“Free time is meant for nothing but Netflix and relaxation” is what we’ve convinced ourselves. And to be honest, it’s easy to see how we got here. We’ve worked super hard throughout the day and year, we deserve to not do nothing at all in our free-time. After all, isn’t that the whole point of free-time? Well, that attitude is exactly what I took for most of my student years, and it’s something I look back at and regret. I used to have 4 month summers, where I’d just go from bed, to gym to sofa, consuming nothing but Netflix. Now, just as I’m about to leave full-time education and enter full time employment, I’ve spent some time analysing the changes I’ve made in my life and how they align with what “successful students” have been doing from day 1. I’m by no means claiming to be a successful student, but the changes I’ve made to expand my skills, knowledge and experiences are common habits I’ve observed in successful students. And I’m writing this to try and give you all a head-start by encouraging you to think more introspectively and intentionally. Force yourself to come up with a few goals, decide what skills, knowledge and experiences will be needed to achieve them, and then spend your free-time expanding those circles. I hope you’ll join me in my journey of moving away from immediate to delayed gratification, and expand your skills, knowledge and experiences to achieve your overarching goals.
Introduction
Why would we rather laze around and relax during our free-time and holidays, than do something productive or useful? Well, we've had a hard long year where we've constantly been told what to do, had lots of deadlines and exams. It's only fair to spend this time-off relaxing and recharging right? Sure, that's definitely a factor but there's more to it. A large driver causing us to essentially waste away our time-off is an annoying psychological phenomenon known as underweighted delayed gratification. This psychological phenomenon means that we start with the disposition of choosing what's easy and rewarding now, instead of wanting to put the work in now for a greater reward further down the line. So you're not lazy at all, you're just human. Humans make irrational choices all the time, it's nothing new. Now, you might be thinking, actually I'd rather have a reward now than work for a better one later down the line. That's totally fair. But consider this. Inaction or choosing immediate reward now, means that you not only will forgo the greater reward later down the line, but you might also end up with more work and pain down the line as a result. And you'll look back and kick yourself, "damn I had all this time to do this" or "I wish I'd done this earlier".
So ultimately the choice is yours, if you want to help your future self go through less pain and gain more reward, a little bit of work now may translate into huge gains down the line. And the great thing about it is that it's entirely your choice.
So the first step to spending free-time wisely is to change your perception, realise you're in total control and realise the importance of delayed gratification. If you've got this far, then hopefully you're considering "yeah okay maybe I do want to spend my free-time a bit more productively, but what do I substitute for Netflix?" Well, the good news is it's your choice and the bad news is it's your choice. To help with this choice, I'll give you an example of how I've started to use my free-time and why by going through my 3 circles of personal development: skills, knowledge and experiences.
Skills
So the first circle I use my free-time developing is skills. Recently, I've devoted a lot of my free-time into videography, editing and writing. Now, I didn't just randomly decide on these skills. Rather, I looked at my overarching goals and passion. I'm passionate about teaching and education. I know that's what I want to do and that's what bring me happiness. But, I'm also a student, so I appreciate how education is evolving and the importance of multi-media platforms. We probably get more value from a 20 minute video than a whole term's worth of lectures. So putting 2+2 together, I worked out that to be an effective teacher, I need to start making educational content over lots of different platforms and modalities. So I first started by getting into writing, developing a style that would hopefully be concise, easy-to-understand, but also very accessible. Then I decided a more visual modality was necessary so I got into making videos to add to the written stuff. And then decided to up the production value by learning more about editing. What I'm trying to say here is that when you're deciding on what skills you want to develop in your free-time. Start by looking at what you want to achieve and breakdown the skills you think you'll need for that. And if you don't know yet, then develop the general skills that'll be useful to a lot of things. For example, videography and editing are highly transferable to almost any field. These skills have helped me make prize-winning videos related to scientific research and it has also helped me improve my eye for design, which has come in use whenever I need to design a scientific poster or make figures for research papers.
Knowledge
The second circle I expand in my free-time is knowledge. Now when I say this, I'm not referring to studying necessarily, but more wider interests. For example, recently I've become quite interested in financial literacy. I've got to the big age of 24 and to be honest, my knowledge of how to use money, how to invest and all of that stuff is just completely non-existent. And now that I am starting my first full-time job, this lack of knowledge really started to bother me. So I've started reading, listening to audiobooks, and watching videos to help bring up my financial literacy up. Similarly, I've taken an interest in productivity and the psychology of negotiation and have approached them the same way with audiobooks and videos. Ultimately, consuming all of this content and expanding my knowledge circle, will support my higher goals, by allowing me to manage my money better and do more things with my time. I also made a resolution to incorporate non-medical reading as part of my day-day routine and it's something I want to turn into a long-lasting habit. So starting the process during my free-time, when there's far less resistance, means that I'm more likely to form and keep this habit. Alongside this I've started using other techniques to help form these habits like habit stacking where I try to piggyback a new habit onto an already established one. For example, working out for me is an already established habit and I've started using that as a trigger to listen to audiobooks on topics like habits and finance. I've also started using environmental cues to help form habits, for example I put my ipad right at the exact location of the mirror where I normally stand when working out to check my form. This way I always see my ipad and get reminded to listen to the audiobook instead of browsing instagram or tik tok on my phone.
So, in terms of what all this means for you is that you have to decide what your interests are and what fields you could benefit from gaining more knowledge about to help you achieve that overall goal.
Experiences
The final circle that I've been expanding in my free-time is that of experience. In particular research experience. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the world has looked towards the field of research for solid reliable answers. The pressure, demand and stakes have been immense. I knew I wanted to contribute in a meaningful and widely impacting way, so I decided to get involved with research into the safety of carrying out elective surgery during the lockdown period. Basically, the outcomes of this research could mean that we have an evidence-based approach and could avoid the unnecessary postponement of elective surgery, ultimately saving patients from worsening physical and psychological health. So I spend some of my free-time carrying out literature reviews, designing the study and analysing the data. I'm gaining masses of new skills and research experience, that will ultimately help me become a better doctor, scientist and help patients at a higher level. Of course, I appreciate this level of experience may not be available to most people. But there's always opportunities to get involved with some level of research or carry out internships and work experiences. All of these things will ultimately help you to achieve your higher level goals in the future. If after this, you're sold on using your free-time more usefully, I'd recommend checking this video out to help write a CV and cover letter for any application you'll want to make.