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“I’d like to, but I simply don’t have the time.” - Anon.
In many ways, the quality of your life can be judged by how much free time you are allowed to enjoy, at least relative to the effort you need to put in - through work or study, for example - to be afforded the opportunity, the luxury, to switch all of that off and do something less boring instead.
Productive use of your free time can be broken down into two main categories. When presented with, for example, a non-working, non-studying hour to fill, one can either:
- Do something
- Do nothing
Both offer tremendous potential for personal growth.
Let me ask you - if you knew you had a free hour today, and every day this week, how would you choose to fill it? Your options are near infinite - you could work out, spend time with your children or family, go to a series of museums or galleries, sight-see, hit the beach, hike, meditate, hang out with friends, date a different person every night, brain train, declutter your home, or choose to do anything else that resembled a something. ‘Something’s are a big deal. This is the stuff we tend to remember as we get older.
Likewise, don’t underestimate the importance of doing nothing, of simply having the chance to ‘veg out’ for any given period of time. You don’t always have to be doing something very important. It is optimistic, even foolish, to feel that spare time is ‘wasted’ if one isn’t always filling it to the brim with dynamic activity. Spending an hour or two a week literally just lazing about on the sofa in your underwear is a great and very accessible way to recharge the batteries.
Be mindful, however, that choosing to always utilise your free time in this way is likely to encourage slothful behaviour throughout your life - once again, it’s a question of balance, and of moderation.
So how do we free up our time? Here are five easy, albeit potentially controversial ways to generate literally hours of opportunity each and every day.
1. Skip The News
Many people are consumed by keeping up with current events. In today’s information-rich world, the latest bytes of news are streamted to your television, desktop and handheld device almost instantly and constantly throughout the day, every day, seven days a week, each and every month of the year.
World news, local news, business, politics, health, education, science, nature, technology, entertainment, sports - stories are researched and broken, put together, sent out, and then analysed and re-analysed. Speculation begins. Experts are brought in to comment on the speculation. Different experts are brought in to comment on the comments made by the first experts. Non-experts - normal people - will be asked what they think.
Meantime, the news will keep on coming, either organically - i.e., something is happening that needs be reported - or it will manufactured, inasmuch as content will be created, either through deception or need.
Here’s the thing - 99.99 per cent of this stuff simply does not matter.
Don’t believe me? Consider this: if you were asked now to name the ten biggest news stories of last year, what would your list be? Can you even name ten? Depending on how engaged and in touch you are with current affairs around the globe, you may found this challenge quite straightforward, or, as I suspect, tellingly awkward.
Being asked to list the ten biggest news stories of all time would be a far simpler process for many people, which is entirely the point - most news, insofar as how it is packaged up and delivered to you as a consumer, does not matter, both in a sense of how relevant and important it is to your life, and in any general capacity. It seems to matter now - at least, in how it is delivered for our attention with a great sense of urgency and worth - but in most cases the biggest news stories of today are almost completely ignored a week or two later. As they say, today’s news is tomorrow’s fish and chip paper.
Even if you could quickly reel out the ten big news stories of last year, or even 20, 30 or 50, that’s an almost ludicrous number when held up against the millions and millions of VERY IMPORTANT BREAKING NEWS items that were expedited for your immediate attention every second of every minute of every hour of every day in 2007.
You can’t possibly keep up with everything. And even if you could, why would you want to? What do you gain, really? Some fleeting knowledge? Somebody else’s version of the truth? A few more things to talk about with your friends, or on the Internet?
Could you not use all of this time in a far more productive and beneficial manner?
Endlessly reading newspapers, watching news on TV and the Internet, and downloading stuff to our PDAs and mobile phones is a great way to wipe out large chunks of our personal time. For many people, it’s also a great way to wipe out large chunks of their working time, too.
In the present, a lot of this seems of the utmost importance. And yes, some truly global events are absolutely significant to our lives. But here’s the tip: big news stories will filter through to you anyway. And even if they don’t, simply by casually asking a friend or family member’s opinion on what is going on in the world will, most of the time, provide you with all you need to know.
‘Hey, I haven’t been following the news too closely of late. What’s going on in the world?’
