The Student News Site of Black River Falls High School

BRFHS Paw Print

The Student News Site of Black River Falls High School

BRFHS Paw Print

The Student News Site of Black River Falls High School

BRFHS Paw Print

Everything I Learned About: The “Perfect” Day

Before spring break started, I found something particularly interesting, but to keep up suspense and drama, I’m not going to tell you what I found just quite yet. Instead, I’m going to explain how I found this “interesting thing,” While some people went off to a different state to “soak up the sun” for break, I was working and sleeping, but I was mostly watching Netflix.

This interesting thing would take commitment, time, effort and a free day. What was this interesting thing? Well, it is supposedly the perfect day, according to a study of 900 people who were interviewed by sociologists. So after combining these activities and averaging out some times, they were left with a list of activities and times for each. A little curious about this, I wanted to see what this perfect day would really be like, and so I did this perfect day on Easter.

Below is a list of these activities:
Intimate relations: 106 minutes
Socializing: 82 minutes
Relaxing: 78 minutes
Eating: 74 minutes
Pray/Meditate: 73 minutes
Exercising: 68 minutes
On the phone: 57 minutes
Shopping: 56 minutes
Watching TV: 55 minutes
Preparing food: 50 minutes
Computer: 48 minutes
Housework: 47 minutes
Childcare: 46 minutes
Sleeping: 46 minutes
Working: 36 minutes
Commuting: 33 minutes

As you can see, it is a fun-packed day full of exciting activities, self-reflection and other things. My morning started at 6 am, but I added on the 46 minutes for the sleeping, and then I “relaxed” by laying awake in my bed for 78 minutes. So technically I didn’t get out of bed until 8 am.

I’m not sure what came over me, but before I knew it I was putting on my running shoes, strapping my dog to his leash and hitting the road. I substituted ‘intimate relations’ for walking my dog, because I figured that connecting with my dog was good enough.

Due to the fact that it was Easter, I went to Walmart to pick up some food, and drove out to a family friend’s house, arguably my second family, to socialize and eat. The drive to and from their house took up my commuting time. Before bed, I prepared myself a midnight snack, curled up on the couch to Grey’s Anatomy and then went to bed.

The whole experience was an interesting one. I tried to not explain what I was doing to anyone and just see how the day went. Because it was a holiday, I felt that it was a lot more cheery than other days, and going to church for my 73 minutes of praying/meditating was a nice change of my usual Sunday.

I did think about something else other than the pleasantries that came along with this experiment. Being a pessimist at times, I found a couple of negative things, as well. I realized that I was so focused on looking at my alarm clock and timing out each and every action that I never really got to enjoy a lot of it. The perfect day needed to be completed in 24 hours, and that was the fact that burned the back of my head during most of the day. So while this may have been a perfect day to most women, it was less than enjoyable to this guy.

It made me think about our obsession with time. Clocking in and out of work, trying to get our eight hours of sleep each night, 60 minutes of exercise, etc. Though the “perfect day” may be perfect to some people, it was less than pleasant to me. If you ever have a free day coming up, I challenge you to try the perfect day for yourself. Maybe you might just find your new weekend routine, or maybe you’ll buy a ticket and hit the tracks on the train of negativity like I did. Either way, this was a great experiment to learn not only about time management, but also to learn more about myself.

Leave a Comment
More to Discover

Comments (0)

All BRFHS Paw Print Picks Reader Picks Sort: Newest

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Activate Search
The Student News Site of Black River Falls High School
Everything I Learned About: The “Perfect” Day