Put some thought into your leisure time.

Vidya
2 min readFeb 29, 2020

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“Guard well your spare moments” — Unknown.

Arnot Bennett, an English Writer, says

Put more thought into your leisure time.

It is a luxury nowadays to get leisure time in this fast pacing world and what many youngsters, as well as tech-savvy adults, do is to mindlessly scroll through social media for hours and hours.

If you haven’t already planned on how to use your leisure time which can be either productive or indulge in a hobby that can relax your mind and soul, then, social media like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram will always beckon as an appealing option. If you instead fill this time with something of quality, like reading a book, practicing calligraphy lessons, painting, indulging yourself in improving your cooking skills, or just spending some quality time talking to your best bud, their grip on your attention will loosen.

So, it’s crucial that you plan ahead what you’re going to do with your evenings and weekends before they begin.

At this point, you might question me saying, what’s the point of having ‘leisure time’ if you’re having a structure and a plan to it? Isn’t leisure time supposed to be free from plans or obligations?

Not really, I’m afraid.

Bennett argues, that such worries misunderstand what energizes the human spirit. I resonate with what Bennett has to say about what human’s mental faculties are capable of. If you give your mind something meaningful to do throughout your day, you’ll end the day more fulfilled, and begin the next one by being more relaxed and with a positive attitude than if you allow your mind to bathe continuously and mindlessly scrolling through social media which neither relaxes your mind nor adds value to your life.

Simply put, have a quality alternative to include in your leisure time which will in turn help you decrease this urge and pull of these so-called entertainment websites on your time and attention. This not only improves quality in your life, but it also increases resistance towards distraction and improves concentration in day-to-day activities.

Arnold Bennett’s ambitious goal for a human is,

To live, and not to just exist.

Post inspired by Cal Newport’s book ‘Deep Work’.

Originally published at https://medium.com on February 29, 2020.

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Vidya

I talk about newsletters, productivity, tech, and growth marketing. Blog: vidya.so