Ever wondered, “Yeah, what I need right now is a week or two off cause I am going crazy?” Well, it might come as a total surprise but what you need isn’t a long break in the middle of your work schedule. Yes, I did just tell you that you shouldn’t take long periods of breaks. Instead, you need to give yourself a break inside your schedule in small amounts. According to multiple studies, these small breaks should amount to two to five hours a day. It has been a long belief amongst us working people that having more free time is better. But that type of thinking only aids in lowering our productivity.
Surprising Facts about Time and Productivity
Even though I talked about better managing your free time to increase productivity, I know many of you won’t agree. Therefore I think that I need to provide you with some stats or studies to convince you.
First of all, I say that the amount of free time you should have per day should be around two to five hours because of a couple of studies. In the first place, you have the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ American Time Use Survey from 2012 to 2013. In this study, the team surveyed a total of 27,000 individuals. The survey asked about what each of them did in a typical 24 hours. Alongside this, they also asked about their general well-being.
In the second place, we have the Society for Human Resource Management’s National Study of the Changing Workforce from 1992 to 2008. This study looked at the amount of time around 13,600 have as discretionary time.
By putting these two studies along with others like them together, we see a pattern emerge. In simple terms, we can somewhat see that the productivity of an average person peak at around two hours, and it stays like that for around five hours. However, an interesting thing happens after five hours of free time a day. In complete contrast to what we might have thought, a person’s productivity, on average, actually decreases after about five hours. The reason for these can be many things. Different studies and different people have varying answers to why this might be so. To be honest, our best guess is that generally, people tend to become lazy if they feel like they have a lot of free time on their hands.
Too much Free Time isn’t Good
As I have mentioned above, having too much free time isn’t good for you or your general productivity. If you find yourself with more than five hours a day after your job or something else, then you might want to do something about it. Below we have mentioned some choices you might want to think about. Nonetheless, what you have to keep in mind is that in the end, whatever you do needs to be beneficial to you. These benefits can be both short or long-term benefits.
While reading about these benefits, make sure to remember that all or none of these might be of some use to you. In fact, these points or advice mentioned below are just there to give you an idea. Now then, here are some ideas on what you might do if you were to have too much free time on your hand:
Be “Productive”
Just saying to be productive to someone is pretty unimaginative, but it is quite true. For someone with a lot of time on their hand, doing something interesting can be rather helpful. At the same time, they need to do something useful in their life or career. Otherwise, they would simply be wasting their time. To find an alternative to be “productive,” I gave my colleagues and friends a questionnaire to fill out.
The most frequent answer to what you did in quarantine was learning a skill outside their expertise. One of my colleagues in digital marketing learned web development while another in programming learned content writing. They both said that it was quite outside their wheelhouse but at the same time made themselves look more impressive.
In summary, just learn or do something fun and exciting and make sure that it will help you improve yourself.
Socialize More
This point should sound rather obvious and entertaining to most. However, I have to remind you there are some reading who, like me, are quite introverted. For those that are slightly reserved, socializing can be hard. As such, some would waste their free time doing things like binging the latest Netflix show rather than talking to someone. But by talking and having fun with others, you might learn something new or become more active.
Both of those can have a more positive effect on you, which will help boost your productivity. In an interview, author Marissa Sharif, an assistant professor of marketing at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, once said “If you’re lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend that time with other people, that’s a great way to not experience the drop-off [in happiness]”. During her research, she found that people tend to be less happy the more leisure time they have which they spend alone.
Change your Perspective on Free Time
This next point might surprise some like me; apparently, people think that having free time is wasteful. Thus if they find themselves with too much free time, they become agitated and stressed out. Given such negative thinking, they waste their leisure break and return to work unrelaxed. Since they came back without recovering any energy, their overall productivity. Those that find themselves in such type of situation need to revamp their thinking and instead see it for what it really is. A chance to relax, bond with friends and family, and finally return to work with a fresh mind.
Too Little Free Time isn’t Better Either
On the opposite side of things, having too little free time can obviously harm you. I know for a fact that having too much work and not enough free time can hamper your productivity. At the same time, those that find themselves swamped with work, in general, have a hard time making time for themselves. In order to help you out, if you are one of these people, the best advice we can give is “make the time.”
For a better understanding of what I just said, continue reading and take it to heart. I say this because I have seen the aftereffects of working yourselves too hard and let me warn you, it isn’t pretty. There is both physical and mental damage to overworking yourselves and denying it only makes it worse.
Focus on Yourself More
First of all, accepting that you are overworking is never a bad thing. This is honestly the hardest thing to make people understand. In fact, I have seen many people, some of whom are close to me, continue to delude themselves into thinking they aren’t overworking when they clearly are. A simple matter of fact is once you focus on yourself and learn to trim your workload or schedule, you will definitely see that your productivity is increasing. Broadly speaking, if your mind and health are positive, your work efficiency will improve, and that is just logical.
Curve out Some Time
Alongside making your schedule less hectic, you need some time off from work to let your mind and body recover. The more you work, the more stressed out you will be, and taking time off from work will help recharge yourself. Because you have set aside some time off, it doesn’t mean you need to fill each day with activities. Some people like to use their free time to relax and to de-stress. Regardless of whether you have a long, hot bath, if you take products from somewhere like this breeze recreational cannabis delivery service to help them relax fully, or if you simply go for a walk, this can all make a significant difference. Studies have shown that taking around two to five hours off from work-related can help improve productivity. Yet some have trouble taking five minutes off since they believe they are wasting their time if they aren’t working, which is just plain wrong.
In conclusion, too much free time will kill your productivity at the same time, though too little will harm you just as much. It all really comes down to how effectively we manage our schedule and make time for yourselves. If you think that free time isn’t helping you, just do something helpful yet entertaining and fun. We all need to take a step back in our busy lives to become more productive.
-Written By Syed Hossain
