Making Free Time Work For You

First off, I want to say that this article is not meant to be related to the Coronavirus and the extensive shelter-from-home orders that have popped up around the globe. With the subject being hurled at us from all directions every time we pick up a device with access to the Internet, I feel that everyone needs a bit of a break from the barrage. However, though this was an idea I was formulating long before the US began suffering the effects of COVID-19, I feel that now is an exceedingly appropriate time to publish some musings on the topic I’m about to discuss. 

As you can likely ascertain from the title, this is meant to be a lesson on free time, which everyone has in abundance right now. The purpose of the following article is to share my experiences in making my free time work for me, and truly gaining something from it- a lesson I think we could all benefit from now.

The routine that comes with this quarantine is not at all unfamiliar to me. Currently, I’ve been on a “gap year” of sorts (which maaaay have turned into two gap years- very frustrating, but things are finally moving forward!). When I made the jump from one world of dance to another, I didn’t break into my new career right away. First off, it’s incredibly hard to do so without connections, and secondly, I had some personal issues to work out before anything else would fall into place. I was living by myself in a city I wasn’t entirely familiar with; without a unit of friends, a job to go to, or school to attend. While I had two different dance studios that I would go to within a day, that only occupied about three hours of my time, which left twenty-one wide open.

For the past four years of my life, eight to twelve hours spent at the dance studio six to seven days a week had been my norm, so being thrust into a slow, quiet schedule was like being thrown into a freezing lake. I felt a strange sort of emptiness, and had no idea what to do with myself. The abundance of free time gave me way too much time to think, and that paired with the anxieties of changing careers and living alone halfway across the country from my family threw me into a full-on existential crisis. I struggled through daily panic attacks, insomnia, and being so choked by anxiety that at the beginning, it felt too scary to even get out of bed. (I’m past this now and don’t think I’ll ever be at this point again, so I feel okay with talking about it for the sake of others. I know that during that time, if I had heard about someone with experiences similar to mine, I would’ve felt better much quicker.)

I know that my mental state would’ve been so much better if I had done something, anything, to occupy my mind. If I had so much free time, I should’ve given myself something to do- work on my numerous novel drafts, read some titles from my overstuffed bookshelf, watch the shows and movies that had been on my watchlist for months, etc. I clung to my weekly grocery store trips with an iron grip, relishing in the thrill of being out of my apartment. However, I never let myself go out anywhere for fun- I still felt like I was not the master of myself, and that I would have to ask permission. Looking back, that feeling was just an excuse to hide my anxiety about doing anything outside my set routine.

 Though, an extended period of time with absolutely no responsibility sounds like heaven, doesn’t it? Where you can sleep in as late as you please, have a day filled with the fun of doing whatever you want with no restrictions (especially since I was living alone), eat whatever you want whenever you want, and party all night. I did live in Vegas, after all.

However, how I felt couldn’t be farther from that. In the first weeks of living by myself, I was focused solely on surviving. Don’t get me wrong, doing so until you get your feet underneath you is completely fine- until it becomes a habit.

My biggest problem was my anxiety over being alone. You would think that, as introverted as I am, living alone would’ve been heaven. For whatever reason, it wasn’t. The moment I woke up in the morning, I would turn on a TV show that I’d seen a million times- usually Friends or Parks and Rec. The rotation also included That 70’s Show and I Love Lucy, as well as various YouTube channels. 

The idea was that I wouldn’t really have to watch whatever was playing, but just have it on as background noise to make me feel less isolated. The TV would be on while I got ready for the day, while I exercised, while I ate, while I cooked, while I cleaned…and when I couldn’t sleep, I turned it on to get me through the night. With watching shows basically twenty-four hours a day, as you can imagine, I went through them very quickly. When the last episode was over, I’d go right back to the first. I think I watched Friends all the way through about twenty times in the six months I lived alone- and that’s not an exaggeration.

As I said previously, with the state my mind was in, that was a completely fine coping mechanism. It was effective in giving me enough security so that I could continue on with my day, yet didn’t distract me so much that I got completely sucked into it. The problem was that it became a habit- a habit that stuck with me for about a year.

Like I said, I wasn’t actually watching these shows that I had on constantly- they were just on as background noise. I did try to be somewhat productive in my time living alone by doing typical “adult” things- namely Marie Kondo-ing my entire apartment. The shows were a perfect method to provide a little entertainment whilst I reorganized my drawers and cleaned out my closet, but not so riveting that I got sucked into the plot and ended up not getting any work done. However, I didn’t do tasks like that all day and still had plenty of time to enjoy reading a book or watching a new show, but having the TV on all day created a vicious cycle. I would sit down for a meal and think “oh, this is a funny episode,” and watch it instead of turning on something new. 

Understandably, I would soon grow bored of whatever was on and end up scrolling through my phone for hours on end until my head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. I was seeking distraction in the form of entertainment and found nothing but a numb mind. I was, of course, ignoring the simplest solution of all time. However, my mindless, background noise entertainment had been a way to wrap myself in a bubble of protection, but the problem was that I had trapped my anxiety in there with me. I kept a strict routine and clung to extremely familiar things to relieve my anxiety and avoid triggers, but I reached a point where the routine in itself was a trigger, bringing back feelings of my hardest moments.

