Do you play in your daily life? What says “playtime” to you?
With an intent to write a lot more this year, I am diving head-first into this Bloganuary trend. Let’s see how long I can keep this up.
Oh, this one is fun. If you ask this question to people I know, they’ll lose no time in saying I don’t play. And I don’t blame them based on what they know about me.
Every time I pick up anything, even if outside work, I have been known to track (formally or informally) something about my activity. Friends keep nudging me to see my guitar lessons as a time to just disconnect. And I do, but I’ll also find ways, typically involving some numbers, to keep track of my progress.
I, like many people, I see comfort in ‘hard’ progress. Hard progress is easier to see, and perhaps justify to oneself that the time spent there was worth it.
But I think my attitude towards this has softened quite a lot over the years.
As I mentioned in another of my posts, I have tried to move away from milestone goals towards action goals. I am a huge fan of the non-zero day concept that I originally read here. (By the way, TIL there’s a whole subreddit for NonZeroDays!)
I still measure my leisure activities, but I don’t measure how good I am anymore. I just try to check if I am doing enough of the things that actually feed my soul. And I think every one of those activities that feed my soul should qualify as ‘play’.
For me, learning to play guitar and listening to music is the most frequent plaything for me. I try to do this every day, but some weeks are rough and I can only pick up my guitar 3-4 days a week.
Apart from guitar, I think all of the time I spend with my partner and often my friends and family also qualifies as my playtime. This time usually energises me for the day or the week, and gives me enough of a breathing space to decompress from what I do for a living.
I wonder how else one would define ‘playtime’. Definitely looking forward to reading how others define their own ‘playtime’.
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