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.

你是如何度过休闲时间的？看电视？网上冲浪？还是在Lifehack.org上浏览文章？度过休闲时间的方法有很多。但是，你真的能从休闲中得到更多的东西吗？不仅要使休闲生活更丰富多彩，还要切实享受更多的快乐。

打破工作和娱乐的界线

我相信这个答案和很多人受到的如何度过休闲时间的教导背道而驰。很小的时候就有人教导我们把生活分为两部分：工作和娱乐。工作包含了所有我们需要做的事情，而娱乐则是另一回事。

这样划分生活不一定是错的。但是，这里蕴含着工作和娱乐不应该相类似的信息。工作需要有成果、效率和挑战，因而娱乐就应该是轻松的、无目的、没压力的。

这样的划分毁掉休闲生活的原因

毁掉休闲生活的问题在于一个假设：工作应该是娱乐的对立面。生活中最快乐的时刻是轻松享受劳动成果的时刻，这个信念与现实不符。研究表明，生活中最快乐的时刻在我们最忙碌的时候。

心理学研究员Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi对此现象做了记录。他通过能及时在任意点发出呯的声响的装置做了这个记录。实验对象根据自己的感觉、想法和当前活动填写一张表格。他发现，人们从工作中获得的快乐感受比在休闲时得到的更多。他在自己的书《心流》中提到了这个悖论：

“这样，就出现了自相矛盾的情况：在工作中，人们能感觉到能力和挑战，因而感觉到更多的快乐、更优秀、更有创造力，对自己也就更满意。而在休闲时间，人们一般都感到没什么事可做，他们的娴熟技能也得不到应用，因而更容易感到沮丧、无聊，对自己也更不满意。然而，他们还是宁愿少点工作时间，多些休闲时间。”（我的特别强调）

我认为,人们对工作的不满源于外界对工作的需要。由于不能自由选择每天早上上班的时间，就很容易因此发牢骚，尽管上班能为我们的生活创造快乐的体验。

解决办法不是要你成为工作狂

我认为解决这个问题的办法不是全天候工作。我想那样的话只能使情况恶化，使人有受到令人压抑的工作日程限制的感觉。尽管工作中充满挑战的机会，但把一切希望都寄托在工作上是很危险的。

那么，就以积极的休闲活动占用你的空余时间

积极的休闲活动是由你随意选择自己感兴趣而且满意的活动。由于做这些事出自个人的意愿，而非他人强迫所为，你就不会感到压抑。

许多人找到了让积极的休闲活动融入生活办法。即使在时间有限的时候，也把它花在业余爱好、体育锻炼和学习新技能上。但是，随着标准的每周四十小时的工作时间拉长，消极的娱乐活动令人感到更自在，因而人们难得参加积极的休闲活动。

休闲是个艰苦的工作

升级休闲活动使之带来更多快乐，往往不能令人感到舒心。这似乎说反了，因为人们认为休闲的目的就是要舒心快乐。不过，有时用于消闲的积极活动产生的好处并不能马上体现出来。

娱乐活动需要你投入注意力。而体能是为工作能力，而不是为得到快乐服务的，因此，它可能会在任何不必要的事情上抵制你的企图。

如何启动积极休闲的习惯

升级休闲活动的办法有很多，但都需要付出努力。能产生心流的机会不像看电视或休息，它需要预先规划。它可能有时需要编制计划，而且总是需要一个开始实行的初始时间。

我建议做个实验。以一种活力不足的活动替代更具吸引力的事情。坚持一个月。一个月以后，如果你觉得新的活动不如原来的令你高兴，就停下来。这是为了快乐，不是为了产出，因此，如果你决定再改回去，不必感到内疚。

几种积极休闲活动

以下是几个关于开始积极休闲活动的设想：

1. 参加讲演会－在toastmasters.org 网站能找到离你所在地最近的俱乐部。俱乐部有很多，那是很棒的体验。我认识许多人，他们告诉我，参加演讲会是他们一周内最重要的事情。

2. 开始一门手艺－试着培养新的业余爱好，或重新捡起老手艺。绘画，做木工，雕刻，编程和写博客都是很好的开始。买一本指南书，指导你开始学习。

3. 进行体育锻炼－选择一项体育运动，能让你活动起来，给你提供具挑战性的环境。这不仅能保持你的身体健康，而且能让你的思维处于比坐在沙发上更敏捷的活动状态。

4. 学习一门新的语言－激励自己学习一门外语。这一直是我自己的目标。我从很多方面了解到这样能激发快乐，也能使说外语的舌头更灵活。

5. 玩个游戏－电脑游戏和互动娱乐活动可能是激发心流的最好方法。尽管你可能沉迷于快乐的娱乐活动，但是安排一点时间玩玩游戏能吸引你的注意力，让你开心。

6. 启动一项计划－我个人最喜欢做的是运作一项新的计划。启动一项计划，在几个月时间内一步步完成计划能令人感到兴奋，而且能获得意想不到的回报。开始写你一直想写的小说吧。