How do you spend your off hours? Do you watch television? Do you surf the web? Read articles here at Lifehack.org? There are many ways you can spend your leisure time. But is it really possible to get more out of your time off? Not just making this time more productive, but actually making it more enjoyable.

Breaking the Work/Play Distinction

I believe the answer goes against what many of us have been taught about how to spend our free time. From early childhood we’ve been taught to divide everything to do into two groups, work and leisure. Work consists of all the things we need to do and leisure is everything else.

Splitting the world this way isn’t necessarily wrong. But the subtle message contained in this split is that work and leisure shouldn’t resemble each other. Your work needs to be productive, efficient and challenging. Therefore leisure should be relaxing, accomplish nothing and be free of pressures.

Why This Kills Your Free Time

The problem is this assumption, that work should be the opposite of leisure, ruins your free time. The belief that the most enjoyable moments of life are spent relaxing in the fruits of our labor doesn’t match the real world. Research has shown that the most enjoyable moments of our life are the ones where we are most engaged.

Psychology researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi recorded this phenomenon. He did this through a device that pinged at random points in time. The subject then filled out a form based on their feelings, thoughts and current activity. What he found was people have more enjoyable experiences from work than from their time off. He mentions this paradox in his book, Flow:

“Thus we have the paradoxical situation: On the job people feel skillful and challenged, and therefore feel more happy, strong, creative and satisfied. In their free time people feel that there is generally not much to do and their skills are not being used, and therefore tend to feel more sad, weak dull and dissatisfied. Yet they would like to work less and spend more time in leisure.” [emphasis mine]

I believe the dissatisfaction for work stems from the external need to work. Since we cannot exercise freedom in choosing to show up every morning, it is easy to begrudge the time there. Even if it produces positive experiences in our lives.

The Answer Isn’t Becoming a Workaholic

I don’t believe the resolution of this problem, is to work all the time. I think that would only exacerbate a situation where people feel trapped by oppressive work schedules. Even if jobs can produce，challenging flow experiences, putting all your eggs into one basket can be risky.

Instead, Fill Your Spare Time With Active Leisure

Active leisure is free activities you choose that challenge and fulfill you. But because you take up these tasks through internal desires, not external constraints, you won’t feel trapped by them.

Many people have found ways to incorporate active leisure into their lives. Taking up hobbies, sports and learning new skills even when time is limited. But as the standard forty hour workweek gets pushed longer and passive entertainment becomes easier to consume, it is harder to take up active leisure.

Leisure is Hard Work

Upgrading your leisure time to make it more enjoyable isn’t always easy. This may sound backwards, since many people believe the purpose of leisure is to be easy. But sometimes the benefits of being active in your time off aren’t immediately apparent.

Activity requires that you invest your attention. The body was designed to be efficient, not enjoyable, so it may resist your attempts to invest energy in anything non-essential.

How to Start the Active Leisure Habit

There are many ways you can upgrade your leisure time, but it requires effort. Unlike watching television or relaxing, opportunities for flow need to be structured in advance. It can sometimes require planning and always requires an initial push of momentum to get started.

I suggest an experiment. Try replacing some low-energy task with a more engaging one. Continue it for a month. After that month, if you don’t feel the new task is more satisfying than your old usage of time, quit. This is about enjoyment, not productivity, so you don’t need to feel guilty if you decide to switch back later.

Suggestions for Active Leisure

Here are a couple ideas to get the ball rolling:

1. Join Toastmasters -At toastmasters.org you can find clubs near your location. There are thousands of them and they are a great experience. I’ve known many people who tell me Toastmasters is the highlight of their week.

2. Start a Craft -Try learning a new hobby or restarting an old one. Painting, woodworking, sculpting, programming or blogging are all great starts. Buy a tutorial book to get you started and learn from there.

3. Play Sports -Find a physical activity that will get you to move and provides a challenging environment. Not only will this keep you healthy, but it will put your mind into a state of flow more easily than sitting on the couch.

4. Learn a New Language -Challenge yourself to learn a new language. This has always been a goal of mine. I’ve heard from many sources that it can be both challenging an enjoyable to gain fluency in a non-native tongue.

5. Play a Game -Computer games and interactive entertainment can be great ways to produce flow. Although you can get addicted to the enjoyable environment, structuring a small amount of time to play games can engage you mind to have fun.

6. Start a Project -One of my personal favorites is to get a new project going. Starting a project to complete something over the course of a couple months can be exciting and incredibly rewarding. Go start that novel you’ve been thinking about.

