I’m painfully photosensitive. I don’t get along with the sun.
When I wake in the morning, I typically stumble over to the bathroom with my eyes shielded from the day star, close the door, and use a little EDC light on low to see what I’m doing. Usually a L3 L10-219 or ZL SC52 or JETBeam RRT01 or CNQG brass light, whatever is handy.
During the day I don’t have a lot of need for torches, but I still use them probably at least three times during an average afternoon. Maybe I dropped something and need to change the light angle to find it easier, maybe there’s a dark corner I need to see into, maybe I’m just having trouble finding something in my purse.
I find showering more enjoyable if I leave the lights off and use a L3 L10-219 on low (~3lm) as my only light source. This also lets me see details better than an overhead light, if anything is particularly dirty or I otherwise want to see well. (did I get all the belly button lint out?) And the beam can make pretty patterns while reflecting off ripples in the tub, or it makes what looks like little bits of ball lightning when shower droplets hit the floor and become nearly perfect reflectors.
In the evening and at night, I usually don’t bother with overhead lights unless I’m going to work at the computer for a while. If nobody is around, I’ll just wear my Zebralight headlamp as a necklace, which provides hands-free light wherever I need it. I tend to get teased about this when I’m not alone though, so I’ll often use a traditional light instead — any of the little EDC lights I mentioned above.
If we feel like just hanging out and talking, my CNQG brass light works well as a mood light, ceiling-bounced on low (~12lm).
Pretty much any time I use my car, I turn on my keychain light (DQG Tiny AAA IV) to and from the car, for finding the ignition and the seat belt slot and such, then for finding my house key and key hole when I return. The dome light in my car only works once in a while; loose connection or something.
If I go biking, I mount my Convoy S7 onto the handlebars. It has a particularly nice beam pattern for this. The Convoy S3 is okay too, but its hotspot is more distinct so it’s not quite as nice. Either one works well for digging through things in my crawl space, too. Or, if we go for a night walk, I’ll generally use one of my little EDC lights to illuminate our path (3lm to 15lm is generally fine). For any outdoor excursions, though, I often bring a XinTD C8 in case I want to look at anything far away.
When it gets late enough for bed time, I aim a ZL SC52 at the ceiling on its 0.34lm setting, and leave it on until morning. It takes a couple months to drain an Eneloop this way. It’s just the right amount of light for chatting with my partner until we’re sleepy, and for getting to and from the bathroom in the middle of the night… though I’ll usually leave the SC52 where it is and grab my L3 L10-219 instead, using it on moon mode.
… and that mostly covers the common, mundane, daily stuff I use my lights for.