How To Manage Your Free Time

Time

How to manage your free time is an important life skill. Time is that part of our life that slips away so easily. Maybe you start out the day with some really big plans. The alarm goes off and you slip into the kitchen for that first cup of coffee. Next you sit down to watch a little of the morning shows. Before you know it you are on your phone looking at social media and enjoying someone else’s  pictures of their beach vacation. 

Then all of the sudden you look at the time and it is after lunch. Nooooooo, that is not how it is supposed to be. 

Or, you could be the other person in the picture above that is doing all things, all the time, like working on the computer, reading an article, or listening to your favorite podcast. Which one of those things is getting your real attention? Are you going to get more done this way?

The truth is that neither way will help you get anything accomplished and at the end of the day you can end up being very dissatisfied and frustrated. 

Remember, everyone gets the same amount of time in a day. 24 hours is all we get and to live a healthy lifestyle we need 8 hours of that to be spent resting. So what can we do to accomplish the things we need to and still do some of the things we want to? The important thing to note here is that you are in charge of your day. Ultimately, even when you are tugged one way or the other, it is up to you how you spend your time!

Goals

Setting some goals is the place to start. Now the thing I love about goals is that they can be the very thing that changes the direction of your life. 

This makes me think about my dad. He came from a very poor community in South Carolina. Most people either farmed or worked in the cotton mills. Now, just as a side note, we all know what happen to the cotton mills, gone to China. Anyway, he set a goal of changing the trajectory of his own life and eventually his children’s as well. He joined the Navy and eventually went to college. He is the only one of his brothers and sisters that did. My mother had 11 brothers and sisters and my dad had 10.

By setting a goal very early in life and making a plan to accomplish it he changed our lives as well. My brother and sister, as well as me have all gone to college and work in professional areas. His goal, set many years ago, with a plan changed our lives. 

So, what is the big deal about a goal? A goal is a real obtainable plan of action that someone can accomplish. Goals must have action applied to them. The need deadlines and they should be prioritized. Setting your goals to a timeline with steps and priorities change the whole dream into a plan. 

Goals are important for our free time as well as our daily jobs. Goals for our free time give us the chance to really enjoy them. They define our moments and give us the chance to control what consumes our time. 

I wrote about setting daily goals here and in Why You Need Daily Goals. Writing out your goals for daily task, yearly task and weekly task is important for accomplishing anything worthy. Michael Hyatt talks about setting goals and writing them down here. He talks about how it will bring you clarity,  motivation and over come resistance. 

Take the time to write out your goals for free time as well as all other areas of life. 

Dream A Little Too

Dreams and goals are not the same thing, but I think you need a little of both.  My dreams and your dreams are what inspire us. 

Think about it like this, maybe you have always dreamed of living in a house in the country. The dream of that house, land, and  maybe some animals is what inspires you.  It will be the goals with a plan that gets you there. 

Use the dream and inspiration to push you forward. Dreaming helps us create in our minds the goal and plan. Just remember these words from Antoine de Saint-Exupe’ry.

A goal without a plan is just a wish.

Prioritize

Part of managing your free time comes from learning how to make priorities. Priorities keep us from becoming overwhelmed.  It is really important to develop a plan, but first you may need to set some priorities. 

What is a priority?  That is the million dollar question sometimes.  For instance, this week end I had all the time in the world. Well sort of, my husband went out of town. Someone asked me if I had any plans and my response was, “no.”

So, if at that point I just dreamed about all the things I would like to get done, then it would have just been a dream. A wish really.  A lot of really wishful thinking. Now if you know me very well I like to get things done. So thinking about my free time made me realize I had an opportunity. 

I knew I wasn’t going to learn French in a weekend, even though that is a dream of mine, but I had a list of goals in my bullet journal that I needed to look at. 

I picked some goals, one involved a couple of unfinished projects.  I sat down and decided by prioritizing which ones were the most important and which I could possibly finish. 

That is what prioritizing is all about.  Making decisions and plans based on real necessities and needs. Take the time to write your goals out and put them in priority. The beginning of a goal is a thought and then in has to be put into actions, but prioritizing prevents overwhelm. 

Overwhelm and frustration go hand in hand. Nothing is more distructive than overwhelm. Sometimes looking at a list of goals without priorities can lead to overwhelm. Even our free time can be frustrating if we don’t prioritize and set some goals.

Time, Once It Is Gone It Is Gone

Freetime Is A Gift To Enjoy

During the summer I hear from many teachers that they  never read during the school year. They say they don’t have enough time. 

What is funny about that is I also find myself making those kind of excuses. For all kinds of things.  Not because I have a lot of time available in the summer, more because I do not make it a priority. Let me give you an example. Last year I decided I wanted to read more. So, I joined a book group called Goodreads. Because of that endeavor I set a number of books to read in 2018. I also made a goal in my bullet journal to read at a certain time daily. 

As a result of that group I read my goal of books, minus 1. So, I met a goal, I love to meet a goal, and I read a lot of really good books. Reading good books is something that makes me feel happy. I enjoy reading. 

Setting a goal for free time helps you to use your free time wisely. See, I am just like you. If I am given the chance I can waste a lot of time on social media, tv, podcast or whatever. In the end of a free weekend filled with time I end up very unhappy. 

 

What Will Managing Your Free Time Do For You

Go ahead and ask yourself that question, what good does managing my free time do for me? 

1.  Gives you a feeling of self control.
2. Make you realize your are worth scheduling some free time for.
3. Your personal goals and dreams are worth making time for. 
4. Scheduling time to unwind boost your morale. 
5. Creating goals during free time will make you more productive and help you get other things done. 
6.  Add fun things, boring things and necessary things in your free time calendar.

How To Schedule Free Time

So now that you know why you should be managing your free time, how are you going to do it. You can really use anything. My personal favorite is my bullet journal. I write about how to bullet journal here, How to Bullet Journal. 

You can start with anything. You just need to start. 

 

•  Calendar
•  Notebook
• Journals 

• Composition Book
•  Checklist
• To Do List

Set realistic goals. Use your tool that is easy to set up. Start dreaming and getting inspiration. Make real goals from your dreams. 

Give your goals priorities. Even free time needs to be prioritized. Set actions for the goals you place a high priority on. Schedule deadlines and dates to complete them by. 

Don’t let your time get away from you. It is yours to enjoy. It is also valuable and once gone can never be gotten back.

Use it wisely and prioritize it.