Having free time means your wealthy, according to some. “Being busy is the enemy of a good life,” I once heard someone say (and I apologize because I don’t remember who). Being busy used to be idolized in America—at least among the middle class—and still is to an extent. It was equated with being important.
Then I entered a world where having free time—or more precisely, having time freedom—is the status symbol of choice.
Free time means what?
Where I came from (or when), having free time means being dirt-poor and useless, or, worse: lazy. It was nothing to be proud of.
Then it came to mean being rich. Wealthy people spend their days cultivating relationships and ideas they can implement to build their businesses, provide jobs, and change the world.
And then came the lockdown of 202o and the Great Resignation, when millions stopped being productive and chose to relax rather than earn an income. Younger generations say that free time means self-care and is necessary and deserved. Older generations say that once again, having time on one’s hands means being useless and lazy. What do you say having free time means?
The whole trajectory has been, as Spock said, “Fascinating.”
So many people judge what free time means for others. We should stick to determining what it means for ourselves.
At the time I wrote this post seven years ago, I was in the trough: the place where money was coming in, but it was taking every bit of my time and effort to stay alive. I would have said, “Free time means being able to stay in the shower for ten minutes instead of two.”
I hadn’t gotten to the point where I was able to leverage my time. But I could see the other side. I was beginning to outsource some work successfully, and it was nice to have that off my plate.
Success editing books for self-publishing authors led to an offer from a publishing house to do freelance editing for them. It was an exciting time. Requests for my assistance had begun to come in from several directions. It was nice to be in demand.
At the same time, I found myself needing to choose carefully, to cultivate. I needed to say no to many things and to remove some weeds: some time-wasters and some things that just weren’t that productive in my life—though they may be perfect for yours.
Be effective and efficient
I created templates or “canned responses” for some of the emails I received repeatedly. It seems like writing an email should take ten minutes or so, but it took me hours (and still does), and I think it’s pretty ridiculous. It’s especially foolish to write an email from scratch to answer the same question from several different people. So I created emails that could be adapted as needed.
One of the other ways I thinned out the demands on my time was to stop cooking for a while. I bought frozen dinners and no-prep foods: apples, baby carrots, celery, and peanut butter, and reorganized my refrigerator like this to make things easier. It saved from two to four hours daily. Cooking at home each day takes a lot of time! Later, I got back to batch cooking again.
Then I had to decide if I wanted to devote that newly found time to being productive or to relaxing. I decided to stick with helping others as much as I can. That’s a richer life, in my opinion.