你是如何度過休閑時間的？看電視？網上沖浪？還是在Lifehack.org上瀏覽文章？度過休閑時間的方法有很多。但是，你真的能從休閑中得到更多的東西嗎？不僅要使休閑生活更豐富多彩，還要切實享受更多的快樂。

打破工作和娛樂的界線

我相信這個答案和很多人受到的如何度過休閑時間的教導背道而馳。很小的時候就有人教導我們把生活分為兩部分：工作和娛樂。工作包含了所有我們需要做的事情，而娛樂則是另一回事。

這樣劃分生活不一定是錯的。但是，這里蘊含著工作和娛樂不應該相類似的信息。工作需要有成果、效率和挑戰，因而娛樂就應該是輕松的、無目的、沒壓力的。

這樣的劃分毀掉休閑生活的原因

毀掉休閑生活的問題在于一個假設：工作應該是娛樂的對立面。生活中最快樂的時刻是輕松享受勞動成果的時刻，這個信念與現實不符。研究表明，生活中最快樂的時刻在我們最忙碌的時候。

心理學研究員Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi對此現象做了記錄。他通過能及時在任意點發出呯的聲響的裝置做了這個記錄。實驗對象根據自己的感覺、想法和當前活動填寫一張表格。他發現，人們從工作中獲得的快樂感受比在休閑時得到的更多。他在自己的書《心流》中提到了這個悖論：

“這樣，就出現了自相矛盾的情況：在工作中，人們能感覺到能力和挑戰，因而感覺到更多的快樂、更優秀、更有創造力，對自己也就更滿意。而在休閑時間，人們一般都感到沒什么事可做，他們的嫻熟技能也得不到應用，因而更容易感到沮喪、無聊，對自己也更不滿意。然而，他們還是寧愿少點工作時間，多些休閑時間。”（我的特別強調）

我認為,人們對工作的不滿源于外界對工作的需要。由于不能自由選擇每天早上上班的時間，就很容易因此發牢騷，盡管上班能為我們的生活創造快樂的體驗。

解決辦法不是要你成為工作狂

我認為解決這個問題的辦法不是全天候工作。我想那樣的話只能使情況惡化，使人有受到令人壓抑的工作日程限制的感覺。盡管工作中充滿挑戰的機會，但把一切希望都寄托在工作上是很危險的。

那么，就以積極的休閑活動占用你的空余時間

積極的休閑活動是由你隨意選擇自己感興趣而且滿意的活動。由于做這些事出自個人的意愿，而非他人強迫所為，你就不會感到壓抑。

許多人找到了讓積極的休閑活動融入生活辦法。即使在時間有限的時候，也把它花在業余愛好、體育鍛煉和學習新技能上。但是，隨著標準的每周四十小時的工作時間拉長，消極的娛樂活動令人感到更自在，因而人們難得參加積極的休閑活動。

休閑是個艱苦的工作

升級休閑活動使之帶來更多快樂，往往不能令人感到舒心。這似乎說反了，因為人們認為休閑的目的就是要舒心快樂。不過，有時用于消閑的積極活動產生的好處并不能馬上體現出來。

娛樂活動需要你投入注意力。而體能是為工作能力，而不是為得到快樂服務的，因此，它可能會在任何不必要的事情上抵制你的企圖。

如何啟動積極休閑的習慣

升級休閑活動的辦法有很多，但都需要付出努力。能產生心流的機會不像看電視或休息，它需要預先規劃。它可能有時需要編制計劃，而且總是需要一個開始實行的初始時間。

我建議做個實驗。以一種活力不足的活動替代更具吸引力的事情。堅持一個月。一個月以后，如果你覺得新的活動不如原來的令你高興，就停下來。這是為了快樂，不是為了產出，因此，如果你決定再改回去，不必感到內疚。

幾種積極休閑活動

以下是幾個關于開始積極休閑活動的設想：

1. 參加講演會－在toastmasters.org 網站能找到離你所在地最近的俱樂部。俱樂部有很多，那是很棒的體驗。我認識許多人，他們告訴我，參加演講會是他們一周內最重要的事情。

2. 開始一門手藝－試著培養新的業余愛好，或重新撿起老手藝。繪畫，做木工，雕刻，編程和寫博客都是很好的開始。買一本指南書，指導你開始學習。

3. 進行體育鍛煉－選擇一項體育運動，能讓你活動起來，給你提供具挑戰性的環境。這不僅能保持你的身體健康，而且能讓你的思維處于比坐在沙發上更敏捷的活動狀態。

4. 學習一門新的語言－激勵自己學習一門外語。這一直是我自己的目標。我從很多方面了解到這樣能激發快樂，也能使說外語的舌頭更靈活。

5. 玩個游戲－電腦游戲和互動娛樂活動可能是激發心流的最好方法。盡管你可能沉迷于快樂的娛樂活動，但是安排一點時間玩玩游戲能吸引你的注意力，讓你開心。

6. 啟動一項計劃－我個人最喜歡做的是運作一項新的計劃。啟動一項計劃，在幾個月時間內一步步完成計劃能令人感到興奮，而且能獲得意想不到的回報。開始寫你一直想寫的小說吧。