Downtime

Yesterday I saw something that almost brought a tear to my eye. As I was getting our house cleaned up for a visit with some friends last night I noticed my Xbox 360 controller sitting on an end table tucked behind our wedding picture in our living room, covered in dust.

My favorite hobby has sat idol now for about a month, FF XIII sits half played wondering if I am coming back to finish saving the world.
Lately I have been forced to think through very carefully what to do with the very limited amount of downtime I find myself with.

Of course even my concept of downtime has changed. It used to mean a large amount of time, maybe an evening or afternoon. Now it means when the kids are asleep and all of the most pressing chores are done. And most pressing is what I mean. So the table is cleared off, the scrapes are in the compost, and a few things are ready for the following morning. However there are still dishes, laundry, and a general overhaul of clutter all begging to be done.

So this leaves me with a choice every time some free time rolls around. I can;

a) Pick up a game system and indulge
b) Dive into the on-line world. That is to say, blog, e-mail, and check up on my social networks.
c) Watch TV
d) Get some much needed exercise
e) Spend some quality time with my wife
f) Go out for a coffee with a friend(s)
g) Take care of some of the backlog of chores
h) Sleep
i) Miscellaneous

Obviously I have a lot of choices at my disposal with very little time to make use of. In any one period of down time it is hard, if not impossible to do more than one thing.

Yesterday I tried to do more. Yesterday I tried to head out for coffee with a friend, host some other friends over in the evening, blog, spend some quality time with my wife, and get some rest.

I tried to do a lot.

I failed.

Now if you pop over to my other blog you will notice I got my Thursday blog posted. Also had you popped over around 7:30 you would have noticed we had some visitors in the evening. Likewise had you to ventured into the Starbucks in Clayton Park you would have found me enjoying a coffee and a conversation.

So where did I fail? Well I was up until mid-night (something that didn't feel so late and so exhausting all that long ago), and if you were to ask my wife she would tell you we neither went for our afternoon walk nor did we sit down and watch an episode of Castle.

Call it a learning day. Leisure is not quick in coming, nor is it plentiful when it arrives. It is better to do less and enjoy it more, than try to cram it all in a short period and enjoy it less because I am wanting to move on to the next thing, or ignoring something else important.

There are no do overs in life, but there are lots of opportunities to do better. I'll count this as one of those.

Do Look So Grumpy Lightening (FFXIII), I'll Help You Save The World Later I Promise