Posts Worth Reading: Leisure Time Not Idle Time

layers 3, 4 & 5 of kitchen flooring

Leisure Time Not Idle Time, Written by Trent at The Simple Dollar.

I’m not going to bother re-write what someone has already done such a great job of doing: explaining the difference between leisure time and idle time.

I spend almost all of my spare time as leisure time – as in I’m doing something, generally something productive. It’s this great big gray area between work and play. Idle time drives me nuts, unless I’m too sick or tired to care. In which case, as Trent points out, there’s always the option to take a nap which is productive because you are taking care of a problem (being tired).

On a recent, somewhat warm day I had the whole house to myself. I considered flopping on the couch and eating pie while I watched TV. Instead, I cleaned the bathroom (including scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees), put dry cleaner on the carpet in the back room (again, scrubbing on my hands and knees), picked up and thoroughly vacuumed the computer/craft/side entry room, moved the yard sale items from the side room to the garage, went in the basement/glorified crawl space to put out mouse poison (I gave them a fair chance with live traps, but now they're P-ing me off), sprayed insect repellent around the base of the house, refilled the cat food bin, refilled the litterboxes, sprayed the cat pee smelling areas, and then settled down in the kitchen to work on ripping up some more old flooring for an hour. Now that's some leisure time! haha

I don’t just use my leisure time at home, I use it at work. Hence all of my Work Hack posts I’ve been writing lately where I make note of what I do on my breaks. Even while driving I’ll listen to audio books, given the chance.

This whole blog was inspired because I use my leisure time in a way that, through documentation, others might find a glimmer of inspiration by what I do, as I find inspiration in what they do.

Now go get your leisure on.