Making The Most From Your Spare Time
One single hour – that’s probably all the time in the world that a parent will get to themselves. A single hour every day of the week and even then, with the hustle and bustle of family life – that cannot be guaranteed. It might be five minutes here and there, it might even be a while interrupted hour – but usually, you can at least count on the fact that your spare time is going to be limited. Even if you aren’t a parent, you might have plenty of responsibilities that will soak up your spare time, but as a parent, that’s not just a ‘might,’ it’s a guarantee. Our kids need our care and our attention throughout the day, so finding that time to take your life forward – or even rest – is hard to come by.
Our spare time is growing increasingly valuable. As productive members of the Human Race, our places of work and our employers are asking more from us each and every single day – meaning we might not just have to work longer and harder each working day – but that work will be something that occupies our mind and our thoughts even when we aren’t there. What’s more, our responsibilities are growing. This limited access to spare time means that it is invaluable – an hour spent on yourself might be worth the six at work in terms of your mental health and how you feel outside of your day to day job.
What do we do with our spare time? Well we need to make the most of it – and that is personal and unique to each of us. We will all do different things and complete different tasks in our spare time to ensure we get the most from each day – because we are all different people! However, a few things hold us together – we all want a bit more money, and we all want fuller days. These two things can show us two ways in which we can extract more from our spare time, spent outside of work and outside of commitments.
It’s possible to earn money in your spare time and anyone who has spent time on the lawns of the neighborhood, mowing grass or shoveling snow knows all about that. Hard work for five bucks? Yes, please. This pocket money goes a long way, even if it is a small amount. We can use it as direct savings – income with a 100% savings rate, to be put straight into the bank, or something to pay off debts. There are plenty of ways to make money online as well, for convenience. Some methods, like surveys, simply require your time; you can read more here about those kind of opportunities – but other opportunities to earn cash might be a bit more skills-based; freelance writing and designing can be done in our spare time to earn a pretty penny.
We really need to consider if we want to commit more time to working, though. We work enough during the day, so we might want to rest and relax in our spare time by hitting up Netflix, or reading. That’s ok as well! It’s an investment in one’s self. No matter what you do, don’t waste that spare time!