This bad habit followed me around for months. Even when circumstances dictated that I move back in with my parents, I was still never without my ever-constant background noise. Silence had become my enemy, and I thought I couldn’t do any work without a show on in the background. Of course, that was poison to the way my brain works, for I can get distracted even when there’s nothing to get distracted by. The television would pull my attention away from whatever project I was currently working on, and in frustration at my lack of concentration, I would scroll mindlessly through my phone until my work was practically forgotten. Because I would get things done eventually (though never as well as I truly wanted to), I had convinced myself that it was my most productive state, ignoring the fact that it felt like I hadn’t had a clear thought in months.

On another, slightly self-exposing hand, fandom has always been a major coping mechanism of mine. When I was at my busiest 12-hour dance day stage, I still made time to bury myself in a certain story or set of characters, because it brightened even my darkest days. But in my bubble, I was reluctant to consume anything that wasn’t “easy watching,” and took away from myself a place of comfort that didn’t need to be taken away. It made me feel worse that I was isolated from the worlds that gave me comfort and happiness, but something- depression, low self-esteem, anxiety for the future, who knows- was holding me back.

The moral of this story is that I did break free, after about a year. I don’t really remember what it was that finally snapped me out of my trance. I remember saying to myself a few times, “When you finish this show, you’re not going to watch it or any other show you’ve seen a million times before for a long while.” But then some big project would come up that I’d want background noise for, and the cycle would start over. The fact that I was conscious of what was keeping me down was an integral step in my growth, though. 

Part of my motivation to change was that I started going to the gym again, and wanted something engaging to bury my attention in during my sessions on the elliptical- a show that I could practically recite wouldn’t cut it. I had a trip by plane coming up and wanted a book to read during the flight, and doing so made me remember how much consuming other literature improved my own writing. Perhaps another deciding factor was the fact that many shows that I used to keep up with were in the middle of new seasons, releasing an episode a week, and the short thirty minutes of content was enough to stir up my long-buried passion for the stories.

Whatever the catalyst was, my spark for what I used to enjoy returned, and all of a sudden I was back to being conscious about my free time. I bought books that I had always been interested in and dedicated time in my day to spend reading them. I finally got serious about hobbies I wanted to pursue and began practicing them daily. I played games I wanted to play- not basic cellphone games meant to pass the time when you’re waiting at an airport or can’t sleep, but mind-stimulating games with a high level of difficulty. I organized my thoughts about what shows and movies I wanted to watch, and took a sheet out of my grandparents’ page- they have a TV schedule for what shows they watch on which days and times- and gave myself a loose arrangement for accommodating for the massive amount of media I wanted to consume. I entertained myself with things engaging enough that I could only focus on one thing at a time, which did wonders for my brain function. In the past month or two, I’ve accomplished more of my “free time goals” than I did in the year I spent in my bubble.

Since I’ve been conscious about my free time, I’ve experienced numerous positive effects from it. Such effects include:

So, especially in light of this pandemic, I encourage you to reflect on how you spend your free time, and how it makes you feel. Do you feel entertained, focused, and energized when the time comes for you to be so, or do you feel like a staticky cloud has permanently settled in your brain? If it’s the latter, I encourage you to follow my way of thinking and be conscious about even your free time.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t abide by the philosophy that has shot to great popularity in our generation, where you must constantly be “hustling,” that you should be busy every moment of every day, and that you have no worth if you’re not being productive. That’s not my meaning. What I mean is to make your free time work for you. 

Free time should feel restful and relaxing. It shouldn’t feel like work. As you can see, there are numerous positive benefits that can be reaped just by being conscious and thoughtful about it, and keeping your brain active as much as possible. Note that “active” doesn’t mean “busy”- your brain can still be active whilst doing things that feel nothing at all like work- such as reading a book, talking to a friend, consciously listening to music, meditating (I consider that a different sort of activity, but activity nonetheless. Just a personal philosophy), etc. The idea is just to prevent the zombie-like glaze that results from shoving as many screens in front of your face as possible, yet not being truly invested in any of the content you’re consuming. 

This also doesn’t have to be something that you keep up constantly. There are still times when I turn on a show I’ve seen a million times before and simultaneously play eighty rounds of Spider solitaire on my phone, and it’s lovely. There are moments when my brain needs that time to check out and be sluggish for a while. It’s therapeutic in its own way, so long as you don’t go too far with it. I find that a 90-10 approach is best, but every individual has different things that work for them.

I hope this has inspired you in some way, shape, or form, and perhaps helped guide you to a way to relieve your anxiety in the current state of the world. Even once this pandemic is over, however, I still believe that my experiences will be incredibly relevant in the age we live in, what with the vast amount of content there is to consume and the overwhelming amount of different opinions telling you what to do. 

I’m aware that this article may be considered to be doing the same thing, but my intended takeaway from this is for you to reevaluate how you’re spending your free time and how it makes you feel, then apply just the slightest bit of thought to it in order to make it work for you. Every moment doesn’t have to be productive, but every moment should ideally point towards a happier and more harmonious mind.