Do you ever find yourself wishing you could add more hours to the day? Do your coworkers, friends or family wonder how you fit all that you do into the amount of time we have? What do you do with your free time? How do you define “free time”? Is it your personal time, spending time with family, being productive to help accomplish goals, etc? You may find that your definition of free time and what you do with it may change depending on the time of year and stage in your life.
Be Deliberate
There are various ways to use your free time. The best way to control how you use your free time is to be deliberate about how you define it and how you use it. Being intentional about what you want to accomplish during your free time can help you to combine tasks in an effort to conserve time. For example, combining activities with spending time with your friends or significant others.
Manage Your Time and Energy to Maximize Free Time
- Define your priorities as these may be easy to lose sight of when life gets extra busy.
- Communicate clearly with the people in your life who may have a hard time understanding the many facets of your life that you must dedicate time.
- Be intentional about the activities that you commit your time to. No is a complete sentence when being asked to make new commitments that don’t meet your screening criteria.
- Example screening criteria:
- Is this opportunity in line with my goals?
- Do I have time?
- Is this something I am interested in?
- Will I be compensated appropriately for my time?
- Example screening criteria:
- When it comes to meetings, do they have to be in person and do you absolutely have to be there? If you are on vacation with family, is it essential that you be in the meeting?
- Give yourself grace. Life happens and not every day is perfect. Emergencies will come up that cause your plan for your free time to go out the window. It’s okay to try again tomorrow.
Take Homes:
- Be deliberate about your priorities.
- Be intentional about what you say yes to.
- Try to combine activities to get the most out of the time you have.
- Give yourself grace.
Post by Rick Dasilva
About Our Guests:
Dr. Alexandra “Lexie” Mannix is Assistant Program Director of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Clerkship Director and Univserity of Florida – Jacksonville. She is also co-creator and Editor-In-Chief of sheMD.org.
Dr. Melissa Parsons is the Program Director of Emergency Medicine and Assistant Professor at University of Florida – Jacksonville. She is also co-creator and Editor-In-Chief of sheMD.org.
Chris Colbert, DO is the Assistant EM Residency Director, Assistant Professor of Clinical Emergency Medicine, and Director of Health Disparities at the University of Illinois, Chicago.
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