How do you spend your off hours? Do you watch television? Do you surf the web? Read articles here at Lifehack.org? There are many ways you can spend your leisure time. But is it really possible to get more out of your time off? Not just making this time more productive, but actually making it more enjoyable.
Breaking the Work/Play Distinction
I believe the answer goes against what many of us have been taught about how to spend our free time. From early childhood we’ve been taught to divide everything to do into two groups, work and leisure. Work consists of all the things we need to do and leisure is everything else.
Splitting the world this way isn’t necessarily wrong. But the subtle message contained in this split is that work and leisure shouldn’t resemble each other. Your work needs to be productive, efficient and challenging. Therefore leisure should be relaxing, accomplish nothing and be free of pressures.
Why This Kills Your Free Time
The problem is this assumption, that work should be the opposite of leisure, ruins your free time. The belief that the most enjoyable moments of life are spent relaxing in the fruits of our labor doesn’t match the real world. Research has shown that the most enjoyable moments of our life are the ones where we are most engaged.
Psychology researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi recorded this phenomenon. He did this through a device that pinged at random points in time. The subject then filled out a form based on their feelings, thoughts and current activity. What he found was people have more enjoyable experiences from work than from their time off. He mentions this paradox in his book, Flow:
“Thus we have the paradoxical situation: On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore tend to feel more sad, weak dull and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.” [emphasis mine]
I believe the dissatisfaction for work stems from the external need to work. Since we cannot exercise freedom in choosing to show up every morning, it is easy to begrudge the time there. Even if it produces positive experiences in our lives.
The Answer Isn’t Becoming a Workaholic
I don’t believe the resolution of this problem, is to work all the time. I think that would only exacerbate a situation where people feel trapped by oppressive work schedules. Even if jobs can produce, challenging flow experiences, putting all your eggs into one basket can be risky.
Instead, Fill Your Spare Time With Active Leisure
Active leisure is free activities you choose that challenge and fulfill you. But because you take up these tasks through internal desires, not external constraints, you won’t feel trapped by them.
Many people have found ways to incorporate active leisure into their lives. Taking up hobbies, sports and learning new skills even when time is limited. But as the standard forty hour workweek gets pushed longer and passive entertainment becomes easier to consume, it is harder to take up active leisure.
Leisure is Hard Work
Upgrading your leisure time to make it more enjoyable isn’t always easy. This may sound backwards, since many people believe the purpose of leisure is to be easy. But sometimes the benefits of being active in your time off aren’t immediately apparent.
Activity requires that you invest your attention. The body was designed to be efficient, not enjoyable, so it may resist your attempts to invest energy in anything non-essential.
How to Start the Active Leisure Habit
There are many ways you can upgrade your leisure time, but it requires effort. Unlike watching television or relaxing, opportunities for flow need to be structured in advance. It can sometimes require planning and always requires an initial push of momentum to get started.
I suggest an experiment. Try replacing some low-energy task with a more engaging one. Continue it for a month. After that month, if you don’t feel the new task is more satisfying than your old usage of time, quit. This is about enjoyment, not productivity, so you don’t need to feel guilty if you decide to switch back later.
Suggestions for Active Leisure
Here are a couple ideas to get the ball rolling:
- Join Toastmasters - At toastmasters.org you can find clubs near your location. There are thousands of them and they are a great experience. I’ve known many people who tell me Toastmasters is the highlight of their week.
- Start a Craft - Try learning a new hobby or restarting an old one. Painting, woodworking, sculpting, programming or blogging are all great starts. Buy a tutorial book to get you started and learn from there.
- Play Sports - Find a physical activity that will get you to move and provides a challenging environment. Not only will this keep you healthy, but it will put your mind into a state of flow more easily than sitting on the couch.
- Learn a New Language - Challenge yourself to learn a new language. This has always been a goal of mine. I’ve heard from many sources that it can be both challenging an enjoyable to gain fluency in a non-native tongue.
- Play a Game - Computer games and interactive entertainment can be great ways to produce flow. Although you can get addicted to the enjoyable environment, structuring a small amount of time to play games can engage you mind to have fun.
- Start a Project - One of my personal favorites is to get a new project going. Starting a project to complete something over the course of a couple months can be exciting and incredibly rewarding. Go start that novel you’ve been thinking about.
