You Could Be Leisure Stacking Right Now

You can – with practice – cultivate a variety of leisure activities that work well together. I call this process leisure stacking and it’s something everyone should do.

Leisure stacking is better than single-mindedly pursing one leisure activity for three reasons:

1. It’s more interesting.
2. It’s more expressive of your individualism.
3. It’s an opportunity to be the best at the intersection of two or more things.

Let’s look at all three benefits, with examples. But first, what is the origin of this idea?

Origin of Leisure Stacking

The idea of leisure stacking comes directly from Scott Adams’ idea of a talent stack.

In his book Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter, Adams defines a talent stack as “a collection of skills that work well together and make the person with those skills unique and valuable.”

Notice the word “valuable” there. Monetary value is at the core of the difference between a leisure stack and a talent stack.

Leisure Stack versus Talent Stack

A leisure stack is very similar to a talent stack, but with two important distinctions:

1. Lack of Financial Motivation – While there is a financial incentive to pursue a talent stack, this incentive is not present when pursuing a leisure stack.
2. Less Pressure – With a talent stack, all talents should complement one another, because that’s what makes an individual the most valuable. Since there is no financial incentive to leisure stacking, you can have multiple leisure stacks instead of one leisure stack.

Thus, with talent stacking, you should have one talent stack that you optimize for earning potential.

With leisure stacking, you should have multiple leisure stacks that you optimize for anything but earning potential. You get to choose what you optimize for, be it enjoyment, health, wisdom, purpose, or something else dear to your heart, whatever that may be.

The One-Hour Rule of Leisure Stacking

To get started with leisure stacking, just learn and apply the one-hour rule. The rule states that if you can acquire a complementary skill to an existing leisure activity in one hour or less, then do it.

For example, a female golfer can easily add a sense of golf fashion to her leisure stack in one hour. It’s a little bit of research, a little bit of shopping, and bam — golf is more fun because you look good while doing it.

For another example, a swimmer can easily add a habit of listening to audiobooks while swimming to his or her leisure stack because it takes less than one hour to research underwater earbuds, make the purchase, choose an audiobook and be ready with a book for the next swimming session.

Scott Adams talks about this one-hour rule with respect to the talent stack in the video below where he advises people to spend one hour getting the most important 80% of the information needed to succeed in each skill that is complementary to your core skill. In short, Adams suggests that just one hour of focused study on skills such as writing, public speaking and photography can be an asset to your overall talent stack.

On writing, Scott Adams says, “If you look at a piece of material that’s around the internet quite a bit, it’s a viral article I wrote on how to be a better writer, it would take you 10 minutes to consume it and learn it and most people who have say that it completely changes the way they communicate and makes it much, much better.”

So, what are the things you can pursue that will make your existing leisure activities better? Find those things and spend at least an hour on each one.

And, this brings us to the 3 benefits of leisure stacking…

Leisure Stacking is More Interesting

If you find yourself getting bored of a hobby or leisure activity, it’s because you’ve been too single-minded about it. Add something else to it to make it better.

The combos we’ve talked about so far are just:

• Ladies golf + ladies golf fashion
• Swimming + audiobooks

But, the combinations are infinite. Here’s a few other combos to ponder:

• Gardening + backyard camping
• Jigsaw puzzling + podcast listening
• Sketching + people watching
• Reading + sunbathing
• Yoga + aromatherapy
• Cooking + language learning
• Cycling + photography
• Hiking + geocaching

You get the idea. Now for the second benefit…

Leisure Stacking is More Expressive of Your Individualism

Imagine you’re at a party and someone asks two women about their favorite pastime.

One woman says, “I like to golf.”

The other woman says, “I like to play par 3 golf courses competitively while dressed like an LPGA pro.”

One answer is dull and the other is lively and conducive to good conversation.

Thus, leisure stacking can help you have the lively answer instead of the dull one.

Last, but not least…

Leisure Stacking is an Opportunity to Be the Best at an Intersection of Two or More Things

It’s hard to be the best at one thing. However, it’s easy to be the best at some combination of things that you’re uniquely pursuing.

For example, it’s hard to be the best swimmer. Yet, it’s easy to be the swimmer who has listened to the most audio books while swimming.

Therefore, leisure stacking can be used to define your own competition and win it.

Start Leisure Stacking Today

Now that you’ve read how easy it is to stack leisure activities that work well together, it’s time to pursue your own unique leisure stack.

Start with something you already do and add to it to make it better. Can you add an audio component? Can you write about it? Can you photograph it? Can you share it on social media?

Please share your favorite leisure stack with us on X.