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: And I had thought, because I had less meetings outside of the house and we were all home and we don't have pickups or afterschool activities, I had halfway done this but I had not nailed it.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: And then also, too, there was a little bit more travel for June.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: So, again, more flexible with my Sunday habit.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: And, oh my goodness, guys, I have, just like my meal prepping, I have made more mistakes with my calendar of like double booking myself or getting finished with something and realizing I'm supposed to be somewhere else in 10 minutes and it's a literally it's going to be 40 minutes.
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: There's been so many of those that I'm like, oh, this doesn't work.
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's a different season, yes, there's less commitments outside of the house, but actually I need that Sunday afternoon looking ahead at my week to be prepared.
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: And then the other thing, that, the other habit that lived there, is that Aaron and I would then, after I did it for myself, confirm with friends, move things, shift things, think about how I needed to prep.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I would then talk to Aaron and we'd be on the same page.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: And we have missed so many more things, like both been gone.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: There was one time that we didn't see each other for like nights.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: We were at home on the same night for like eight or nine nights.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: Granted, we had friends in town, a conference.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: He went out of town on a father's day I went to like youth camp, but I was like, oh my goodness, if we'd realized that maybe we would have tried a lunch date, maybe I wouldn't have gone to a bar class one morning and made sure we had a walk connection.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: So I think the reality of like, oh, this is like, it seems like a 20 minute habit, so it doesn't feel like it would be detrimental.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: But again, looking at the ROI, when I try to adjust for the season, I didn't fail, I purposely try to pivot and it does not work.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: So this is why I'm going back to some of my original game plans with Sundays and I know that not everyone has the same schedule but, man, when I'm fresh, it's like what I do Sunday afternoon evening sets up my week in a way that I'm not.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Because, again, I love parties, I love late nights, I love spontaneous and summer that happens more.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: So I'd be like let's not, you know, be disciplined on Sunday night, let's YOLO and say yes to that barbecue and literally kayak into the sunset, you know, at the lake, but then realizing, oh, then I pay for it.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Monday through Friday I'm a less kind, patient mom because I'm hurrying more, because I'm missing more, because I feel more stressed because I didn't do that 20-minute weekly habit that happens on Sunday night or Sunday afternoon.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: So it's like oh, that's actually not worth it.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: I would rather do the kayak on another night and actually kind of almost keep my Sunday afternoon evening sacred so that I don't have the chaos Like I don't I felt the other day I told a friend I was like I feel like I'm stumbling through my week where before it's like I purposely walk out and of course there's things I miss.
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: But I'm like this.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: My Sunday afternoon habits are like gosh, I just can't.
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: I want you, as you're thinking, what do I do on Sunday afternoons, evenings?
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sure most people as I've worked with enough people with habits have their own rhythms.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: But if it doesn't happen Sunday to yours, do you have some essential habits that happen Monday morning or Saturday evening?
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: Actually I'm not here to tell you because I know people schedule, like if you're a pastor or different things can rotate.
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: But I would, if you do have kind of a Monday through Friday, if someone in your family has a nine to five, I would consider trying to carve out more time Sunday afternoon to actually prep for your week, even through the summer, Like I said, weekly planning, making sure the house is put back together, making sure the supplies or uniforms or things are packed for Monday, or thinking ahead and coordinating your schedule with your husband, moving things, rescheduling, giving yourself more margin, kind of creating more white space in your week so that you aren't just rushing like, oops, I overpacked this week and I didn't realize it till Tuesday.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Now there's nothing I can do.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: So, whether or not you have your Sundays afternoons sacred, just thinking about like, oh, maybe you would benefit even if you're not the one who's going to the office I don't either but like it actually really is a flow that is so helpful.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: So, like I said, I value spontaneity and connection and that's why I started saying yes to things more on Sunday afternoon.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: Sorry in the summer for Sundays, but I started noticing how chaotic my Monday was.
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: I started noticing how much poorer my food choice was, even though the ingredients were in my fridge because they weren't already done for me.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: I was making like gosh.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: When I say irresponsible choices, I don't even mean that I was eating sugar.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: It was like I'm going to go get that slice of Costco pizza instead of eating.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Like taking the 10, 15 minutes to make that salad in my fridge.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, people think I'm like super disciplined.
