Quotes About Leisure

The return from the walk, and the arrival of tea, should be exactly coincident, and not later than a quarter past four.

When the children on a holiday have already finished playing all the games before noon and now impatiently say, "is there no one who can think of a new game?," does this show then that these children are more developed and precocious than the children in the same or a previous generation who could make the familiar games last for the whole day? Or does it not rather show that these first children lack what I would call the endearing earnestness that belongs to play?

Ironically, jobs are actually easier to enjoy than free time, because like flow activities they have built-in goals, feedback rules, and challenges, all of which encourage one to become involved in one's work, to concentrate and lose oneself in it. Free time, on the other hand, is unstructured, and requires much greater effort to be shaped into something that can be enjoyed.

Leisure Lesson #1: Prioritize demanding activity over passive consumption.

The premise of this chapter is that by cultivating a high-quality leisure life first, it will become easier to minimize low-quality digital diversions later.

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets… it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done. When

For many people, their compulsive phone use papers over a void created by a lack of a well-developed leisure life. Reducing the easy distraction without also filling the void can make life unpleasantly stale.

For many people, their compulsive phone use papers over a void created by a lack of a well-developed leisure life.

Arnold Bennett took up the cause of active leisure in his short but influential self-help guide, How to Live on 24 Hours a Day. In this book, Bennett notes that the average London middle-class white-collar worker putting in an eight-hour day is left with sixteen additional hours during which he is as free as any gentleman to pursue virtuous activity.

First, how do you inject free time into your schedule without simply quitting everything and looking like a slacker? Second, how do you effectively "explore" in this free time without having it degenerate into a morass of TV watching and Web surfing?

recommend that you try to spend some time away from your phone most days. This time could take many forms, from a quick morning errand to a full evening out, depending on your comfort level.

Irónicamente, es más fácil disfrutar el trabajo que el tiempo libre, porque —como ocurre en las actividades donde hay estado de flujo— el trabajo implica metas, reglas y retos. Todo ello contribuye a que uno se involucre en el trabajo, se concentre en él y se deje llevar. El tiempo libre, en cambio, es desestructurado y se requiere un mayor esfuerzo para darle una forma que nos produzca satisfacción.18

It's crucial, therefore, that you figure out in advance what you're going to do with your evenings and weekends before they begin.

Leisure Lesson #2: Use skills to produce valuable things in the physical world.

Idleness is not just a vacation, an indulgence or a vice; it is as indispensable to the brain as vitamin D is to the body, and deprived of it we suffer a mental affliction as disfiguring as rickets… it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.

Having a casual conversation with a friend, listening to music while making dinner, playing a game with your kids, going for a run—the types of activities that will fill your time in the evening if you enforce a work shutdown—play the same attention-restoring role as walking in nature.

schedule in advance the time you spend on low-quality leisure.

If you leave me alone for a day . . . I'll have a joyful time rotating between carpentry, weight training, writing, playing around with instruments in the music studio, making lists and executing tasks from them.

Each of the habits describes an ongoing behavior rule. They're not dedicated to a particular objective, but instead are designed to maintain a background commitment to regular high-quality leisure in the planner's life.

In other words, this strategy suggests that when it comes to your relaxation, don't default to whatever catches your attention at the moment, but instead dedicate some advance thinking to the question of how you want to spend your "day within a day.

I can't wait to be that age and hanging out with a bunch of people hanging out all day playing golf and going to the beach, all my own age. We'd be laughing and having a good time and getting loopy on our prescription drugs. Driving golf carts around. I can't wait.

Step away from the banana chair, Maribeth texted back.

ive alwasys said i the cook on the bus i at the beach all the time

There is work that is work and there is play that is play; there is play that is work and work that is play. And in only one of these lies happiness.