This is curtesy of Cal Newport and about digital minimalism.
You have to annunciate high quality leisure in a really broad American accent!!
(“Leeezyour”)
Despite its cheesy name, the thing about HQL is that it is about spending quality time when you’re not working.
You will know from your Christmas holidays while the urge to sit in front of the television eating boxes of chocolates or bags of Doritos, that wares out quite quickly and you begin to hate yourself.
Once you have watched back to back episodes of a box set, or a movie, you realise that there must be more to life and other things to do.
Sometimes it is hard to get the HQL in or it is hard to motivate yourself to do it but you always know that you feel better when it is done.
It can be any number of things, including the following:
- Using a You Tube video to teach yourself a new task, like plumbing or decorating or playing the banjo.
- Reading a quality book
- Taking your dog on a long walk with your headphones on ,or even better, with your headphones off.
- (For me) a bike ride that achieves something and an improvement of fitness
- A circuit training session in my garage
- A planned cinema trip that has been researched
- Anything else that stimulates my mind and attention, beyond watching the television.
Spending some time on a Friday afternoon to plan HQL for the following week and even fortnight as an essential part of happiness.
It ties in beautifully with the happiness booster concept, previously discussed in these blogs.
It is a small piece to the jigsaw puzzle, but combine it with limited alcohol intake, canning all social media activity, making sure you get some exercise in and making sure you get some HQL (even reading your book before you go to bed) makes for a life that looks better in the long run, not worse.
Blog Post number - 2250
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