Understanding My Time Usage and Seeking Higher Purposes

Leisure Creed Portfolio
Kevin Lewis

Table of Contents
1. Leisure Explanation p. 5
2. Recreation Management Major Justification p. 6
3. Time Journal p. 8
4. Leisure Profile Examination p. 11
5. Intentional Technology p. 13
6. The Power of Doing Real, Hard Stuff p. 14
7. Professional Statement on Meaningful Leisure Experiences p. 16
8. Experience Industry Personal Professional Development Plan p. 17
9. Resume p. 18
10. Future Outlook Paper p. 19
11. Appendix p. 21
12. Time Journal Data p. 22

Recreation Explanation
To be selfish, I will admit that going into the Experience Industry is a pathway that potentially
will allow me to work where I feel the most peace and happiness: the outdoors. I have decided that,
though I have the capacity to do something that could possibly make me very well off monetarily, I really
wanted to do something in my life that will bring me happiness and allow me to inspire others to the same
feelings.
According to the Department of Labor, we as Americans have no statutory minimum for paid
vacation. It is left to the employers to offer paid vacation days as part of the compensation and benefits
package. Being as such, most companies are caught up in the need to have maximum efficiency and thus
leave workers with little vacation time. With that being said, we have to take advantage of what little we
are given. The things that we choose to do in our discretionary time needs to help us on avoiding a
burnout from our work by giving us the feeling of release from our typical labors. In many cases,like the
services the USO puts on for the Armed Forces,organized recreation can act as a distraction from day-to-
day troubles and stresses. This effect could also be seen in areas such as retirement homes and group
homes, and someone must facilitate these activities.
Additionally, speaking of burn-outs, we must not forget about the importance of youth programs.
In our society, it is becoming increasingly common that our youth is stuck indoors cutting themselves off
from potential social interaction and connection with nature. Though some do not see the value in such
activities, I believe that there is much that we can learn about ourselves and our Creator. Furthermore,
some research has been done to suggest that a connection lies between lack of exposure to the outdoors
and increased risk for allergies and susceptibility to disease.
As a final point, it was mentioned earlier that there must be someone to facilitate these activities.
It could be argued that any person could figure out how to stage an event as such, but people who are
trained and knowledgeable in this focus are able to transform a simple activity into an unforgettable
experience. This also relieves stress for people who may otherwise be overwhelmed; brides at their
weddings for example.

Though it seems like a small thing, the way we spend our time is a huge part of our balance in
life. Though the way we spend this time may be vastly different from one person to the other, time spent
that is enjoyed is not time wasted and we all have the right to the pursuit of happiness.

Recreation Management Major Justification
When I began this semester of study, my primary motivations for seeking this field of study were
mostly self-serving. I wanted to pursue a career where I could indulge my sense of wonder for the
outdoors. As time has gone on, we have looked deeply into the various possible directions offered by this
major through our classes, this, together with the realization that I have the strength to be able to make
people at ease,I have realized that I can be an effector of change in our society if I were to focus on
people.
We live in a society where people are overworked, underpaid, ill-mannered, and out of touch with
the peace that is offered by the natural world. The Experience Industry has risen in popularity over the
last few years,with an expectation of further and more rapid growth in the near future. With America
being one of the only countries with no required minimum number of vacation days in the world, how
people recharge in their discretionary time is of the utmost importance. Trained professionals in this field
help facilitate many experiences that would otherwise be inaccessible to the public (e.g. river rafting,
mountaineering, live escape rooms).
With this in mind, my goal in pursuing this field is to help people experience something that will
improve their lives by what they do and learn. It doesn’t matter where I end up, whether it be as an event
planner, a scouting professional, or a park ranger, as long as I can work with people as they enjoy
themselves, I will be satisfied.

