17 Ways to Vastly Increase Your Available Free Time
If you want more free time, here are seventeen ways to get some
When I lost the use of my hands for a period (a long story that I am not going to get into here), I had a lot of time to reflect, and something that I found myself spending much time reflecting on was how I’d been spending my time.
Not wisely was the answer, in fact, I realised I had been downright wasteful.
With this in mind, I thought I’d create a post listing all the ways I found that I had been wasting time, along with all the ways I have found that can potentially help give you more free time.
Stop ironing your clothes, or at least cut back on it
This may be sacrilege to some, but ironing takes up a lot of time, and if you’re okay with wearing creased clothing then stopping ironing your clothes you can save a lot of time. I know this because I tried it — not being able to use your hands makes it very hard to iron.
However, if you don’t want to be seen wearing creased clothing, like I don’t, there is still a way you can save time, and that is by stopping yourself from ironing items of clothing that people will never see.
For example, ask yourself these questions, how many times do you iron T-shirts or vest tops that will be covered by other clothing? Do you iron your socks and your underwear? Are you ironing clothes that don’t even need to be ironed because they don’t even get creased? I had a girlfriend once who was so obsessed with ironing everything she wore, that I saw her once even ironing the string part of a G string, no jokes. Are you doing something similar?
All in all, a great way to gain more free time is to stop ironing clothes that don’t need to be ironed.
Buy clothes that don’t need ironing
Hot on the heels of cutting back on ironing, a great way to save yourself time is by buying clothes that don’t need ironing.
It’s amazing how many T-shirts, jumpers, hoodie’s, shirts, trousers and much more that you can buy that don’t require ironing.
Buying clothes like this can be a great way to cut back on ironing, making it a great way to buy yourself extra free time.
Stop taking so long to get ready
Before I got injured, I always used to think that I was one of those people who got ready quickly. I was wrong.
Steve Jobs famously always wore the same outfit every day, and he did so because he didn’t want to waste time and energy choosing what to wear. I on the other hand was wasting ten minutes a morning choosing what to wear, and that was just a portion of the time I was wasting.
That means if you are a person who spends a lot of time every day getting ready, whether that be through choosing what to wear, putting make-up on, doing your hair, preening and tweening, whatever. Basically, if you are a person who spends a lot of time getting ready each day, a great way to get yourself more free time is to simplify your morning routine.
Stop doing aimless things to pass the time
While sitting in the waiting room for one of my many hospital appointments, because I couldn’t use my hands, I did not have the option of aimlessly scrolling social media. And so I did nothing.
And what a waste of time it was. Just as big a waste of time as scrolling social media had been. Except I’d never noticed before because I had been aimlessly scrolling social media.
So a great way to find yourself more free time is to stop wasting it doing pointless things simply as a means of passing the time. Instead, any time you find yourself with some free time, like when you are waiting for a hospital appointment, do something productive. Read a book. Listen to a podcast. Read an article.
Do anything but something aimless.
Stop aimlessly scrolling social media
Speaking of aimlessly scrolling social media, only when I couldn’t do it did I realise just how much time I had been wasting doing it. If you are doing the same, then a great way to get more free time is to stop.
And I should add, I realised I wasn’t just aimlessly scrolling social media as a means to pass the time, I was doing it at times when I should have been doing other things.
That’s why massively cutting back on social media can be a great way to gain more free time.
Stop having pointless arguments and debates
Whether it be with your spouse, friends, or with random people you’ve met online, how much time do you waste arguing or having debates when the outcome is inevitable i.e. neither you nor the person you are arguing/debating with is going to change their position.
I used to waste a lot of time doing this, like a lot, especially online. But when I became injured and couldn’t get into these debates, I realised that one of the best ways of wasting time is arguing and debating over nothing.
What this means is, if you were like me and find yourself getting into constant arguments and debates, then you have a great means available to you of getting more free time. Stop.
Replace negativity with positivity
The way I see it negativity is the enemy of free time, the reason being if you are spending all your time being negative, or being surrounded by negativity, then you are not spending your time very wisely.
Negative energy is so mentally draining. It is so tiring being surrounded by it. There is a reason people say that happiness is the greatest restorer of youth, while sadness ages us.
Meaning if there is a lot of negativity in your life, or you are spending a lot of time being negative either towards yourself or towards other people, a great way to gain more free time is by replacing all that negativity with positivity.
Make sure you get enough sleep
It may seem self-defeating to say that getting more sleep could buy you more free time than getting less. But it’s true, if you’re not getting enough sleep then you are more likely to make errors, and you’re also more likely to feel lethargic, meaning it will take you longer to do tasks and you will do them to a lesser quality.
This is why if you’re not doing so, making sure that you start getting enough sleep is a great way to get more free time, because doing so will help you to feel more energetic, and so will lead to you being more productive with your time i.e. you’re likely to make fewer errors and get things done more quickly and to a higher standard.
Eat a good diet
Eating a poor diet can lead to a person feeling lethargic, it can also lead to poorer health. On the flip side, eating a good diet makes a person feel more energetic, and leads to better health.
The more energy we have, and the less ill-health we have, the more we can do with our time and the more time we have to do things.
There is an added benefit to eating a healthy diet, the better the diet we eat the more likely we are to live a longer life. If we live a longer life, and are healthier over the course of that life, then by default we will have more free time to spend over the course of our life.
