Top Three Tips for Including “Potter” in Your Busy Lifestyle
Harry Potter has always been my escape from my boring Muggle life. I spent my childhood dreaming about going to Hogwarts and playing Quidditch. My dreams became more of a reality in college where I joined my school’s Muggle quidditch team. After I graduated college, I started to have less free time to immerse myself in the wizarding world. I maintained a delicate balance between work, MuggleNet, and fandom life. Recently, I helped open a new restaurant, which ruined my balancing act. It’s hard to work a 12-hour shift and then go home, write an article, read some fan fiction, sleep, and be back at work eight hours later. Sixty-hour weeks are no one’s friends, but this is what I signed on for, and I accept it. My problem was not with the work, which I love, but with how I could keep in touch with the Potter fandom. I managed to find a few tricks, and I’d like to share them with you.
Prioritize
I love fan fiction. It makes me so happy to be able to immerse myself in the wizarding world with new stories, characters, and endings. I have given up sleep on dozens of occasions just so that I could finish reading a fic. The biggest thing to remember is that you need to prioritize. Yes, I would love to read a fan fiction before bed, but I also need to shower and sleep. It is important to look at what is most important to your body at that moment. Do I need sleep more, or do I need some self-care after a long day at a highly stressful job? Most of the time, my answer is sleep, but occasionally, it is a 100,000 word Drarry fic. Unusual, I admit it, but it works for me.
Utilize Downtime
Almost every day, I take an hour-long break. I say “almost” because things happen and sometimes you just can’t leave your station. During my break, I normally walk across the street to the cafeteria to get lunch, and then I spend the rest of my break on my phone or watching whatever is playing on our TV. Recently, I started to better utilize my downtime. I started to read books, including Harry Potter, on my phone. I’ve also started utilizing this time as writing time. Articles don’t write themselves, you know. I try to not work too much during my breaks, but a little bit of work won’t hurt.
Enjoy Days Off
I normally work six days a week, so on those rare occasions when I have two days off, I try to make them worth it. My favorite thing to do is go to Universal Studios Florida and spend my afternoon in Diagon Alley. Getting to live so close to Universal is one of the many reasons why I do what I do. I love immersing myself in this world, and the best thing is getting to sit and watch people experience it for the first time. I don’t get a lot of time off of work, but when I do, I try to spend as much time as possible with my friend, Harry Potter.
What are your tips for including Harry Potter in a busy lifestyle? Let us know in the comments.
