What ratio do you target for productive activity vs pure leisure?

[Eureka5280]

First, I acknowledge that these are nebulous terms - I would identify 3 hours of bingeing Netflix as pure leisure, but the case could be made that doing so will give you something to talk about with coworkers, thus strengthening relationships and improving your career prospects. For this exercise I'd like to define pure leisure as activities that will have no direct benefit to your income, knowledge, or physical health. Things like watching tv on the couch, mindlessly surfing the internet with no purpose, casually playing video games.

Productive activity can probably be at least split in two categories. One would be "true work" like spending hours for an employer or client, doing the dishes, repairing something around the house, or studying for a certificate that will improve your income. The other would be something more like "productive leisure", things like hiking in the mountains, practicing an instrument, or productive hobbies like woodworking.

So with those definitions out of the way, I'm looking for a framework around how people split up their waking hours between the pure leisure and productive buckets? I intuitively feel I spend way too much of my time indulging in pure leisure, but I'm interested in how others approach this.

 

[mcogilvie]

I don’t think your pure leisure category matches too well with my life. For example, where does talking to my wife or meeting with friends fall? I don’t think that they necessarily have “direct benefit to (my) income, knowledge, or physical health.” On the other hand, your “pure leisure” examples look like couch potato stuff to me. Real leisure, for me, includes things like hiking and recreational reading. I think that part of the value of having clear areas of focus is having a better picture of what you value in your life. I do couch-potato-ish things too, of course. My wife and I usually wind down with 45 minutes of streaming video and a bedtime snack. I probably play around six quick games of chess most days. It seems wrong to allocate a percentage of my life to low-value stuff. It’s much more reasonable to look at how you are doing with your areas of focus.

 

[Eureka5280]

Thanks for your response. Yes, I really do mean "couch potato" stuff when I talk about pure leisure. Maybe a better question is how much is too much time spent being a couch potato? We all spend some of our time this way, so my question is really about what's a normal amount for most people?

 

[mcogilvie]

Thanks for your response. Yes, I really do mean "couch potato" stuff when I talk about pure leisure. Maybe a better question is how much is too much time spent being a couch potato? We all spend some of our time this way, so my question is really about what's a normal amount for most people?

That’s why I think the Areas of Focus are so important. If one of your areas is Baseball Fan, then you are going to do things that I am not going to do, and that’s ok (I am a casual rooter for my home team in a city of ardent baseball lovers). If I were to watch baseball a lot, it would likely be a form of procrastination. Some people watch 3+ hours of tv per day. I’m just too busy for that, and frankly tv, broadly defined, is just not that interesting to me. As it happens, my wife and I like dining out and going to the theater with friends, but that is not happening again just yet. We have been hiking a lot, because it’s pretty safe and good for our physical and mental health. We’ve been to one national forest and one national park this year, and will visit another national park later this year, but it hasn’t been easy to do local hikes recently because of weather. I’m not trying to hold myself out as some virtuous example; I often wish I had used my time a bit better, and I do read a fair amount of trash.

There is at least one “expert” on procrastination, who thinks you should “unschedule” as you try to deal with procrastination, but I’m not enthusiastic about the idea. If you want to say that four hours of couch potato time per day is normal, you may be right, but I don’t think it’s good. Life is too short.

 

[Eureka5280]

Thanks again! You make a good point, that if we spend more time reviewing and thinking about our AOFs then maybe the amount of wasted time just goes down naturally without having to put guard rails or limits around it. I'll have to spend some time thinking about why I don't seem to naturally gravitate towards the more productive things I want to accomplish in my life. Maybe it really is just about needing to review those touchstones more frequently so I don't just default to habit/comfort.

 

[mcogilvie]

I was just listening to the latest Dave and David podcast today, and David (Allen) talked a bit about “most fun” as a criterion for choosing a next action. Maybe not the best criterion at all times, but in contrast the “shoulds” that often come with “being productive” can actually destroy your productivity. Try doing only new and fun things some weekend and see how you feel.

 

[StricklingGTD]

The answer: As much productivity and as little leisure time as your will power can manage while still feeling fulfilled and satisfied at the end of the day.