I saw something this week on CNN.com about the blurring or work and leisure time and a new(ish) term that has been coined to describe it – “weisure”. Beyond the kind of clever word it is, I know this concept to not be a new one. How many folks do you know, and maybe you’re one of them, who can’t go a weekend without checking the Blackberry or i-phone for a look at your work e-mail?
The CNN piece talked about the pendulum swing with big changes in cultures, like the blurring of work/play, and they suggest that “There’s no turning back the clock on the spread of weisure.” Dalton Conley, who coined the term is quoted as saying, “Every culture creates its antithesis. Eventually the weisure class could merge into a ‘getting back to basics’ movement and form something new.” {with thanks to CNN.com}.
I have spent a lot of time the past few months thinking about the pendulum swing in how homebuyers are shopping for homes today. Do more of them want smaller homes because of the cost to purchase and the cost to run (not to mention the green and sustainable issue)? Yes, some of our research shows that to be the case, in some parts of the country, and in some family formations. Will that be a temporary thing that will shift when the economy improves and we all go back to spending more freely?
Will there be a back to basics, or back to core values movement that really lasts? I keep hearing the economy, which must mean you and I who spend money to keep it moving, is “re-sizing”.
How far will the pendulum swing? Anybody got a thought on if this will last or be a temporary adjustment?
I think the pendulum will keep swinging - I think it's more about not compartmentalizing time: this is work time, this is play time, this is family time... looking more wholistically at 'time' for example, in general. This is ALL my time - and there is so very little of it.
ReplyDeleteAnd "time" changes too over time I think. Remembering conversations you and I had previously about cramming 3 days of living into 2. I think I do that now with work, so the balance has swung that way and needs to re-adjust again.
ReplyDeleteBut I think people are innately wired to be the way they'll be. You know, time starved or time compressed, or whatever.
Problems from work follow us everywhere now and encroach into the time when we are dealing with problems from home. I see a booming business for the pharmaceutical companies ... I'm amazed by the number of people I know now on anti-depressants, anti-anxiety and sleeping meds. Hope that pendulum swings before I'm one of them, lol!
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