8 Productive Ways To Spend Your Free Time
Kenneth Soares
January 20, 2025
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4 min read
We really don’t have too much time on our hands. As a society, as a species (thanks global warming 🙃) and even more so as individuals. Finding time for yourself can indeed prove to be challenging in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. If you clock in about 7 hours of sleep and 8 hours at the office or at class, that leaves you about 9 hours in your day for recreation, that is, without considering your daily rituals — freshening up, mealtimes and commute. So when you do find yourself with time to spare, it’s important to make the most of it.
You come back from work, pop your bag on the bed, and collapse onto the couch. Instinctively, you turn on Netflix, munching your way through dinner while staying glued to the television. Before you know it, you’re three episodes deep, and it’s 11 p.m. You have work tomorrow, so you switch off the TV and head to bed. Sound familiar?
Occasionally unwinding with your favorite show after a long day is perfectly fine—after all, you’ve been productive at work, you might want to just turn off your brain for a bit! But our time is precious, and making the most out of the few hours we get to ourselves ensures we keep learning and growing, all while also catching a break from work. And that doesn’t mean free time activities can’t be fun too! If you’re looking for fulfilling yet fun things to do in your leisure time (yes, it is possible!) we’ve got you covered.
Here are 8 productive ways to spend your free time:
Reading a good book is like watching a Netflix show, only without the ready-made visual stimulus. Think about it, a good story can transport you to a different world, a pleasant escape from the real one. Reading comes with innumerable advantages and benefits, especially for the youth. It not only stimulates the mind and reduces stress, but also exposes oneself to the best thoughts, ideas and stories from all of history all over the world. It makes you smarter by improving your vocabulary and aiding writing skills and boosts creativity. Getting lost in a good book can make you forget the troubles and worries of everyday life, while reading a self help book can allow you to grow professionally and personally. It has been proven that reading also does wonders for your concentration and memory retention. Reading a physical book also offers your eyes a much-needed break from the constant screen time. It is, quite literally, the best way to pass your time.
(One of my favorite books for leisure reading is The Little Prince.)
Dr. Wade Fish, Director at Northcentral University’s Graduate School, said, “Reading expands a person’s appreciation toward other life experiences the reader is not personally experiencing, especially when reading topics that are not related to that reader’s job or lifestyle.”
So when you’re looking for useful things to do in your free time, maybe try picking up a book instead of the TV remote next time. You won’t regret it.
Reading helps you become a better writer, so why not give it a shot? While you may be apprehensive of putting pen to paper at first, all you need to do is start. Start small and simple— maybe a short story, a haiku, or even a letter to a friend? Writing improves your communication with others and provides clarity in thought as well as in the use of your words. Additionally, writing has benefits that cater to your emotional self as well. It provides a channel to healthily express your feelings and emotions and frankly, gain awareness of your reality. Journaling has been proven as one of the most beneficial practices for mindfulness and mental well being, while prose poetry and lyricism allow your creativity and individuality to shine.
Now this one’s a biggie! Learning a new language may seem like an intimidating, uphill task until you realize that you’re under no pressure to be following a certain speed or curriculum. Everything you do, you do at your leisure. While I know learning a new language is not as easy as I’ve made it sound, the internet really helps you out in the process. With the necessary help from YouTube and learning apps like DuoLingo, the world of languages is up for grabs. You can open fascinating doors and unravel an entire culture’s worth of experiences through the gateway of its language by devoting just half an hour a day to the same, be it while commuting, during lunch breaks or after a day’s worth of work. Learning a new language also gives you an edge in the professional world, while offering numerous cognitive benefits like improved memory and concentration, stronger communication and multitasking skills, and multiple others. Interestingly, it also helps you battle anxiety and depression, recover from brain injury and delay the onset of dementia.
If you’re anything like me, you spend more time deciding what to watch on your streaming services than actually watching. A 2016 study done by Reelgood and Learndipity Data Insights that reveals how Netflix users spend 18 minutes on average deciding what to watch.