Time Journal
Time journals are an interesting way to take note of general use of time. With the record that I
took, I calculated a couple of metrics that helped me understand my time allocation. Despite the
challenges that occurred, this activity was enlightening.
Remembering to keep track of my minute-to-minute activity was sometimes difficult when I
switched from activity to activity on right after the other. Looking back, I didn’t keep track of all the
individual texts and emails that I sent over the course of the day. A few times I did have a more
significant period of time where I had full conversations via text as well as multiple, complex-part emails
that had to be taken care of for work. These ones are the ones that are written in. That being said,
accuracy is one of the more difficult portions of this activity.
Of the 2880 mins that elapsed, 940 of those (15hrs, 40mins) were spent sleeping. This actually
surprised me a little bit given that I usually average 6 hours or less of sleep per night. These particular
days, I took naps midway through the day to supplement my reduced number of sleep hours. Though my
nap hours didn’t necessarily mean R.E.M. sleep, they were effective in allowing me to complete my daily
tasks.
Just under 10% of my time was spent in the classroom. These results were a little bit skewed as
50mins of class time was cancelled by my Military Science professor. I have about 15 hours of class in a
week of school meaning that be the general rule of classes that I should see at least 30 hours of homework
a week.
As stated above, an expected 30 hours of time out of class should be spent on homework. I
averaged about 21% of my time during these two days doing homework, which translated to a little over
10 hours of work. Over a week this comes out to around 25 hours during the week. My military science
class generally doesn’t require much homework so these numbers make sense.
I spent only a little bit less time travelling during the days than I did in classes. Spread out to
include the time I used going out to the Payson landfill and doing errands,this number becomes a bit less
absurd as you make the comparison. I prefer to be efficient in my movement from one place to another; I

try to take the shortest path possible, I walk markedly faster than the people around me, and I typically go
from one place to the other without wasting time. If I had a bike, I would use it on a frequent basis.
Sometimes this is a detriment to me as I miss out on the surroundings, so with that I mind, I will
occasionally leave earlier from home to allow myself to take a longer way to class.
Most of the time while I eat,I’ll be performing another activity that either distracts me or helps
me prepare for the day. I don’t take a lot of time to “sit back and enjoy my food” because I generally look
at eating as a maintenance function, that is to say, that I need to do it to keep functioning. When the
occasion arises that I eat socially, I then allow myself to slow down and enjoy the company. Even so,
though the primary focus of eating changes, it still happens as another activity (conversing) happens
simultaneously.
The things that I did in my free time were generally more active activities: shooting and playing
sardines. When I made time in between studying or allowed myself to be distracted, I generally used my
time watching movies or videos on YouTube with the latter happening because of my present company. I
do listen to at least one conference talk a night to help me think about how I plan to be different the next
day, in this, I find that my time is well spent as I ponder these thoughts while I drift off to sleep.
Unsurprising to me, is the amount of time that I spent performing multiple tasks at once, with the
primary passive activity being music while I walk or drive. Additionally, a lot of the time while I did
homework, I would be in the front room of my apartment while one of my roommates would be watching
TV. If I allowed it, this could be a significant distraction, but I have learned to isolate myself with
headphones in order to focus on my task at hand.
In reflecting on my activities and the council given to us by Elder Oaks, There are plenty of
opportunities for me to seek higher purposes in my recreation by listening to more spiritual messages as I
travel from one place to another. While what I do do isn’t necessarily bad, our ultimate goals in life are to
learn and grow to be better people more like our Heavenly Father.
I have noticed trends in my usage of time and realized that some corrective action would be
appropriate in regards to my large consumption of media. There is also a slightly larger amount of

studying that I can perform on a daily basis to prevent an unnecessary build-up of work that happens at
the last minute. With these small alterations in mind, I feel more confident and introspective in my
personal time use.
Appendix
Time Usage, Percentages of the Whole Day
Mins Sleep Class Homework Travel Recreation Eat Multitasking
2880 940 272 616 232 477 134 841
32.6389% 9.4444% 21.3889% 8.0556% 16.5625% 4.6528% 29.2014%
-Time Journal Data Follows in Appendix-

Leisure Profile Examination
Individual Leisure Profile
As I looked at this assignment and thought about where I was in my life and how my youthful
leisure was spent, one of the biggest parts of my life involves my commitment the Army, both the
National Guard and ROTC. As a kid, I remember many, many, many hours that I spent with my
neighborhood friends building forts and bunkers and then going out with our plastic guns to fight each
other to the bitter end. This, combined with the love of the outdoors I gained because of my exuberantly
high activity levels (“Go take it outside Kevin, you’re going to break something!”), made me long for a
tough adventure that could only be found in military service. Many years playing football in school also
reinforced that I could do hard things that most people couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do.
My outdoorsman spirit is also continued currently as I place a special emphasis on camping and
hiking in the summer, skiing in the winter, practicing marksmanship in archery,rifle- and pistol-shooting
in all seasons, and taking the occasional hour to simply go outside and absorb the nature.
As a sharp contrast,many hours were spent playing Nintendo 64 with my brother over many
summers as we grew up. Our competitive spirits were fierce,and though our mother tried to limit our
screen time, we still made the sacrifice of staying up way past our bed times to play a few more rounds of
Golden Eye or advance a couple more levels on Gauntlet Legends. Today, I enjoy the occasional
afternoon of escaping into another world where I can fight Nazis or command a starship through space.
And though we are all grown up and live far from each other, my brothers and I reminisce about the
summers where we played side-by-side with only the occasional yelling match.
Family Leisure Profile
Though this is very subject to change depending on my future wife, I have already considered
implementation of ideas of recreation for my future family. I hope to live in an area where there is plenty
of space to run around. Most of the places where I lived growing up were somewhere between suburban
and rural, as such, I rarely had to worry too much about bothering neighbors while I played outside. I find
this an ideal setting for a family because I don’t plan on allowing my children to spend time watching TV.