原文地址：How do you spend your off hours?
译文地址：如何使你的业余时间更有意义？
你是怎样度过自己的业余时间的？看电视？上网冲浪？你会有很多种选择。但是在业余时间里你真的有所收获吗？你不仅要使你的业余时间更有效率，而且要使它更加令人愉悦。
消除工作与休闲的差别
我想答案与大多数人所讨论的如何安排业余时间是相反的。从孩童时起，我们就被告知要把一切事物分成两部分：工作与休闲。工作包括所有我们需要去做的事情，而休闲则是剩下的所有事情。
用这种方式来划分世上的事也不一定是错误的。这种划分的潜在规则是工作和休闲不可能彼此类似（或者说要相对立－译者注）。你的工作要具有生产性，有效率且富于挑战，因此休闲需要放松，摆脱所有压力。
为什么这种认知会毁掉业余时间？
问题就在于这个假设：工作与休闲是相对立的，它占用你的休闲时间。认为生活中那些美好时光都是在工作之余的放松享受中产生的想法是不符合现实的。研究表明，生活中最令人享受的时刻往往是我们最忙碌的时候。
心理学研究者Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi记录了这种现象。他通过一台仪器让被测试者（译者加）随意地发牢骚，然后将他们的感觉，想法和当前的行为记录在表格中。结果发现，人们在工作中比在休闲的业余时间里获得的快乐体验更多。他在书中提到了这个矛盾，具体如下：
“因此，我们得到这样的矛盾情况：人们从工作中可以感知技能性和挑战性，因而感觉更开心、强大、有创造力并且很满足。在业余时间里人们感觉没有太多的事情做，不能发挥各自的技能，因而趋于沮丧、愚钝而且没有满足感。然而人们却愿意少工作多休息。”
答案不是说要成为“工作第一的人”
我并不认为这个问题的解决方法就是一直工作。我想那只会加剧人们被沉重的工作所压制的感觉。即使工作可以使你更具挑战性和富于经验，但把所有的鸡蛋都放在一个篮子里会增加风险（只工作不休闲只能更加危险－译者注）。
相反，要用积极的休闲法度过你的业余时间
积极休闲是指自由选择具有挑战性且适合你的活动。因为这是你内心所期望去做的，你不会感到任何外部的约束。
很多人都找到了将积极休闲融于生活的方式：拾起业余爱好、做运动和学习新的技能即使时间非常有限。但是因为一周40个标准工作时逐渐延长了，且消极的（任务式的）娱乐方式更容易被接受，所以做到积极休闲变得更加困难了。
休闲是艰辛的工作
提升你的业余时间（效果－译者注）并令人愉悦并不是件易事。这听起来好像反了，因为很多人认为休闲的目的就是使人放松。但是有时候积极休闲所带来的好处并不是立即显现的。
怎样养成积极的休闲习惯
改善你的休闲时间有很多种方式，但不像看电视或放松娱乐那样简单，是需要努力才能实现的。它需要规划，而且需要源动力推进。
积极休闲的建议
以下是一些实现积极休闲的方法：
- 加入Toastmasters的行列－来到toastmasters.org你会发现在你附近有成千上万的俱乐部，那将是一个非常体验。我认识很多人，他们告诉我在Toastmasters是一周中最精彩的时刻。
- 学门手艺－尝试一种新的业余爱好或重新拾起旧的爱好。绘画，木工艺，雕刻，设计或写博客，这些都是非常好的开始。买一本指南学习并开始一项业余活动吧。
- 去运动－寻求一种运动性强且具有挑战性的运动。这不仅有利于身体健康，还能保持头脑灵活。
- 学习一种新的语言－挑战你自己去学习一种新的语言。这一直是我的目标。我听说这不但是一项挑战而且熟练掌握一门外语也是一种乐趣。
- 玩游戏－电脑游戏和互动娱乐游戏可以使大脑思路更流畅。尽管你会沉溺于中，但是抽出一少部分时间并规划好来玩游戏可以使你精神愉悦。
- 启动一个项目－我有一个业余爱好是开始一个新项目。开始一个项目并为之奋斗两个月是令人兴奋的，而且无疑是有回报的。按照你的新奇的想法，开始行动吧！
转载自 Angelived中文翻译
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