The two main time wasters of my free time

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I might've wrote another article focused on this topic a while back, but this is worth mentioning more, so I'm gonna write about it again, just in case.

For the past two months and a half I've been away, in another country, with work. I left Romania temporarily, for a few months, and got a job in Germany, because it pays way better than any other job I could currently get at home.

The work itself is good, and I like the fact that I don't have moments of idleness. I like the fact that I work almost all the time, because time passes by quickly. I like to be really productive because I feel like I deserve the money I'm being paid.

One small "downside" about the job however is the fact that I have fairly limited time for myself. I am working on a schedule that I've seen used in Spain as well - work for around 4 hours, then have a 3-ish hour break, then work for another 4 hours, until you're done with work for the day.

This, in theory, is great - you still work for 8 hours, but the break that you have in between allows you to rest and relax, so work is not so hard. Again, great in theory. What I don't really like about this schedule is that I feel like I have less time outside of work than I would normally have with a normal 9 to 5 schedule.

When I get home on my break from those first 4 hours of work I feel quite tired, and rightly so, because I work as hard as I can in the morning. After eating and getting to my room, I am left with around 2 hours and 30 minutes of free time, which goes by really quickly. I usually like to take a nap of around 20 minutes so I feel rested for the next 4 hours of work in the evening, and so I'm left with around 2 hours of free time.

This sounds good, but those two hours don't allow for many activities. I always choose to read at least 30 pages in my break,so that's around 40 minutes spent only reading, and only 1 hour and 20 minutes left for myself. Whatever I choose to do next is usually the last thing I get to do in that break. Then I'll take my nap and I go back to work. Finally, I get home at around 10 PM, more or less. I take a shower, and so I'm left with another hour and 30 minutes of free time. If I choose to read again, that's all I get to do. If I choose to game, that's all I get to do.

You get the point. My time is fairly limited, and so I have to choose how I spend it and what activity I want to focus on, because picking one thing means not having enough time for another.

Because of this I have to be careful with how I manage my time if I want to get enough things done. And this is why I learned what is and what isn't a waste of time for me, and I can say, without any doubt, that the biggest waste of time are these two things: being indecisive when it comes to what I want to do next, and waiting for the mood to do whatever I decide to do.

Nothing comes close as a time waster than these two things.

First, being indecisive renders me absolutely useless and wastes my time like nothing else. Being away from my main computer and having such limited free time means that I have to choose between reading, gaming, working in anything 3D related, writing and posting on Hive, watching a movie or a TV show, spending time with my girlfriend, and a few other things.

Coming home from work, and spending 10 to 15 minutes trying to figure out what I should be doing with my free time, while scrolling through Facebook or Twitter or YouTube or any other similar website, is the worst thing I could be doing.

Not knowing what I'd like to do is a waste of time itself. To avoid this, I usually try to have some sort of a routine that I try to respect, so I can do several of those things in my limited amount of time. However, there are times when things don't go the way they are supposed to, and so I have to improvise, and having a clear idea of what I want to do with my available time is very useful.

One more thing that really helps is ranking my options and picking what's available or better in the given situation. Spending time with my girlfriend is usually number one, so if she wants spend time together, I usually do that. If not, reading is almost always the next thing. After that, things get a bit blurry. If I have enough energy, I have to decide between gaming and writing. If I don't, I usually watch something, either a movie, if I have time, or some YouTube, if I don't.

Having some sort of a plan, and knowing what you want to spend your time doing helps to avoid idling around, not knowing what to pick.

The second big time waster is waiting to get the necessary mood to do whatever I decided to do.

The best example I can offer is wanting to write this article. While I had the idea ready, and I knew, more or less, how I wanted the article to be, I wasn't exactly in the mood for writing. I knew I'll be, soon, but I wasn't at the moment. What did I decide to do, instead of just opening Evernote and staring to type? I went on Facebook, and YouTube, and Twitter, and I started scrolling and consuming random content, waiting for myself to get in the right mood.

I used to do that a lot more, but since I became aware of it, I've been trying to avoid it as much as possible. If I decide that I want to relax for 2 hours and just play a game, spending 30 minutes on social media because I'm not yet in the right mood to play the game is nothing but wasted time. Spending 30 minutes on social media because I'm not yet in the right mood to pick up a book and start reading is also a waste of my free time. And yet, in the moment, it doesn't feel like it - that's the biggest problem.

The way I deal with this is pretty simple - I constantly tell myself that I will only get in the mood to do something once I begin doing it, and most of the time, it's true. If I decide I want to play something, but I don't feel like opening up any game, I just do it anyway, before opening social media. If I want to read, but I'm not yet in the mood, I close my laptop, I lay in bed, and start reading.

Nine times out of ten this works and I immediately get in the mood to do that particular activity. The one time when it doesn't work, all I have to do is pick another activity.

Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't spend time on social media or YouTube if you want to. Yes, doing that is a huge waste of time, but I'd be a hypocrite to tell you not to do it when I do it myself, and quite often even. It's relaxing, and I like doing it.

However, when I want to spend my time doing something else, something a bit different, or even a bit more productive, then wasting my time on anything else because I'm not yet decided what I'd like to do, or because I'm not yet in the "right mood" are the worst things I can do, because it wastes the limited free time that I have with anything other than the activities I'd like to do.

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