Sunday, August 26, 2007

What do you do with "found time"?

Your meeting has been postponed; your client just canceled; it's a snow day. . . In short, a day that had previously been all booked up is now gloriously, splendidly free.

What do you do with this "found time"?

Do you decide to make some progress on that big project you've been working on? Or spend the day playing? Maybe you read that trashy novel you just bought. Do you rest, recuperate, and nap? Maybe you take the day to pamper yourself. Or possibly, you just fritter away the day with no plan or purpose and wonder where the day went at the end.

I love found time. It feels so liberating to have a vista of uncommitted, unscheduled time open up in front of me. I often feel positively giddy. (This is probably a sign that I am over-scheduled and over-committed, but holding that aside. . .) I feel that found time deserves special activities -- something unusual, something I wouldn't ordinarily do or that I haven't had time to do. Sometimes I recuperate and take a guilt-free nap. Sometimes I play in my fiber studio. Sometimes I get a chunk of work done on an ongoing project and feel virtuously productive.

Tonight, my gig canceled, and I cleaned a room that I haven't had time to clean for a while. So I feel virtuous, and I have a sparkly clean room now!