These blog posts are recently more and more on the heavy side, so why not write about something a little more light hearted for a change. I’d like to introduce you to the art of the Kimono day! “What’s a Kimono day?” I hear you ask? Well, it’s just the most regenerative way to spend a day off imaginable. It’s a sad fact that many people are really bad at spending a day off. You’d think it’s easy. But especially people who lead a pretty active lifestyle on workdays are often really clumsy when it comes to spending a day where nothing was planned. Have you ever spent a day off, just to feel more stressed, guilty or even depressed afterwards? It certainly happened to me a lot, until I discovered the power of the Kimono day!
Here’s my simple guideline for spending a perfectly relaxing Kimono day. Note that no instructions (be it cooking recipes, Ikea construction manuals, but especially this blog post) are ever perfect and you always need to adapt to your own situation. Always be in charge of your Kimono day. Don’t let anyone tell you what to do. This day belongs to you!
So let’s begin with arguably the most important aspect: the Kimono. Although it might be perfectly feasible to have a Kimono day in any other set of comfortable clothing, I find a Kimono to be the absolute best garment for this occasion. It is itself a perfect metaphor for the freedom and unboundedness this day should bring. Rid yourself of all the restraints of decency such as underwear! Just a light Kimono, preferably a Yucatan is all you need. It gives you the same feeling of freedom as being naked while being dressed enough to open the door and receive a delivery. If you don’t have a Kimono, I’d strongly recommend buying one and trying it out.
Now, how do you start a Kimono day? Just like any other day. That’s the magic. This is not a special occasion. You don’t want to set expectations that you’re not going to meet. Just start with your regular morning ritual. Don’t rush the Kimono either. If you like to drink coffee in your pajamas, do that! Have breakfast, brush your teeth, take a shower, do whatever you do in the morning to start a regular day. But one thing I strongly recommend is to do something sporty. Even if your morning ritual doesn’t include some sports (which it should) maybe do it on a Kimono day. The reason is simple: the rest of the day is going to be super relaxed. If you don’t spend some energy early, your body won’t know what to do with that energy and convert it to stress. We don’t want that.
So once you’re done with sport and washed off all that sweat with a nice refreshing shower, it’s time for that magical moment you break the routine of putting up your regular clothes, that uniform you wear to please society, and instead wrap yourself in your nice Kimono. And after some practice, that Kimono comes with a mindset. It’s an unmistakable sign to your body that it is in charge. Just do what you feel is right. If you feel an urge that you’re going to habitually suppress, just remind yourself that it’s a Kimono day and at least consider giving in. If it’s in the realm of possibility and won’t cause any lasting harm, it might be exactly the right activity for a Kimono day!
If you’re like me and you never have enough time to do all the things you want to do you might feel an urge to do something productive. You might feel like the dishwasher needs to be loaded, a lightbulb needs to be replaced or a comic page needs to be produced. That’s the best part of a Kimono day: that, too, is allowed. It’s not a sick day. That’s the most common mistake when people spend their day off, they treat them like sick days. If you treat yourself like you’re sick, you will become sick. On a Kimono day, you should neither demand productivity, nor prohibit it. If you feel like doing chores, go do them! If you feel like sitting around being useless, do that! There’s no rules, no quotas, no deadlines, just you and your Kimono.
One big issue you might face on your first few Kimono days is defaulting behavior. You know, those things you do on a workday to escape the tasks you’re supposed to be doing. All those procrastination behaviors you have learned can be done at any time to avoid thinking about what to do. Doom-scrolling social media sites, watching television or playing pointless video games are among the most common. And don’t get me wrong, there’s absolutely no problem with doing these things on a Kimono day if you feel that this is what you really want. It’s just that it’s usually not. You can easily spend an entire day doing this stuff but not because you really want to but because you don’t want to think about what you should do instead.
But if you do it right, that’s where the power of the Kimono day really shines. What to do next is not an optimization problem. You don’t have to follow all the usual constraints when thinking about what to do next. You can just allow yourself to feel your way through the day. If you know in the morning how your Kimono day is going to go, you’re already doing it wrong. Only ever think of the next few steps. Show those itches to escape reality that today, there’s nothing to escape from.
And there you go, that’s probably all the wisdom there is to share about the art of the Kimono day. I cannot recommend it enough. It doesn’t have to be a regular thing and, to be honest, it probably shouldn’t be. But if your schedule is too tight to fit even one day where you can just be yourself, that’s a problem that will probably manifest itself in the form of burnout in the near future. So get your calendar, identify a candidate for a Kimono day, mark it as such, buy a Kimono and try it. It’s like a one day vacation that might change your life.
