Serious Leisure

Thinking about three types of leisure

I have been talking to my seniors each year about personal financial planning. I spend more time talking about values and freedom than most people probably do because I believe if you don’t get those parts right, all the technical stuff doesn’t matter that much. I had them read the Lieutenant Mobile essay I wrote a couple of months ago to get them to think about priorities and expenses, but I started the discussion this year with the graphic at the top, a slight adjustment to the 3C’s of Meaning. My goal was to really get at the macro values of what makes a life worth living. The 3C’s can come from work or leisure, but the main difference is work also provides the resources necessary to have leisure. 

There are a lot of theories of leisure, and so I go to my colleagues in our Recreation Management and Policy department to get ideas. I was talking with one colleague about this idea and she set me on the serious leisure perspective (SLP) theory. This is a concept that was first formalized in the 80’s by Robert Stebbins. The theory breaks leisure into three broad categories: serious leisure project-based leisure, and casual leisure. Let’s work backwards:

Casual leisure - Low commitment, focused on the experience of enjoyment. Probably what pops into mind when someone says “leisure”. It’s stuff like watching Netflix, going to a ball game, playing a board/video game, going for a walk, going to the beach, or going kayaking. It’s all atelic stuff (I talk about this idea in detail here), but atelic activities are things we do for the experience of doing them. There’s no goal other than engaging in the activity. 

Project-based leisure - Goal-based, serious commitment, but a one-off. When the project is done, we move on to something else. The project “results in something new or different, showing imagination, skill, or knowledge.” Things like planning a trip or planning a party would fit into project-based leisure. It’s leisure with a bit of a work’ish element. 

Serious leisure - High commitment over an extended period of time. It’s leisure that has much of the trappings of work. It’s a serious hobby that requires practice, effort, and resources, and there is an element of progress - the practitioner can get better over time. I think of my father who has been a committed woodworker for decades as an example. My own recent return to studying Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) is an example of serious leisure. There is progress to be made, skills to master. In BJJ, there are ranks to climb and status to earn. Stebbins even used the word career to describe serious leisure, even though for a thing to be leisure, the compensation is generally at most nominal. Serious leisure gives the pursuant a deep sense of fulfillment by satisfying some or all of the 3C’s.

I think these are useful descriptions for thinking about our leisure and how we use our leisure time. One thing to be clear, there isn’t a hierarchy of leisure. Casual leisure performs a different function than serious leisure. Casual leisure can be an important way of developing, experiencing, and maintaining connection. 

I’m very lucky in my job. It helps me satisfy all of the 3C’s. I get to demonstrate and work on my competence as a teacher and researcher every day. I get to see the contribution I am making when I see my students learn new concepts and skills, and when I see my former students succeeding in the world. And of course I get to connect with my students and colleagues in a meaningful way. But a rich and meaningful life has more than work in it, even when your work is as rewarding as mine is. 

Being able to engage in project-based and serious leisure outside of work enhances my sense of meaning and living a worthy life. I’ve spent years learning to make art (photography, painting, drawing), and I am committed to continuing with BJJ. The art activities feed a need for competence. I actually did my first daily art challenge when I was deep in the pit of the pursuit of tenure and not feeling good about my professional competence. I needed something that I could feel control over and something I could work on that would give me the chance to grow that competence quickly. The daily art project helped with that. It had a compensatory nature to it - in that I was using skills and a part of my mind that work did not call for, which is another value of leisure. Leisure activities allow us to exercise other parts of our minds and bodies that we don’t get to do at work, and can round us out. 

Compensatory leisure is especially important for people whose work does not satisfy the 3C’s. If your work is monotonous and uninteresting, having leisure activities that stimulate your mind is a great way to compensate for what your work does not give you. If your work is not social, having leisure that gives you community and connection is vital to your well-being. If your work seems pointless, having leisure that gives you a sense of contribution (volunteering in a social services agency, at a hospital, or coaching a kid’s team) can fill that void.

When I talk to my students about financial planning, I want them to see the big picture, because what I’m trying to get at is really life planning. What’s the point of work? It’s to keep us alive, of course, by getting us the resources we need to survive, but also to give us meaning, either directly through the experience of the 3C’s at work, or through funding our leisure so we can find fulfillment there. Preferably both.