The 20-Minute Evening Walk That Ends Every Long Writing Day

Every evening, once I’ve hit my word count (or at least made a respectable attempt at it), I close my laptop, put on my sneakers and walk out the front door before the day can follow me back inside. That’s the whole practice: twenty minutes around the neighborhood, as close to five o’clock as I can manage. It started as a way to get a few more steps in, and somewhere along the way it became the most important twenty minutes of my day.

The problem with writing from home all day

I’m a full-time writer, which sounds dreamy (and honestly, most days it is), but it means my office is also my home, and my day never really ends on its own. It just sort of fades out. I’ll close the laptop at six, open it again at eight to “fix one sentence,” and suddenly it’s ten-thirty and I’m rewriting an entire chapter in my pajamas, slightly unhinged and very much not resting.

When you work for yourself, there’s no drive home or train ride to tell your brain that the writing part of the day is over. There’s just a laptop lid, which is a very weak boundary for a woman with ADHD and a head full of characters who won’t stop talking. So I made myself a boundary instead. The evening walk is my version of a drive home, a mental front door: when I walk out, I’m still in writing mode, and when I walk back in, I’m home.

The story will still be there in the morning. The sunset won’t.

What I notice on my evening walk

The best part is what happens on the walk itself, because my neighborhood around five-thirty puts on a whole show. Porch lights come on one by one, somebody is always grilling and making the entire block hungry, kids on bikes take their last loops before dinner, and there’s a cat who sits on the same front step every evening and judges me with open hostility. The light goes long and gold across the street, and I always feel a little like I’m walking through the last scene of a movie.

I notice the house that painted its front door a new color and the garden that’s finally blooming after months of somebody’s hard work. There’s a neighbor who always waves and another who has never once waved back, although I am confident that I’ll win her over eventually. It’s the small, local life that is so easy to miss when I’ve spent the whole day inside my own head.

My loose rules for an evening walk

Go at the same time most days. It works best as a habit rather than a decision, because decisions can be argued with (trust me, I argue with mine constantly) and habits just happen.

Leave the work at home. I bring my phone for safety, not for email, and if I listen to anything, it’s music or a podcast that has nothing to do with books, writing or business.

Keep the route open. Some days I walk the same loop, and other days I turn left on a whim and find a street I’ve never walked down, a tiny park or a house with a truly incredible garden gnome situation.

Bring the dog, if you have one. My dog, Charlie, has made it very clear that this is now his walk and I’m simply the person holding the leash, and honestly, he’s not wrong. He sniffs every single mailbox like he’s investigating a crime, and I’ve learned to let him take his time.

Walk in most weather. A light drizzle feels dramatic and cinematic, like I’m the heroine of a period drama. A Texas thunderstorm, however, is a very good reason to stay in and stretch on the living room floor instead.

What changed when I started walking every evening

I sleep better, I’m much less snippy with my husband in the evenings, and the plot problem I spent all afternoon chewing on usually untangles itself somewhere around the second corner. Honestly, some of my best writing happens on that walk, even though I’m not writing anything at all. Sometimes I come home with an idea for a scene, and sometimes I come home with nothing but a nice feeling and slightly cold hands, which is perfectly fine, too.

Walking has well-documented benefits for mood, stress and focus, and even short walks count. For me, though, the real gift is having one part of the day that isn’t productive in any way. It’s just a woman, her dog and a sidewalk, watching the light change.

How to start your own evening walk habit

Pick a time, put your shoes by the door in the morning so they’re waiting for you, and set a reminder on your phone if you need one. When the busy part of your day is over, walk out the door before you can talk yourself out of it, and go for twenty minutes in any direction. Once a week, I like to turn it into a phone call with an old friend, which makes the time fly by.

When you get back, you’ll feel at home in a way you didn’t before you left. If you want to protect the rest of your evening, too, read about my 9 p.m. internet curfew, and on the weekends, do yourself a favor and take the scenic route.