In a world where we’re so cramped for time, it’s almost impossible to decide what to do when we finally find a few moments to ourselves. We’ve been starved off leisure time to the extent that we haven’t thought about what we would be doing on our time off. As a result, we’re almost never sure what to do in these moments, and before we know it, we’ve lost out on invaluable time deciding how we should’ve spent it.
One solution to this would be finding and taking up a hobby. Whether it’s music, painting, knitting, playing a sport or fandom; hobbies are a great way to add to your personality and potentially your skillset and intellect. Doing what you love can be a great boost for your mental health and can rejuvenate you for the work or school days ahead. Moreover, pursuing a hobby can be the start to great friendships as you meet like-minded people interested in the same activities as you are.
Barely any time to spare means you don’t have any time to dedicate to anything but the new age rudiments of work, work and work. In the transition from running around day and night as a child to becoming a selectively hibernating post-adolescent, we barely realized how laidback and lazy we’ve become. Leading a sedentary lifestyle poses serious physical and mental risks, which makes it extremely important to engage in some form of physical activity daily, be it a short walk, mindful yoga, or hardcore cardio. While working out at the gym is a great way to exercise, it offers obstacles in terms of the fees that you’ve got to pay to the cumbersome roads you take to make it to the doorstep. A more elegant solution would be to go on a ten minute run in the morning (and a 10-minute walk after dinner) to make sure that you haven’t lost that boost of energy that you once possessed. For a more core work-out, you can never go wrong with planking, pushups and/or crunches, all of which can be easily performed at home. Yoga is a great form of exercise which fosters physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. YouTube also offers several home work-out videos that cater to different body types, requirements and time constraints. Don’t forget, sweat brings success.
If working out isn’t your game, why not try another one? Playing a sport from time to time is a great way to make sure your body is moving and your mind agile. It provides all the perks of working out while offering a little bit of a competitive edge to push yourself harder. Most sports involve multiple people so it can also be your way of meeting people and making new friends. Engaging in a sport can make staying physically active and mentally healthy enjoyable and effortless! In fact, you could also consider learning a new sport in your free time.
Human beings are inherently social creatures. Socializing and networking is an important part of our lives. Living in isolation and solitude can take a toll on every aspect of our life, as made very evident during the pandemic. Hanging out with peers at work or school/college isn’t enough to quench the thirst you have to connect with people and society at large. It might be a good idea to go out with a few friends at least once in a couple of weeks. Rejuvenate yourself by cleansing yourself of shop-talk and indulging in some much-needed banter. It’ll improve the way you function and also leave you in a better mood. Moreover, connecting with people from different circles and backgrounds can teach you a lot about the world and enable you to grow personally and intellectually.
“Rest isn’t reward for the work, it’s part of the work.” In today's fast paced world, we are literally on our toes (or at our desks) all the time. Our bodies and minds are almost always exhausted from long hours of work. It's important that we give them the time they need to relax and reset. Rest is important for improved physical and mental health, improved moods and healthier immune systems. All your body craves after a long, tiring day of work is some rest. Have a bellyful of something comforting and nourishing, take a shower and call it a day. You have a long day ahead of you starting tomorrow until the end of the week. Recharge yourself for the adventures you will take on then.
As W.H. Davies rightly summed up in his poem, Leisure, “What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare?” **The world is constantly changing and evolving, but taking time out for yourself and doing what makes you happy must never go out of fashion.
If you're an educator, coach, or mentor, life can get busy, and finding time for yourself can be a real challenge. Make the most of your free moments with productive activities like reading, writing, learning a language, taking up a hobby, working out, playing a sport, socializing, and resting. At Classcard, we understand the importance of efficient time management. Our all-in-one class management software helps streamline administrative tasks—be it online booking, class scheduling, payment and attendance tracking or more—so you can spend more time doing what you love and looking after yourself.