I used to have a desire for no TV in my house, but as I have looked back upon my own childhood, I know
that there is particularly special family bonding that results from watching a movie that is hard to replicate
elsewhere. Even so, with a TV in the house, it is unlikely that it will be used for regular watching.
My main focus for family recreation will likely involve the outdoor sports that I enjoy: hiking,
camping, various shooting sports, as well as creative play, visits to parks (local, state,or national), etc. I
will also encourage my children to try their hands at other extracurricular activities like martial arts,
sports, or any of the visual or performing arts with a strong emphasis on activities that promote fitness.
With school or sport related recreation, care will be taken to make sure family time is preserved.
While it is important that my children feel a sense of identity with their peers, having a strong family
bond with good role models is the most important thing that I will be able to provide to them.
Comparisons & Conclusions
Similarities are quite obvious, the outdoors are very important. Making connections is a key
theme with my recreation, both with family and friends as well as the Creator (albeit through his
creations). The person I am today has been shaped greatly by the choices of things I did as a boy and as I
discovered new activities that I enjoyed, I became more multi-faceted in my personality.

Intentional Technology Plan
Ever since an assignment in RECM 300 that involved going a day with using our smart phone, I
have been considering how to implement less or better use of technology. Though I frequently use it as a
crutch for not changing, I do have to be reachable by my National Guard chain of command in the event
of natural disasters or incident in the region. Quick response is a key factor in this. After considering my
options and performing research,I have since purchased a simple dumbphone that I can route my calls
and messages to when I feel the desire to reduce my tech usage. With such a device, I am less tempted to
send errant texts and calls because I have a limit to the amount that I can use and a complete cut off from
unnecessary surfing or time wasting because there simply isn’t internet access with it.
With my smartphone, I leave it to charge at night at the opposite end of my room so I can’t waste
sleep time. When I go to restaurants with my friends, we agree to leave our devices face down on the
table with some penalty associated with being the first to pick up and I’ll often leave my phone at home
when I go to visit friends so I am not tempted to ignore them for other people or things that are not in the
room. The key for me in limiting or focusing my tech leisure time lies in physical separation, having a
device in hand that you know has some communication waiting for you is like an itch that is just waiting
to be scratched.

The Power of Doing Real, Hard Stuff
My group, plus a few others, went to GetOutGames for this particular experience. I had been
before and as such, had been a promotor for the venue. Along with its promotion, I frequently mentioned
how much I enjoyed the puzzle and how our tiny group had beaten a group twice the size. For me, the
perceived risk was losing validity to my claim of being clever.
I was hoping that more of our peers would want to participate, but sadly, there were only six of
us. The other six in the group were what seemed to be a triple date of high schoolers. None of us knew
them, so as would be expected, we didn’t talk to them much before we began. Additionally, we didn’t
know what to expect when we went into the escape room itself, naturally lending itself to a degree of
unease. Once we got in the room, I personally had to get used to directing the other participants in their
search for clues, something that I don’t like to do because it makes me feel slightly out-of-place.
As excited as I was to solve clues, our team was shocked when I was the first on to get tagged out
by the zombie in the room. I was marginally annoyed with myself for not moving quicker to avoid getting
caught. When the facilitators reminded our team that we could still participate as long as we stayed in
contact with the wall, I felt relieved.
After being told that I was still in play, albeit handicapped, I set about looking for ways that I
could still be useful to the team effort. There were plenty of puzzles to be solved in the area where we
were restrained to, so I continued to examine everything within my reach. One puzzle that needed to be
solved involved many little parts gather from around the room and then placed in another thing on the
other side of the room. After visually observing all of the components, I directed our group in how to
arrange the parts.
The growth that I experienced came from the validation that I received from my team after the
matter. Though I don’t mean to sound prideful, I doubt the success of the group had I not been there.
They solved a good number of the puzzles and were my hands when I wasn’t able to reach something, but
the main driving force for solutions came from me. My team recognized this fact and congratulated me on
it. Afterwards,I felt more confident in my ability to problem solve and understand overarching

connections. I felt like this activity was meaningful because it strengthened my personal image as well as
my confidence in my team and peers.