So if you’re eating a poor diet, changing to a healthy one can be a great way to get more free time.
Exercise regularly
Those who don’t like exercise argue that exercise eats into their free time. They are right, it does, but the net result is more free time.
The healthier you are, the more energy you have, the more energy you have the better you can do the things that it is you want and need to do.
There is an added benefit, statistically speaking regular exercise results in a person living a longer life and spending less of that life in ill-health. This means regular exercise equals a person living a longer life and spending more of that life in good health.
Meaning exercise equals more free time over your life.
Use fewer dishes
I used to be very wasteful dishes wise, every time I had a drink I would use a fresh glass, which in hindsight was silly. It meant that I had to wash two glasses rather than just one. That costs time.
That’s why making a conscious decision to use the same glass or cup or plate or whatever throughout the day, simply giving it a rinse when necessary, and making certain all others in the household do the same, can be a great way to save time.
Buy a dishwashing machine
When I became injured, I could no longer manually wash the dishes and wow did it save me time. It also made me realise something, the true power of dishwashing machines.
A single person who does not have a dishwashing machine spends on average between twenty and thirty minutes a day washing the dishes. A dishwashing machine turns this twenty to thirty minutes into minutes. Meaning buying one can save you between twenty and thirty minutes a day.
This is why, if you don’t have a dishwashing machine, and can afford to buy one, buying one is a great way to buy yourself more free time.
If your computer is super slow, replace it
I was one of those people persevering with a super slow computer, and yet when I upgraded, I was quite astonished by just how much quicker I could do things, and how much more productive being able to do things quicker made me.
Or rather I was astonished at how much time I had been wasting by not upgrading. In fact, trying to save money is a great way of wasting time.
And it doesn’t have to be a computer, it can be anything. Basically, if you are using something that isn’t functioning very well, and replacing that something would allow you to do whatever it is that something does in a shorter space of time, then if you can afford it, buying it is a great way to buy yourself some more free time.
If you have carpets, replace them with an alternative
Carpets are lovely, they look nice and they feel nice to walk over, also carpets are always warm making them great for walking over barefoot, whereas tiles and vinyl and the like are freezing.
On the flipside, carpets are harbingers for dust and so require a lot more vacuuming and maintenance than tiles and vinyl and the like. Meaning a great way to buy yourself more free time, if you can afford it, is to replace carpets — if you have them — with easier to manage alternatives like tiles and vinyl.
Hire a cleaner
Okay, there are not that many people who can afford to do this, I can’t afford to do this, I wish I could, but alas I can’t. However, I have a friend who can afford one, and he told me the following: that if you can afford to do so hiring a cleaner is a brilliant way to buy yourself more free time.
Obvious, I know. But he also added that a really good one can do a better job in the space of a few hours than the average person can over the course of a full week of doing household chores.
Meaning even if you can only afford to have one come in once or twice a month, if you can find a cleaner who is really good at their job, it can still pay in free time bought to hire one.
Buy a robot vacuum
These are expensive, even more expensive than hiring a cleaner, and unless your floors are relatively clear of obstacles, they are not much good, and even if they are relatively clear, they still aren’t great. They are getting better, and they will help keep your floors clean — or at least that’s what my friend who has one assures me.
Meaning if you can afford one a robot vacuum can be a good way of buying yourself more free time, because buying one will mean you can cut back on the amount of time you spend vacuuming and brushing your floors yourself.
Stop putting off purchases to save money
It’s amazing how much time you can cost yourself trying to save money. Imagine a dishwasher. You can afford one but choose not to buy one. You work a job where you earn £10 an hour.
A dishwashing machine would cost you £180. Taking tax into account, you would have to work for twenty-two hours to pay for that.
You presently spend twenty minutes a day washing the dishes. That equates to one hundred and twenty-two hours a year washing the dishes.
Because you can afford a dishwasher, that means to save twenty-two hours pay you are spending one hundred and twenty-two hours washing the dishes.
Do you see the madness of that? You could spend twenty-two hours buying that dishwasher, which would give you an extra one hundred and twenty-two hours free time a year. But instead, you are choosing to save the money.
The maths adds up. That’s why trying to save money by putting off purchases can be so costly.
Recap
- Stop ironing your clothes, or at least cut back on it
- Purchase clothes that don’t need ironing
- Stop taking so long to get ready
- Stop doing aimless things to pass the time
- Stop aimlessly scrolling social media
- Stop having pointless arguments and debates
- Replace negativity with positivity
- Make sure you get enough sleep
- Eat a good diet
- Exercise regularly
- Use fewer dishes
- Buy a dishwashing machine
- If your computer is super slow, replace it
- If you have carpets, replace them with an alternative
- Hire a cleaner
- Buy a robot vacuum
- Stop putting off purchases to save money
Final comments
That’s it from me, hope you found this of use, and if you know of any more ways of finding more free time, or more importantly ways of identifying time you’re wasting, feel free to share it in the comments.
If you found this post of interest, you may also enjoy the following:
Not Spending Money Could Be Costing You Free Time
26 Killer Comebacks to Nasty Remarks
If You Have Negative People in Your Life, Do This
To learn more about me see this link, to support me click the link below:
