Things to do after work, outside, on a weeknight

Before you get home

The easiest window is the one before you sit down, because sitting down is what ends most evenings.

1. The parallel street Go home by the street that runs parallel to your usual one. One block over is a different place, and it costs you four minutes.
2. One stop early Get off the bus or train a stop before yours and walk the rest. Pick a different stop each week and you'll know your own neighborhood by Christmas.
3. Shop with a basket, not a trunk Do the evening's shopping on foot, buying only what fits in one hand or one bag. The route home is the walk.
4. Five minutes on the bench outside work Before you head home, sit for five minutes on the nearest bench outside the building. The evening starts there, not at your front door.
5. The store you've never been in You walk past it every week and couldn't say what it sells. Go in and buy one small thing.

Between dinner and the couch

Seven to nine in the evening is the walk most people skip. It's also the hour the town exhales: the traffic has gone, the windows are lit, and the sidewalks belong to dog walkers and nobody else.

1. The after-dinner lap Straight after eating, before the dishes, a loop of fifteen minutes. Do it right away or it won't happen.
2. Count to the corner Count every step from your front door to the first corner, then guess the number for the next one. You'll be wrong, and you'll want to check.
3. The same spot, twice Pass one spot near home on your way out in the morning and go back to it after dinner. It isn't the same spot.
4. An overheard sentence Walk somewhere with people, a square, a bus stop, a café spilling onto the sidewalk, and write down one sentence you overhear, word for word. Out of context it sounds like the start of a novel.
5. Lean on a wall for five minutes Find a wall with a view of a corner and watch what passes. Corners are where things happen.
6. A letter on the map Walk a route that draws an L, a U or your own initial on the map. One turn is harder to keep straight than you'd think.

When it rains, or it's dark by five

Winter weeknights push everything into the dark. That doesn't have to end the evening; it changes what's worth seeing.

1. Evening rain under streetlights Wet asphalt under lamps is the best the street ever looks. A kilometer in the rain, hood up; you only get wet once.
2. When the streetlights come on Be outside at the moment they switch on. They don't all come on at once, and finding out which is first makes a surprisingly good ten minutes.
3. Lit streets, known loop After dark, stick to streets with lamps and people, a loop you know, and take someone with you where you can. Ten minutes around the block counts. Nobody needs a plan.
4. Your own breath under a lamp On a cold evening, stand under a streetlight and watch your breath. It's the one season you can see yourself exhale, and it's oddly calming.

Things to do after work with your partner or a friend

Side by side on a sidewalk is easier conversation than across a table, and cheaper.

1. Two phones in a drawer Put both phones away for half an hour and go out without them. The drawer stays shut, even when it buzzes.
2. Knock for a neighbor Ask the neighbor you only ever nod to for a lap of the block. Most say yes, and two sentences are enough to start.
3. Guess the temperature Before you step out, each of you guesses the temperature. Walk around the block, then check a bank sign or your phone. The loser makes the tea.
4. Dessert from somewhere else After dinner, walk to a place that sells one sweet thing, ice cream, a pastry, a bar of chocolate, and eat it on the way back. Fifteen minutes, and the evening has a second act.

Pick by how much evening is left

Make it the default, not the exception

The hard part of a weeknight isn't finding something to do; it's deciding, at 6:40 p.m. with your shoes already off, that tonight is a night something happens. That decision gets easier if it was made for you in the morning. RLQuest does that: each day it hands you three to ten quests from a library of more than 2,700, matched to your age, interests, the weather and the time you've set, and many of them are built for exactly this window. Be outside between six and eight. Uncover four new tiles on your way home. Walk a kilometer after your last meal. Be out when the streetlights come on. An evening quest handed in at noon gets an honest no, because the app checks the clock, the route and the steps rather than taking your word for it.

It's free to download for iPhone and Android, and a Premium subscription adds more quests per day. None of the ideas above need it. It just means the evening has something in it before you get home.