When my toddler was a year old, I sat him in front of a giant art pad with a jumbo crayon into his hand. Of course, the first thing he did was put the crayon in his mouth, but with a little bit of hand-over-hand guidance, he was happily scribbling.
It was a blast! We were making art, together, with no agenda other than to prevent crayons from becoming dinner, and to have fun.
A few minutes later, we moved onto another activity, but later, when I was cleaning up, I thought, “wow, I could turn this scribble into thank you cards for his first birthday!” And that night after I put him to sleep, I did just that.
I was proud of how the cards turned out. (The image at the top of this article features some of them.)
A few days later, we tried coloring again. “This is so cute,” I thought. “These will make great cards!”
But that intention – to create something “worthy” of sharing – sucked all of the joy out of the activity. Instead of joyfully engaging with my child, I suddenly found myself feeling annoyed. “No, don’t use brown,” I thought (but did not say). “Brown doesn’t go well there… use blue instead, it will look better on the card.”
Wow. What pressure. Shit, Jennie, let the kid use brown.
I do this to myself all the time.
A lot of us do, I think. We’ve been sold a story that our time only matters if it’s productive – if it allows us to check an item off of a “to do” list. Hobbies, crafts, leisure, fun… these things have less value.
I’ve been taking a year-long course taught by Kelly Diels, an intersectional feminist marketing consultant, and this month she’s been talking a lot about the politics of time. Something I’ve learned that has transformed the way I approach leisure (and time in general) is this:
Straight, white cis men are taught that they are allowed to have leisure time. Women and other people with marginalized identities have been taught that our time is not for us – it is for other people. After everyone else is taken care of, we get what’s left over.
But there’s never anything left over. There’s always some committee that needs a member, some project at work that needs attending to (whether it’s an actual work project, or making sure that Tiffany gets birthday cupcakes), a cause that needs volunteers, a child’s extracurricular that needs to be researched, a meal that needs to be cooked. And laundry – even while you’re washing clothes, you’re actively wearing more clothes… that fucker is never-ending.
So you need to aggressively claim your leisure time.
March up to it, declare it yours, and stick a flag in it. Put it on your calendar. Because otherwise, other people will take it.
A lot of therapy business owners I know are really into this book called Profit First by Mike Michalowicz. The premise of the book is that most business owners have their income and their overhead expenses, and then pay themselves whatever is leftover. The problem, though, is that most of the time, there’s nothing leftover for the owner to pay themself, because there are always lots of tempting overhead expenses calling your name. (That art would look great on your office wall, you want to give your employees a raise, etc.)
The solution, according to this book, is to account for owner pay before you commit to overhead expenses. If you want to pay yourself x dollars per year, that should be the first expense you think about when developing your budget. From there, find ways to make the rest of your expenses fit around that.
You also need to do this with “me time”. Claim it, put it on the calendar, and make it non-negotiable.
Claiming leisure time is a privileged idea.
Something I’ve always wondered about Profit First is: You can want to pay yourself a six-figure salary all you want, but if your business is only making five figures, all of the trimming overhead in the world won’t get you there.
If you’re a single working parent overseeing remote school for two young children in the middle of a pandemic, finding leisure time is easier said than done. Carving out self-care time is a thing that takes a village – the support of family members and friends, or the money to hire people to help. Consider the dad who plays golf for five hours every weekend. Could he do that if someone weren’t home taking care of the kids?
But almost everyone has access to self-care in small doses. Maybe you start by choosing one night, every other week, to do nothing but relax for two hours after the kids go to sleep. Maybe you set your alarm 10 minutes earlier each morning to do some deep breathing before you dive into your day. Or perhaps, any time you shower, you stay in for two extra minutes to just take in the pleasant sensation of the hot water.
Maybe this sounds impossible. Or maybe it doesn’t sound like enough.
Both of those things might be true. And the pandemic definitely amplifies this. Sometimes the pollyannaish doctrine of self-care can feel like victim-blaming. Perhaps more leisure time can be found by setting boundaries, or by asking for help. Or maybe it can’t (especially with the COVID of it all).
I do not want you to feel guilty for not being able to find leisure time. But I also do not want you to feel guilty for taking leisure time.
You’re likely to feel guilty for taking leisure time.
I know, I just said “don’t feel guilty”. But you will, probably. Those roots run very, very deep.
And when you do, remember that that’s your social conditioning. Emotions always have a function, but that doesn’t mean you should take them at face value. It means you should get curious.
When you get curious about why taking time for yourself makes you feel guilty, remember that your social conditioning says that your value is rooted in being of service to others. That is not true – your worth is intrinsic.
Your guilt is coming from deeply ingrained messages that you do not deserve leisure time. Those messages say that your time is only valuable when you are doing things that benefit other people.
And then, if you get angry about those deep-rooted social messages, get curious about that too. If the anger says, “that’s bullshit, I matter in my own right, not just because I serve others,” ride that wave, plant a flag, and claim your time.
Leisure time is productive.
This is true, but I’m always reluctant to say it. I don’t want to perpetuate the doctrine of productivity as the only thing of value.
But that doctrine is in the air we breathe. So sometimes, it’s what I need to hear in order to give myself permission to let myself take leisure time.
Innovation thrives when we have downtime. Every creative spark – whether it’s a great novel, a marketing campaign, a therapy revelation (as the therapist, or as a client), or a new way to think about SEO analytics – happens because we let our brains wander.
Creativity – which is the real driver of meaningful productivity – doesn’t happen when you’re staring at a blank Word document. It happens when you’re in the shower, going for a walk, knitting, talking to friends, journaling, reading a book, meditating, doing yoga, baking, and swimming. In other words, it happens when you give your brain a little bit of space to breathe.
So claim that space – however much of it you can finagle – and do things that fill your cup. Then, when you show up for other people, you’ll do it better for having taken care of yourself first.