Give them a minute or two to summarise what they feel is the really important stuff, then thank them and move on. You’ll be amazed at how often this is complete filler - i.e., celebrity news or idle speculation - for most people. Pretty soon you’ll figure out who you can call upon if you need a crash course on current events.
Just by walking through a town you can easily scan the billboard headlines, or even front pages of most newspapers. By observing the lead content of ten newspapers - the generally responsible reportage of five broadsheets and the more sensationalist output of five tabloids - you’d be amazed how up to speed you can be on global affairs.
Even if you didn’t want to escape the news feed entirely, you could easily digest far more than you’ll ever need to know by spending one hour exclusively catching up with world news on the Internet each Monday morning. This is more than sufficient; better yet, if you’re mindful to ensure that you don’t exceed these 60-minute periods, you’ll very quickly learn to separate the wheat from the chaff and take in news in its purest form. You’ll be amazed how much reportage is not news at all, but simply idle speculation and gossip.
You don’t have to know the minutiae of everything at all times. You can save hours here. Don’t let other people tell you that you have to follow the news. You don’t, simply because most of it does not matter.
Potential savings each week: 7-14 hours.
2. Don’t Watch Live TV
Live television doesn’t just mean the latest sporting events, breaking news or entertainment programming. You’re watching tv ‘live’ each and every time you sit down in front of it. This is extremely wasteful.
Even those with the best intentions of choosing to only switch the television on (and off) at the exact moment their favourite shows start (and finish) is a process that is doomed to failure, simply because television, with its hundreds of channels, will always find a way to present you with something that you feel you must watch. This is particularly telling when you are feeling bored or lethargic.
Watch nothing - record everything.
Invest in a Tivo-style digibox. Most modern digiboxes have a ‘record series’ option that ensures you won’t miss a single episode of your favourite shows.
Catch up with the stuff you have missed by renting - not buying - DVD box sets. Nothing burns money faster than building a largely pointless collection of DVDs (or CDs, for that matter). There are numerous ways to rent DVDs very cheaply online, or if you must buy, buy used DVDs on eBay or Amazon. You’ll save a fortune.
Most of the major networks now allow you to watch their content online. The BBC’s iPlayer is a notable example of how convenient this service has become. It will only get better as Internet speeds continue to improve.
By depowering television and putting yourself in charge of when you decide to watch something - as opposed to when it tells you to - you will be amazed at how much extra time suddenly materialises in your life.
Potential savings each week: 14-28 hours.
3. Sleep Less
Or, at the very least, become an early riser.
How many times have you heard somebody say that they don’t have the time to exercise, simply because they work a long day and are too tired and frustrated when they come home? The solution is so simple - get up an hour earlier, go for a run, and then get on with the rest of your life. This not only gets it done, it means the rest of your day will benefit from your increased energy levels, too.
Potential savings each week: 7-14 hours.
4. Stop Reading So Much
Reading books is massively important.
As long as you’re doing it properly.
If you feel you have to finish every book you have started, then you have failed. When you start to read a book for the first time, you owe it nothing. It owes you everything. If it hasn’t captured your attention and enthusiasm within a couple of chapters it is extremely unlikely it is going to do so four hundred pages in.
Teach yourself to be ruthless with your reading material - cut the dross. This is not limited to just books - newspapers, magazines, websites, emails, even letters from friends and family.
Potential savings each week: 7-14 hours.
5. Unsubscribe
How many magazine subscriptions do you have, either directly or through consistent monthly purchases?
How many email newsletters and updates do you receive to your inbox each week?
How many blogs do you subscribe to?
Now, how much of this stuff do you actually read, and how much do you kind of casually glance at before redirecting it to the trash can?
Spend 30-60 minutes now unsubscribing from all of this and you’ll reap the benefits of hours and hours of extra leisure time in the future. Often even those things you are reading you will find you are only doing so out of some kind of obligation (i.e., because you paid for a subscription to something you no longer need or like).
Potential savings each week: 7 hours.
Even by making one or two of the changes above you can free up a significant amount of time in your lives, possibly as much as 14-28 hours per week. That’s 2-4 hours per day that you could use to do anything you like.
Anything.
Believe me, the free time is there - you just have to want to find it.
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