The Rules

Meta

These rules are descriptive, not prescriptive. Trajectories, not itineraries. Rules are made to be broken. In fact, I’ve specifically documented some exceptions to the rules. Consider this a scaffolding to hang your own house rules upon. I’m not here to dictate how you should spend your evening, but I’d love to help steer your evening’s mood toward a calm, relaxing time — disconnected from stress, and connected to self, friends, and family.

When

• Dark Night happens on a regular, predictable schedule.
  • Plan your schedule on what works for you. Every week on Thursday? The third Saturday each month? Every other Monday?
  • Pick a schedule and stick with it.
  • Put it on your calendar.
  • Schedule around it. Don’t blow it off to go to the megaplex to watch Spider-Man 17 in IMAX. Don’t go out to have drinks with friends, but you can invite them over to enjoy Dark Night with you.
• Dark Night starts at dusk and ends at bedtime.

Lighting

Dark Night follows the spirit of “no electric light is permitted,” even if it doesn’t strictly conform to the letter of that rule.

• Candles or oil lamps can be used for lighting when they’re available, safe, and allowed by the landlord. Careful around kids and pets.
• Electric devices that mimic votive or pillar candles or oil lamps are perfectly acceptable. In fact, they might be preferred over open flames, especially if they are rechargeable.
• Strings of fairy lights are good mood-setters, too.
• If it’s chilly and you have a fireplace, you’re encouraged to use it.
• You’ll have to form your own house rules on other sorts of mood lighting. Lava lamps? Hue accent lights? Portable color-shifting ambient lamps? Go wild, just follow the spirit of hygge.
• Night-lights and other sorts of “safety” lights are fine. Don’t disable or unplug those.
• You’re allowed an exception to use the lights in the bathroom, but you don’t have to. Bring in a candle, if you prefer.
• You’re also allowed an exception of about 45 minutes in the kitchen to cook dinner. Leftovers or take-out are also options.
• Yes, the fridge has a light. Don’t think too hard about that one.

Devices

• Zero large electronics. Zero exceptions.
  • No television.
  • No laptops.
  • No desktop computers.
  • No tablets.
• No voice assistants. Alexa and Siri have the night off.
• HVAC-type devices are okay: air-conditioning, heating, fans, ceiling-fans, humidifiers, dehumidifiers, air purifiers. The quieter the better.
• Limited phone. Go get yourself a 3-minute hourglass egg timer.
  • Silence the ringer.
  • If you make Dark Night a regular practice and if you have an iPhone, consider setting up a scheduled focus.
  • No social media.
  • Unless it’s an emergency, no phone calls or text messages. If it is an emergency, just call off the whole Dark Night to deal with the situation directly.
  • For very short and offline actions, like adding something to a TODO list, flip the egg timer and turn on the phone. You have until the timer’s up to finish. Let all the sand drop to the bottom and then flip it again. You can’t touch the phone again until the timer expires this time.
  • Don’t get distracted by red dots or notifications. Get in. Get out. On the iPhone, maybe use something like Drafts to quickly capture info.
  • To document, share, or show off your evening, you can take only one photo/selfie per hour. Just don’t post them anywhere until tomorrow. See also: no social media.
  • Seriously, the egg-timer thing isn’t here to Rules-Lawyer your way into abusing the rules in order to use your phone. It’s here in the spirit of add something you just thought of to a TODO list, write a quick note to self, look up a calendar date, or look up a quick fact (see puzzles, below). If you’re touching your phone more than a few times per hour, you really just need to leave it in the other room.
  • But better yet, use a pencil, pen, and notepad for TODOs or notes to self. Copy them into your phone tomorrow.
  • Even better, forget the phone. Leave it in another room, such as in a charger next to the bed.

Activities

• Mellow and chill music is encouraged, but not required. Alternately, listen to the rain or the crackle of a fireplace (whether it’s real or a loop from an ambient noise app).
  • If you get music to speakers with a computer-like device (phone, tablet, computer), you’re allowed to set it up but not fiddle with it throughout Dark Night. Set it up, turn off the screen, and don’t touch it until bed.
  • Make yourself a nice long playlist and put it on shuffle.
  • Vinyl records aren’t for everyone, but some like the mood and ceremony of flipping and changing discs.
• Conversation is not just allowed, it’s encouraged.
  • Talking about larger topics like life goals and travel plans is encouraged.
  • Relationship check-ins are good.
  • Using conversational topic cards or other sorts of “ice-breaker” crutches is perfectly fine. Things like You Think You Know Me, No Context, or The School of Life, or similar.
  • I don’t think it’s for me, but you might set up your own house rule that overrides the “no phone calls” thing. Make a call to connect with a friend you see only occasionally, but make it a voice call, not a FaceTime.
• If your focus is reading:
  • eReaders with an eInk screen are electronic devices that are given an automatic exception. Go ahead and use them.
  • Phones or tablets running an eReader app are not allowed.
  • Print-on-paper books are totally allowed, but you may have to rethink your candle/lighting setup. Depending on the illumination and your eyesight, you may need to relax some of the “no electric light” rules. I ended up with a folding rechargeable reading light.
  • Audiobooks are a great option.
• If your focus is writing or art:
  • For tactile things like pencil, paper, brushes, arts+crafts, scrapbooking, etc., a small desk lamp is acceptable if candles won’t work for you.
  • For digital drawing, a tablet is acceptable, but it must be in airplane mode. No cellular. No WiFi.
  • A desktop computer simply isn’t acceptable for anything on Dark Night.
  • I have no solution to digital writing/typing. You’ll have to make up your own house rules, whether that’s allowing a tablet or laptop (in a distraction-free editor, with WiFi disabled), or spending cash on a single-purpose writing device like a Hemingwrite. How about a manual typewriter?
• Board games and card games are always good.
  • Simple rules are better, unless everyone is already very familiar with the game.
  • Solitaire while you’re doing other things (audiobooks, podcasts) work well.
  • Lots of modern board games are increasingly getting single-player (solitaire) rules, if you’re a little tired of traditional playing-card solitaire.
• No Nintendo or other handheld video games.
• Role-playing games are also good, especially if the lighting adds spookiness.
• Puzzles (crosswords, sudoku, word searches) are good.
  • If you occasionally need to look up trivia (such as a crossword clue asking about an Oscar award or sports win), remember the egg-timer rule. But don’t abuse the egg-timer rule.
• Puzzle hunts, such as Puzzled Pint, might be good. They’re best if they were designed to work offline.
• Exercise? I’m not quite sure it totally fits into hygge, but…
  • Stretching or yoga should be fine if it’s self-guided. No exercise video or Zoom call.
  • Using a Peloton bike or treadmill doesn’t feel like it fits in with Dark Night, but if it’s a way to get you to exercise more, go for it. I won’t judge.
• If your neighborhood is safe, whether it’s a sleepy suburb or a bustling hipster den, take a walk around the block. Feed some birds, if they’re still awake. Count chimneys. Look up at the moon.
• If you have a great view, sit out on your porch or deck.
• You don’t have to do the same thing the whole night. If your eyes or attention span get fatigued after an hour of reading, feel free to switch to some other focus.