Spend Your Free Time Productively
How to spend your free time productively
You need to have free time. Free time to spend with yourself, with your family, or doing a side project, or enjoying a hobby of yours, or just to relax, etc. Why is it important? Because it’s an integrant part of your work-life balance. And it’s up to you how you are going to design it. You decide how many hours a day and how many times a week you want to have time for yourself. Now let me give you some examples of how to make your free time also productive for you.
1) Start a side project or a side hustle
You can invest your free time working on a project either it’s making music, creating your comic, taking pictures of beautiful landscapes, expressing your ideas through videos, or even writing a blog. Whatever it is that you want to do, even if you want to turn your hobby into a career, you have to invest time and energy on what you love to do. There’s no problem if your current job isn’t what you truly love, spend that “extra time” you have on what you imagine yourself doing for the rest of your life, and one day that dream will become your reality. From my perspective, when someone is spending her time turning his passion into a career, I see that as an opportunity to find her best self. Because in that journey you will discover many new things about yourself and you’ll develop skills like self-discipline, persistence and the focus you need to achieve your goals.
2) Read books/ Listen to audiobooks
You can read self-development books that will inspire, motivate and help you set your goals and achieve them. There are many excellent autobiographies, financial, self-help books that can help you to learn how to start your business and great novels to help you expand your imagination and make you “disconnect” from the world. And for those who prefer listening over reading, thousands of those books are available in audio form, where anyone can listen while doing something else like painting, cleaning the house or just chilling.
3) Learn something new
You can learn a new language, or practice a musical instrument if you like music, or start dance lessons, or start doing sports, etc. Not only will you be able to discover new things about yourself you didn’t know before, but you will also practice your social skills, you’ll boost your creativity and you’ll improve your brain’s plasticity. As it is described in the article “The Impact of Studying Brain Plasticity”, neuroplasticity “is involved in learning and memory, brain development and homeostasis, sensorial training, and recovery from brain lesions.”
4) Volunteer
Volunteer your time to help your society, your community, your school, your wildlife in your area, etc. Dedicating your time as a volunteer can help you expand your network, make new friends and get you out of your day-to-day work.
Last but not least, if you are a content creator, you can give content to your audience for free. Either with a video, a service, a live stream video, a coaching call, access to your blog, or whatever it is that you believe you can bring value to those that will see and listen to you. In that way, you will be able to help others and also grow your audience.
Whatever you do, always remember to keep a balance between the time you spend on yourself and everything else.
References
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fncel.2019.00066/full
About Author
JimPanos
Born in Athens, Greece and now based in Geneva, Switzerland, Jim Panos is a graduate of Democritus University of Thrace, Law School, a participant of Erasmus+ Program in Université de Liège, Belgium, a marathon runner and a strong advocate of human diversity, speaking Greek, English, French and Spanish. As a passionate champion of humanism, human rights and personal development, Jim strongly believes that every human being deserves an outstanding and fulfilling life. After accomplishing his Law studies and after 8 years of searching for the work he truly loves, he fell in love with coaching. In spite of the social and family pressure, Jim listened to his gut feeling and pursued his passion: Serving and inspiring people to discover and pursue their passion. He attended and completed his coaching training in London through the Co-Active Training Institute(CTI) Core Curriculum and Certification program, certified by International Coach Federation(ICF), the largest coaches association in the world, and started out his coaching business. Being a passionate advocate of lifelong learning, Jim keeps on attending and looking for the best professional coaching techniques and training in the world, constantly deepening and empowering his coaching skills. The cornerstones of his coaching are passion, positivity, directness, integrity and championing. Last but not least, Jim longs for breaking his comfort zones and being challenged, hence challenging plays a key role in his coaching style as well. In a modern culture that promotes work just as a money-making tool, for people to survive and get by, Jim Panos is the Transformational Career Coach who empowers professionals across the globe to find their dream career, by inspiring them to discover and follow their passion. His vision is to serve and inspire 3 billion people in 195 countries to find their passion at work!