Professional Statement on Meaningful Leisure Experiences
To me, a meaningful experience comes from an event that causes a change in the fundamental
motivation behind a person’s actions. It may come as a result of the experience itself or something
specific that occurred during the experience. For me, broad leisure experience that caused a change for me
was playing football for many years. Over time, I became a much more willful person, confident in my
ability to do anything I put my mind to. Spontaneous meaning can arise from casualleisure, but in order
to provide these opportunities to people, there needs to be someone who is knowledgeable in a field of
leisure and familiar with the clientele to be able to match the needs and wants of someone seeking a
meaningful experience with the offering of that particular experience.

Experience Industry Personal Professional Development Plan
As it currently stands, I’m looking for a career associated with either national or state parks. I
want this in order to promote the great outdoors to all people around the country. Alternatively, I have
also considered a career within a city’s parks and recreation department. My overall goals is to help
people discover the wonder of the outdoors.
As far as current membership goes, the only applicable association I have is with the Boy Scouts
of America where I serve as a camp Program Director. Some of the other organizations I have considered
joining in the future are the American Hiking Society, The Association of Outdoor Recreation and
Education, and The National Recreation and Park Association. I have chosen the groups due to their
advocacy for the outdoors or their networking opportunities.
The most important certification that I will obtain will be either Wilderness First Responder or
EMT training. With the amount of time I plan on spending outdoors, this ranks highly in my mind for
obvious reasons. I plan on obtaining this certification sometime during the year 2018.
Within the first couple of years after graduating (Apr 2018) if not immediately afterward,I want
to be working in this field.
Besides other professionals, I honestly have no idea the people I’d want/need to meet. Probably
higher-ups of the Department of the Interior for the local region or the area representative for the Public
Lands Management department.

KEVIN LEON LEWIS
830N 100W #7 – Provo, UT 84604
(509) 276-0746 – nexx1011@gmail.com
EDUCATION
Brigham Young University- Marriot School ofManagement Apr 2018
Bachelor of Science, Recreation Management, Emphasis in Experience Industry Provo, UT
EXPERIENCE
Boy Scouts ofAmerica June 2015-Current
COPE Director/Camp TIFIE Mount Pleasant,UT
 Trained at National Camp School for certification
 Oversee COPE course; lead,direct and train adult and junior staff, and instruct Boy Scouts in course
to help them learn teamwork, trust, and challenge themselves in a positive personal experience
BYU Catering-MTCCafeteria Jan 2014-Current
Night Custodial Supervisor Provo, UT
 Supervise crews of up to 20 persons; perform regular cleaning of cafeteria,including some
maintenance work, resolve crew/supervisor issues
 Earned promotion after 4 months of work
HERE Maps/Moduslink/Select Staffing Apr 2014-Aug 2014
Regional Email Representative Orem, UT
 Utilized bilingual skills to provide regional and international customer support within the United
States,Canada, and Brazil
 Translated templates in order to facilitate more efficient customer support in Brazil
American Greetings Nov 2013-Dec 2013
Product Assembly Technician Spokane, WA
 Participated in the disassembly of obsolete greeting card displays, construction of new displays and
organization of materials
 Gained experience in communication with retail stores
LEADERSHIP
BYU ROTC /Utah National Guard Jan 2014/Oct 2014-Current
Simultaneous Membership Program Cadet Provo, UT
 Learn leadership skills in preparation to be an officer
 Apply learned leadership in National Guard unit (Currently: 141st
Military Intelligence BN,C Co.)
The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-Day Saints Oct 2011-2013
International Volunteer Representative Florianópolis, Brazil
 Served as a District Leader; oversaw the work of up to 8 volunteers, performed regular reports of
work to higher leadership
 Trained new missionaries in teaching, how to initiate person-to-person contact, and organization
 Used language skills to initiate person-to-person conversation on a daily basis
PERSONAL
 Eagle Scout
 Outdoor sports and recreation
 Fluent in Portuguese and intermediate abilities in Spanish

Future Outlook Paper
In 10 years, I want to be settled down somewhere in the Pacific Northwest working in one of the
beautiful National Parks there. I’ll definitely be married with… two kids in a mortgaged home. By that
time, I’ll be more than half way to military retirement and at least a First Lieutenant in the National
Guard. I hope to have my Masters completed and many years of emergency care under my belt. I’ll
definitely own lots of firearms with all of my family proficient in them. My wife will be amazing,
educated,and a fantastic mother. Church service will be continual and core to our family culture.

Understanding My Time Usage and Seeking Higher Purposes

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