Quit wasting weekends.

friday, weekends, weekend, yay, time off, rest, relax, chill, hard work, saturday, sunday
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Time and time again I see my colleagues at work start Friday morning with GIFs and messages like “Finally, it’s Friday!”. They even go further than that and call Thursday “Friday’s eve”. Lately I found myself thinking that is just plain ridiculous. Do you hate what you do so much that the weekends are such a major escape from reality for you? Or is it just a social norm at this point?

As you might have noticed, I chose the name of this blog to be “Fill Up Your Time”, although so far I have mostly been writing on financial aspects of my life. I realise life is not only about finances, and success means different things for everyone. Right now I am focused on becoming financially free, and so a lot of my thinking is dedicated to it, but it is of course a long journey, and more ideas will come my way. The reason I chose that name is because most of my self-development does not happen at my full-time job. While I do learn new skills there too, I have mostly operational day to day tasks, that do not variate all that much.

As I have mentioned in this post, I started dedicating more and more time to my personal business, which does not happen during regular working hours. This gave me a perspective that I have been wasting so much time for so many years by just allowing myself to unwind on the couch after hard day at work. All this time is now gone, and I have nothing to show for it. There will always be a new Netflix show, funny YouTube video, or post from friends on Facebook. There is no shortage of any of that, but is that what I really want from life?

Successful do not take days off

This is an exaggeration, of course. Everyone has some time off once in a while. What I mean with that is that successful people tend to like what they do in their free time, and job does not seem like grind all that much. They love the grind, and they love the companies they have created. This drives them and feeds their energy instead of depleting it. I can absolutely relate to that with my own business. Because I am in control of everything that happens to it, and I am the one to make all the decisions, I do not feel like I am working. Lately I’ve been looking forward to the weekends, because this means I can dedicate more time to things I truly care about. I am looking forward to spending my free time working. Never thought I’d ever say that.

Look around you and pay attention

After reading these thoughts, I’d like if you can spend a few days observing yourself and people you know. Even better, observe the ones you do not know too. What do people do on a Friday evening, for example? How do they spend their days off? Most of the people I know sleep in, or play console, or go to a park to sit in the sun, or go shopping, or meet their friends and spend entire day talking. See the pattern?

Perhaps you are different, and I salute you. There is also no shortage of people who continue to work on and for themselves after their regular hours are over, and I also admire them. But the truth is that absolute most do nothing with their free time. They do not work on their long term goals, and even if they do, they would spend 2 hours on a Saturday and then chill the rest of the day because they deserve it.

I like parks, I like my friends, what the hell do you even know?

Am I saying there should be no time for those things I mentioned above? Of course not. We are all humans and we all need to unwind at some point. All I am trying to say is be conscious of your free time and do not just waste it all. Make sure that you are putting in the work, because it will pay off in the future. I can tell you from first hand experience that doing nothing produces absolutely nothing. Seems like an obvious thought, yet we are not great at materialising our thinking.

Start with small changes. Want to watch something? Watch things that will develop a skill or thought in you. Want to go to a park? Sure, take a book or laptop with you and spend that time productively. Want to meet friends? Meet the ones that are aligned with you on your goals and motivate you to propel further. You get the idea.

We all have bad days

It is easy to write all of this when you are motivated and ready to go. Not all days are like that, and not all periods of life are the same. It is important though to be able to pick yourself up and keep going, because nobody else will do it instead of you. It’s not an easy task, but in the end of a bad day, would you rather look back and see you have accomplished something, no matter how small, or realise you have wasted it on nothing?

Some final thoughts

I started this post from my thoughts on my colleagues looking forward to weekends, so that they can escape their 9-5, and finally treat themselves to that well deserved rest. I am also waiting for weekends, but not because I will take my time during breakfast, or watch favourite show, but because I have time to work on myself and my future. And I know that no matter how pointless small actions might seem now, they will definitely pay off in the future in the ways I am not even aware of now.

Share your thoughts in comments below, I’d love to know what you do with your free time.

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