Back in my days of web and software development I was always amazed by Grant Skinner’s ability to do seemingly impossible things with Flash. Yesterday he wrote a post about finding time to play and it explains a lot. I’ve got to say that I really agree with his assessment.
For the past couple of weeks I’ve been intentionally making time in my schedule to do things I enjoy and work on little projects that might not have an immediate application. This “play time” has done two things for me. First, it’s improved my attitude quite a bit – when I feel the grind of every day stuff 20-30 minutes of off-topic activity really picks me up. Second, I’ve found that I’m getting a lot more done – if I’ve got a four hours of work lined up but know I’m going to take 30 minutes halfway through I stay a lot more focused. It’s so easy when we want to take a break to just be idle, when I keep my mind working on a different tangent often I’ll find answers to questions in my primary task. My guess is that in the past month I’ve added up 15 hours of off-topic activity and already put some of the work into use officially.
Two questions:
– What project are you doing for “play” right now?
– If you don’t find time to play, why not?