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: That's why I do my meal prep.
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: But actually I am not disciplined.
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: When I am hungry to choose well and do a little bit of work, I just choose fast and tasty.
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: That's actually my biggest motivation for my meal prepping habits and I'm like, oh yeah, that's right, like I'm, that's why I have to do it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: I can't trust, wednesday in a rush, jenna at lunchtime to not you know, I don't know eat the rest of her kids mac and cheese and not that.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Again, I don't even think that there's like I'm not as crunchy as everybody else, but more of like my blood sugar is going to tank and there's no protein in that and then it's probably cold because I already served the kids and now I'm running out the door and I don't have any other options.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: So it's like when I say poor choice, it's because it's like not even awesome anymore and it's not fueling my body in a way like I need.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: So finally, I had to admit four or five weeks in.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: However, wait, let's say five or six weeks into this flexibility me trying to be cool, cool and chill about my Sunday habits I was like this one night of freedom is a little bit more.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: Spontaneity is costing me five days a piece.
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: This is not worth it.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: So I think it's important to notice and protect what you set up, even if your season shifts.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Like actually having non-negotiables of, like actually the ROI the return on my investment when I skip this is too big for the rest of the week that I will actually have, even in the middle of summer fun I don't know why I said it like that, but you know what I'm saying.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: Even in the middle of all the epic summer stuff you're wanting to do, having some sacred things where you don't move it and it's still non-negotiable, it actually creates a piece that makes your summer and the bits when you are spontaneous, more full of life rather than the normal and almost like chaotic, like tripping into the next things, like I said.
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: So the rest of the summer, minus I think I'm on vacation two weeks I'm going to go back to my Sunday afternoon habits, which again meal prepping, planning my week and coordinating with my husband what our week is, and then even the fourth one would be we reset the house pretty substantially.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: Is it non-negotiable?
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Not because I'm rigid, but because I actually have seen that it affects how I show up the rest of the week and it's not about perfection, but it is, if I'm honest, the other side of the coin is it is that little bit of preparation honors the people of my life and my peace in a way that is worth protecting people of my life and my peace in a way that is worth protecting.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: So my question to you again might not be Sunday, but I bet there's a rhythm, a habit or a window in your life that holds more weight than you realize.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: What would you say?
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Your sacred slot is what habits live there?
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Have you been doing good in the transition of summer or whatever transition you are in protecting them?
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: If you haven't, do not do shame, but go back to look at this next coming week.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do to shift it at it?
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: Do you need to move something?
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Do you need to prep in a way so what you have ready for that time slot is like what you need, supply wise, is ready for you so you can just execute.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Do you need to shift something?
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Do you need to bump something?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I've had to edit quite a few things that I set up in May for my summer.
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: When we've got them up and running, remember, it is not failing.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: If you expect to edit, I would actually say failing would be aborting and walking away without trying to make any kind of edits or pivots.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Or I would say failing actually would be trying to strong arm and keep it, even though it's like not working for you at all.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: So failure is not pivoting.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: Failure is, once you take something out of the drawing board and you're test driving it, realizing it's not working, caring more about figuring out something that works and serves you like your habits should serve you.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: You shouldn't serve your habit, nor do you have to abandon your habit.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: Okay, so I just hope you leave this episode.
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I think you should really consider Sunday afternoon evening, some sacredness, some of those habits If there have been other habits that have shifted, that used to be really essential and you're noticing like a little bit more chaoticness, great, that's just.
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: We're almost at July.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: We have so much time.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: All hope is not lost.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: You could regain a few of the habits maybe that you're more flexible at because of summer.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: That would actually be so huge with maintaining peace for the rest of your week.
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: I hope that helps.
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: I hope you're thinking through what are my sacred habits and what spots have I tried to put them in and how should I reorder some stuff.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: What should I not be willing to negotiate even in the middle of summer.
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: Fun what did I say?
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Sunday not fun day?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: No, not at all.
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: That's ridiculous.
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: Okay, guys, sunday is wonderful, even if we're going to keep a couple hours sacred to make sure that the habits that set up our week still go as planned.
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: I hope you have a great week everybody.