How to Reclaim a Month of Your Life by Managing Leisure Time
Written on
Chapter 1: The Value of Time
It’s common to hear complaints about a lack of free time. Many people wish they could dedicate more hours to side projects or indulge in reading. In this guide, I will share strategies to reclaim at least a month of your time by cutting out non-essential tasks, allowing you to concentrate on what is truly important in life.
I have undertaken 11 different 30-day challenges, each aimed at developing small, sustainable habits. If you’re interested, I can provide the full list of these challenges for your reference.
Recent research by the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) indicates that the average individual enjoys over five hours of leisure time daily. This extensive study surveyed 32,048 participants aged 15 and older, analyzing their activities over a 24-hour period across two years. Importantly, the study did not categorize work, family time, formal education, or personal grooming as leisure activities.
As Michael Altshuler aptly put it, "Time flies. The good news is you’re the pilot."
According to the findings, certain obligations—like childcare, work commitments, household chores, meal preparation, sleeping, and grocery shopping—are considered necessary tasks that we cannot avoid.
What constitutes free time, according to the CDC study?
There are opportunities to trim excess time spent on trivial activities, such as gym workouts (45 minutes is typically sufficient), sports, binge-watching Netflix, gaming, frequent shopping trips, aimless browsing, or scrolling through TikTok for hours.
Gender Disparities in Time Management
Anecdotally, I often find that regardless of how much I contribute at home, my wife seems to manage everything effortlessly. Often, I overlook chores that she tackles routinely.
Researchers categorize time into two main buckets:
Necessary Time
Women tend to have 18 hours and 42 minutes of non-leisure time each day, while men average 18 hours and 4 minutes. This results in a daily difference of over 38 minutes, indicating that women work at least 19 hours more than men each month.
Unnecessary Time
When it comes to leisure, men have the upper hand. On average, they spend 5 hours and 56 minutes on non-essential activities daily, while women spend about 5 hours and 18 minutes. Thus, men enjoy at least 19 extra hours of leisure time each month.
Learning and Growth
Before I proceed, it’s worth noting that successful individuals dedicate at least five hours a week to learning new skills or knowledge. By simply reducing unnecessary activities by an hour each day, you could free up over five hours weekly for more meaningful pursuits.
Here’s a comprehensive article that elaborates on the importance of the 5-hour rule, embraced by icons like Oprah, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett.
What do people do with their free time?
Income and Leisure Time Dynamics
It’s no surprise that higher-income individuals tend to have less free time than those living below the poverty line. However, they still average 4.5 hours daily spent on unnecessary tasks.
Strategies to Reclaim Over 5 Weeks of Your Life Annually
The solution is simple: develop tiny, sustainable habits. Dedicate at least 25 minutes each day from your 5+ hours of free time to productive activities.
I’m not suggesting you abandon all leisure activities, as that approach is rarely effective. Instead, I recommend breaking your free time into manageable chunks. For instance, I initially adopted the Pomodoro Technique, dedicating no more than 25 minutes to reading or building my website. Now, I work in 50-minute intervals, inspired by the book "Deep Work" by Cal Newport—a highly recommended read.
Let’s do some quick calculations.
If you take 25 minutes from your free time each day for the first five months, that adds up to 62.5 hours. For the remaining seven months, if you allocate 50 minutes daily, that totals 175 hours. Altogether, that’s 237.5 hours or over 5 weeks of additional time reclaimed by year’s end.
It’s the small habits—how you start your day, how you speak to yourself, what you choose to read or watch, and who you allow into your life—that can transform your existence, as Michael Tonge wisely noted.
Final Thoughts
On average, a person interacts with their phone 2,617 times daily. After some effort, I’ve managed to limit my screen time to under 90 minutes each day. I also penned an article on the detrimental effects of excessive cellphone use.
Take charge of your time and start your journey today!
Thank you for reading. If you found this helpful, consider following me or giving a clap!
Chapter 2: The 5-Hour Rule and Its Impact on Success
In this engaging video, the viewer celebrates their victory on the G-Points leaderboard and spends the balance, highlighting the fun and excitement of such wins!
This insightful video explores how MrBeast manages to spend more money than he generates, offering a fascinating glimpse into his financial strategies.