I have a confession. I’m a magazine addict.
I don’t have many vices but a weekend Chardonnay and a great magazine are two
of them. Apparently Australians are some of the biggest consumers of magazines
in the world. I certainly help with that statistic.
The trouble is I buy them and never have
the time to read them. There is always something else more important or urgent
to do than sit in by the window in a comfy chair reading a lovely magazine. As
I write this, newly purchased issues of House
& Garden and Mindfood are
taunting me. Read me. Read me. Read me now.
I love that first pass through a magazine when
the pages are new and the contents yet to be discovered. Then taking my time on
the second pass to read what takes my fancy.
So how do you find time for these little moments
of leisure when life is so packed?
After reading Gretchen Rubin’s book Better
Than Before, which is all about mastering habits, I now have the solution.
I schedule in my magazine reading time and other fun stuff. There’s always more
work to do, more writing to accomplish, more preparing for uni lecturing or
tutoring or more issues to solve as Chair of the Byron Writers Festival, so
with my fun schedule, I get time for non-work things.
I’ve mentioned this scheduling of fun time
to friends and some are horrified. “What!,” they exclaim. “Surely having to
schedule time for fun is counterintuitive and a little bit sad.” After trialing this method for a few weeks, I completely
disagree. I’ve had more free time than I’ve had in months.
So what do you think? Is scheduling the fun
times a great way to ensure you get to do things you enjoy or something else
entirely (ie just a little bit sad)?
