Screen-Free Things to Do in the Evening

You know how the evening goes. You sit down at eight meaning to do something with the night. At half past ten you are still holding the phone and you could not say what you looked at.

The usual advice is to put it down. That part is easy for about four minutes. Then the room is quiet, your hands have nothing in them, and the phone is right there.

A screen fills a very specific hole: a small amount of attention, instantly, with no setup. Anything you replace it with has to fill the same hole. Here is what does, and how to make it last past the first week.

Why putting the phone down is not enough

Removing something leaves a gap, and a gap gets filled by whatever is nearest. On most sofas, that is the phone again. So the useful question is what you are doing at nine o'clock instead, specifically, tonight. Three things make a replacement work.

• It is already set up, within reach of the chair you sit in. A hobby in a cupboard in another room loses to a phone in your pocket every time.
• It gives your hands something. Most people do not want silence and stillness in the evening. They want their hands busy and their head quiet.
• You do not have to decide anything. The evening fails at the deciding stage. If you sit down knowing exactly what the next step is, you do it.

Activities that fill the same gap

Grouped by what they ask of you, so you can match one to the kind of tired you are.

Something to do with your hands

This group works on the most evenings because it needs the least willpower. You are not making yourself concentrate. You give your hands a job and let the rest follow.

• Painting a numbered canvas. Open a pot, find its number, fill the shapes. No drawing and no color mixing, so there is nothing to get wrong on the first night. Twenty minutes is a worthwhile sitting and two hours disappears easily.
• Knitting or cross stitch. Travels well, works on a sofa, stops cleanly at the end of a row.
• A jigsaw left out on a table. Ten minutes of sorting counts as a go.
• Mending and small repairs. A loose button, a wobbly chair leg, a sharpened knife. Underrated and oddly satisfying.

Our kits come with real canvas, a numbered pot for every color, six brushes and a printed reference picture, so there is nothing to buy or set up beyond two cups of water and a lamp. The shapes are printed in a light version of the color they will become, which keeps the numbers readable in evening light. If this is new to you, the beginner collection is picked for big open shapes and our beginner guide covers a first canvas in order.

Something to read or listen to

Reading competes with a screen directly, which is why it so often loses. Two things tilt it back. Keep the book in the room you sit in rather than by the bed, and keep more than one going so there is always one that matches your energy.

Radio drama, audiobooks and a long interview program are the quiet winners here. They fill the room, they do not need your eyes, and they pair well with anything in the hands group above. A canvas and a radio play suit each other better than either does alone.

Something that gets you out the door

Twenty minutes of walking after dinner changes the evening more than it sounds like it should. The dark is most of the appeal. Quiet streets, nobody about, and the house feels different when you come back to it.

If walking is not available, stretching, a few stairs, or standing outside with a drink for five minutes all do a smaller version of the same job. They draw a line between the day part of the evening and the sitting-down part.

Something in the kitchen

Cooking something slow is a good evening if you are not already sick of the kitchen. Bread, a stew, a tray of cookies, jam from whatever is going soft in the bowl.

Keep it to one thing you repeat until it is yours. A different recipe every week turns into a cupboard of odd ingredients and no skill. The same loaf eight times turns into a loaf you can make without reading anything.

Something that still works with company

Everything above works alone, which is the point. A few also work with somebody else in the room without changing much: a jigsaw on the table, cards, a radio program, one person painting while the other reads.

Avoid anything that needs both of you to agree before it starts. That is the same deciding problem that killed the evening in the first place, with two people in it.

Setting up an evening you look forward to

The practical work takes about ten minutes and you only do it once.

• Pick the chair you actually sit in, rather than the ideal chair.
• Put a good lamp beside it. Close work in dim light gets uncomfortable within twenty minutes, and then you stop and blame the hobby.
• Leave the thing out. Canvas on a tray, knitting in a basket, book on the arm. Visible, reachable, no lid.
• Give the phone somewhere to be. Another room is best. Face down on a shelf across the room is enough. In your pocket is not.
• Decide the time roughly, so it attaches to something that already happens. After the dishes is a better rule than nine o'clock.

If you have a spare corner you can leave set up permanently, use it. A table you never have to clear is the single biggest advantage you can give yourself. If everything has to be packed away, keep the whole lot in one shallow box so the setup is one trip.

Keeping it going past the first week

Week one is easy because it is new. Week three is the test. Four things help, all small.

• One evening a week, not every evening. Aiming at every night is how it collapses by Thursday. One protected evening survives a bad week.
• Stop while you still want to continue. Finishing a session with a bit of appetite left is what makes you come back.
• Keep the next step obvious. Leave the pot you are halfway through where you can see it. Mark the row. Leave the book open face down.
• Expect a dull middle. On a canvas it is the stretch where the easy areas are done and the picture is not finished enough to admire. Do one color and stop. The last quarter goes quickly.

And if you miss a week, you have missed a week. The habit is not broken. It is just a week old again.

Something that leaves something behind

Reading and walking leave you with the time you spent, and for plenty of people that is enough. Painting, knitting and baking leave an object. A canvas is the clearest case, because a finished one goes on a wall and you keep seeing the evenings in it. If you have ever ended a screen-free evening feeling like you had completed a chore, this is usually the part that was missing.

Ours come in two sizes, Classic at 12 by 16 inches and Large at 16 by 20 inches, framed on a wooden stretcher or rolled. If you want the picture to be something that already means something to you, send us a photograph and we will make it into a custom kit with its own numbered canvas and matched paints. If you would rather browse by what catches your eye, the full catalog has over 850 designs.

Questions about screen-free evenings

Does an audiobook or the radio count as screen free?

For most people, yes. What you are replacing is the scrolling, and sound does not count against you. If the device goes back in your hand to choose the next thing every ten minutes, it is not working.

What if I only have twenty minutes?

Twenty minutes is a real sitting for painting, knitting, a puzzle or a walk. Pick something that stops cleanly and leave it out for tomorrow. A short evening you do beats a long one you keep planning.

I get bored within ten minutes of not being on my phone.

Normal, and it fades. The first few evenings feel flat because nothing is arriving. Give it four sittings. Having your hands busy makes those first evenings much easier than sitting still does.

How do I pick something I will not abandon?

Pick by your evening rather than by how appealing it sounds. How long you really have, where it will live, whether you want to think or stop thinking, and whether you need something at the end. Then pick one.

Which painting design should I start with?

One with big open shapes and clear areas of light and dark, in a picture you would be happy to have on a wall. Faces, night scenes and still water with reflections are full of small shapes and are more fun once you trust your hand. Our buyer's guide explains how to read a design before you buy it, wherever you buy it from.