Are you aware of your leisure time? If you are a paid worker, you probably do. Also, you have, more or less, a  weekdays routine  as following one:

  1.  Wake up in the morning (in flexible hours or not)
  2. Travel in rushed time (or you are lucky one. working as home office employee)
  3. Work, work, work!
  4. Get back home (or to somewhere you want to hang out at)
  5. Home-based responsíbilities (Cooking, taking care of your kids, repairman duties so on and on. You can label all of those as “unpaid work” )
  6. Sleep

Maths behind Leisure

Let’s break it down: after all the hustle and bustle of work and home, what’s left is your precious leisure time. Ever thought about how to divvy it up? Well, with a little basic calculus (bear with me), you can figure out the magic number: “1440 minutes – (the sum of all the other stuff).” Voilà! That’s your regular weekday’s time budget in a nutshell.

But why do we treat time like it’s money? Well, because it kinda is – hence the term “time budgeting.” Whether we realize it or not, we’re all making decisions about how to spend our time, mostly focusing on how to jazz up our leisure hours since work tends to take up a big chunk of the pie.

Now, let’s talk about the juicy stuff: what’s the deal with leisure time? It’s not just about kicking back and chilling anymore; it’s a whole lifestyle choice. With our jam-packed schedules, we’ve become hyper-aware of how we spend our precious moments (Garhammer, 2002). And guess what? Different strokes for different folks – our individual preferences for leisure activities are shaped by a cocktail of social factors like where we grew up, family traditions, and even our jobs (Yoesting and Burkhead, 1973; Kelly, 1977). It’s like a choose-your-own-adventure book, but with way more complexity.

So, why do we bother with leisure in the first place? Well, it’s a bit of a philosophical rollercoaster. Picture this: you’re faced with three doors, each leading to a different leisure destiny.

  1. Invest: You’re all about self-improvement, treating your leisure time like a VIP client. You’re the type to pick up Drucker’s “Innovation and Entrepreneurship” over a steamy romance novel because, hey, you’re a Marketing Director. For you, leisure is an investment in your identity and future success (Parker and Smith, 1976; Glyptis, 1989).
  2. Rest: Forget about productivity – you just want to unwind and recharge after a long day’s work. Keynes had it right when he said leisure is all about kicking back and enjoying the simple pleasures, like binge-watching “Game of Thrones” (Keynes, 1930).
  3. Consume: Your leisure time is all about flexing your creative muscles and exploring new horizons through cultural consumption. Forget about work – this is your chance to define and strengthen your social identity (Willis, 1990; Haller and Muller, 2008).

But here’s the kicker: we’re all a mix of these three leisure personas, but deep down, we each have our favorite flavor. And the big question is: why? Who decides which door we walk through when it comes to our leisure time? It’s a mystery as old as time itself – or at least as old as “time budgeting.

Bibliography

  • Frey, B. S., & Stutzer, A. (2002). Happiness and economics. How the economy and institutions affect wellbeing. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Garhammer, M. (2002). Pace of life and enjoyment of life. Journal of Happiness Studies, 3, 217– 256
  • Glyptis, S. (1989) Leisure and Unemployment, Milton Keynes: Open University Press
  • Haller, M., & Muller, B. (2008). Characteristics of personality and identity in population surveys: Approaches for operationalising and localizing variables to explain life satisfaction. Bulletin de Metholodogie Sociologique, 99, 5–33.
  • Kelly, J. (1977). Leisure socialization: Replication and extension. J.Leisure Res, 9, 121-132
  • Keynes, J.M. (1936). The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, London: Macmillan
  • Parker,S., & Smith, M. (1976). Work and leisure. In Handbook of Work Organization and Society, ed R.Dubin, pp. 37-64, Chicago: Rand McNally.
  • Willis, P. (1990). Common culture: Symbolic work at play in the everyday cultures of the young, Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
  • Yoesting D., & Burkhead, D. (1973). Significance of childhood of childhood recreate in experience for adult leisure behavior: an exploratory analsis. J.Leisure Res. 5, 25-36.