Spare Time

I regard spare time as a portion of one’s time that is not devoted to one’s occupation. The use of your spare time is an accurate source of analysis through which your future can be determined.

This is a period within which you can direct your thoughts and activities towards any goal you desire. Within spare time, you find thinking time. Thinking time is a time when random ideas, creative thoughts and contemplations of the day can be nurtured and developed.

Spare time is promotion time for the person who works for others and wants to grow. It is during this period that he may prepare for greater responsibility. Somehow, every promotion gained whilst working for a wage can be traced back to quality investment in spare time. Why? Because it is in spare time that unpaid talent is mastered.

The product of an unpaid investment in your spare time is often seen when a paid opportunity arises. At the end of the day, the individual who has invested productively in their spare time will beat the one who hasn’t. As the saying goes, “the man who does more than he is paid to do, will soon be paid for more than he does”, clearly this refers to the benefits of positively investing in spare time.

“For it is the person who believes that they were not simply born to just pay bills and die, that invests in their spare time. It’s all about investing in your dreams.”

Your employer may think that by working for them, you’re fulfilling his dream. But the reality is, that they are financing yours. The only reason you’re earning your wage now is so that you can raise capital for those dreams; being built in your spare time.

Sometimes we don’t have time to be the person we want to be, because we are too busy being the person we’re not happy to be. We often make the mistake of believing that “in the meantime”, we will be content in being the person we’re not happy to be, and then at a later point, we’ll dive into being the person we truly want to be. We make the mistake of settling. Don’t settle. Don’t ever settle!

What we fail to understand is that, in order for us to become ‘the person’ we actually want to be, we must first stop being that person we aren’t happy to be.

An intelligent friend of mine (with two degrees) got offered an unpleasant job, which paid around ₦42,000 a month. She said she would do it “in the meantime”, while she searches for something else. She was satisfied to be the person she wasn’t happy being and put the person she truly wanted to be on the sideline. She worked for that company for 14 months; never got a raise or a promotion.

She worked so hard, and never even had the time to look for something else. She had no spare time to even invest in. She had to stop being the person she wasn’t happy to be so that she could focus on the person she truly wanted to be.

If you don’t have spare time to create the person you truly want to be, then create that time! If that means cutting down on “hanging out” with friends, then so be it. Even if there has to be a compromise, you’ll be better for doing so. Spare time not only helps you create the person you want to be, it produces the person you’re happy being. You must find spare time and invest in it.

An eight-to-five job doesn’t make greatness, investment in spare time does!