Rather than starting with a long-winded anecdote this week, I’ll get straight to the point: We need to be more proactive about making time for fun in our lives. (Don’t worry – we’ll get to the hyper-specific background narrative later.)
Really, I’m serious about this. And I don’t just mean treating leisure time or our passions outside of work as something to do “if you get to it” at the end of the week, but instead as something purposefully integrated throughout one’s schedule. Taking a line out of Miley Cyrus’s “Hoedown Throwdown,” “If you’re five or eighty-two, this is something you can do.”
Now, it might seem a little odd or counterintuitive to say that you should schedule your leisure. However, if you are busy to the point where you’re feeling the many effects of burnout, and if you aren’t managing to find time for relaxation and fun every week, this could work for you.
Leisure doesn’t have to be a spontaneous, spur-of-the-moment activity to “count.” It can be immensely beneficial to have dedicated time each week for fun events or activities other than work, or school – including touching grass. While it can feel rewarding to be productive, it’s critical that we also set aside time to to be “unproductive” in the tangible, to-do-list sense. It’s okay to spend time doing anything other than what you’re required to do either via job contract or graduation requirements. Having time for yourself each week is essential, and planning out when this will be ensures that leisure doesn’t fall to the wayside, and every other task on your list also gets done.
This kind of system will certainly look different for everyone. For me, it looks like maintaining a weekly calendar. Within this planner, I have my classes and other set appointments or meetings related to school and work labeled clearly. However, I also have fun, entirely unrelated activities scheduled as well. For example, if there’s a basketball game I’m planning on attending, or a night I’m getting dinner out with friends, I write those down as well.
As another example (I told you we’d get to the long-winded anecdote that serves as the hyper specific background for the column a little later. You didn’t think I’d leave it out and forget my brand here, did you?) from my personal life would be “Cousins’ Day.” This, as the name suggests, is what my cousins and I have been calling our plan to see the movie “Cocaine Bear” together during its recent opening weekend. I knew that we were going to see this movie the day after its release in theaters, and had it marked on my calendar for months leading up to the actual day. As “Cousins’ Day” approached, I was able to keep it on my radar enough that the week-of, I managed to front-load my work so that I would be able to just go home that weekend without worrying about anything. My homework was done, my work tasks were done and I didn’t have to think about anything related to school or Storrs. It was lovely.
In this example, I planned for my leisure time, and it worked out amazingly. “Cocaine Bear” was a 10 out of 10 movie, and what made it even better was the fact that I was able to fully engage with it without being distracted. Further, my cousins weren’t upset with me for being disengaged in our bonding time, and I truly had a wonderful weekend at home.
I’m well aware this seems overly simple. Of course it makes sense that scheduling in time for fun would end up ensuring that fun does indeed happen. But this really is a very simple fix that makes sure you have time to relax in your life. Having designated time for fun seems too elementary or straightforward to be worth saying – but again, it’s worth repeating simple solutions to common issues. Sometimes, the best solution is the easiest answer. If you don’t have the luxuries of an open schedule, make sure you at least leave time in your color-coded google calendar for fun. It just might keep you sane.
