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You are here: Home / Personal Development / When I Have 36 More Hours A Week

When I Have 36 More Hours A Week

September 10, 2007 by Gleb Reys 18 Comments

Free Time - Extra 36 hours a week

I’ve been tagged to write this post by Ed Mills from Evolving Times. He has challenged his readers to think and post about the possible use for the extra 36 hours of spare time each week. Although I haven’t read The 4-Hour work Week book by Tim Ferriss yet, I think it doesn’t hurt arranging the thoughts and plans for enjoying my not-so-distant future life once more.

Tim claims that the reason so many people never get to certain stages of their lives is because they don’t know what to do once they get there. They hope to be rich someday, yet they don’t know why they’d want that. They want to stop working, but have no real idea of what they will do to fill their spare hours.

Well, questions like these aren’t going to challenge me at all :) Luckily, I’m quite aware of what will happen once I’m finally free from a paid job and work only for myself and on my own projects.

So, here’s a rather short list of the main things I’ll concentrate on once I have more time each week:

Fitness

I’m not a great swimmer, but do enjoy swimming a lot and would really like to work on my technique. So one of the first things I’m going to do is sign up for that gym down the road with a swimming pool. 25m is about right for me. Hey, even the 15m pool we have in our apartments block isn’t bad compared to nothing. But the real reason we haven’t been going to it too often is because it’s only open until 9pm and we just don’t usually have the time to get there.

I also think I would enjoy an extra hour for my daily workout, too. These days, I get 45 min to 1 hour a day, and have to make it either a cardio or a weight lifting session. Ideally, I’d like to combine the two – do a targeted weight lifting for an hour, then have 30-45 min of cardio.

It doesn’t have to be a 2-hour block of my time – so I could be doing an extra hour in the early hours or in the evening.

Read 2-3 books a week

I’m currently fighting to beat the 1 book in 2 weeks schedule, with the plan to end up with 1 book a week in a few months time. Once this is reached, I’ll be able to keep the necessary pace of reading. With more spare time, I’ll definitely invest more in reading and go through 2 or even 3 books a week. I think all I need is a solid hour, maybe two, each day for reading.

So far, I’ve only managed 15-25 minutes a day, which still works very well for me.

Climbing

If there is a part of the fitness I’m really passionate about, that’s climbing. It’s such a wonderful excerscise! I can almost feel every muscle of mine getting worked and toned up, and it’s a great all-round workout.

Unfortunately , climbing walls are rather hard to come by here in Ireland, there’s only a handful of them around Dublin. Once I have enough time, I’ll become a regular member to one of the climbing clubs and will do climbing at least 3 times a week.

Half-an-hour of climbing will surely feel much better than cycling or runnin doing a rowing machine. So, definitely, climbing is up there at the top of my spare time priorities.

Spend more time with my family

This may not seem terribly exciting to some people, but to me this could well be the one most important thing to do when I have the time. Not that we don’t spend time together now, I actually have no problem with giving anything up in my evenings just to play with our little girl, but I sure would love to do much more.

Liza is quickly growing up, sometimes I think too quickly. I would like to be here for her when she needs me, to be someone who truly understands her and makes a company she genuinely enjoys. She may not speak yet, and only knows a few words, but it’s such a thrill to watch her and help her learn something new every day! She’s a very smart girl and understands most things without knowing the words or the meanings of them. Sometimes it’s due to the rightly used intonation, but in some situations Liza understands it even when your voice and behavior are misleading.

I love the days when I get to spend time with my daughter and wife outside the usual evening hours. I love going to the nearby park with them, or driving up to the hills overlooking the Dun Laoghaire bay for a brisk walk. These are the most precious moments of my life – being with my family, doing something creative or just having a laugh together. Liza easily understands when it’s time to laugh and knows how to relieve just about any situation. You just can’t be mad at her, even if she had just broken your most favorite cup or tore an important memo from your desk into pieces.

So yes, being here with my girls is definitely something I’d like to do much more.

Learn Japanese

This has been something I’ve always wanted to do. I’ve got a few books to help me, but had no time to really sit through them. Every time I watch some anime or stumble upon a website in Japanese, my urge to learn this language comes back, but after a few days it is pushed off my radar by other activities and priorities.

Learning Japanese would be something I’dreally like to do. I’m not sure about passing any official exams on it, but would like to be able to read wesites and newspapers, and ultimately learn to speak it fluently enough to support a simple conversation.

Spend More Time On Photography

I’ve always enjoyed making photos. Back in school years, I had a black-and-white photo lab at home. I liked the technical side of the process more than the one related to the art itself.

Now I would like to improve my photography. I’d like to get out more to make scenery photos, I’d like to meet more people to make portraits, and I definitely would like to attend a good course or two on photography, as nothing helps you improve more than talking to and working with other (preferably much better than yourself) photographers.

I always envy the photographers traveling the world for major TV networks like Discovery and BBC. These people get to see the most exotic places on our planet for a chance to make a few extraordinary photos which viewers of the said networks will like. I think I could be such a photographer myself as I’m always keen on recognizing the beautify of this world and curious in my attempts to capture it.

Get started with creative writing and write my first book

Well, I obviously got started already. My blogs and lengthy notes I sometimes write on various events in my life have been a great chance for me to express myself.

I admire the art of writing, and plan to improve my own writing skills.

I have recently discovered a whole set of books I’d like to read on this subject. They’re written by some of the most known and acclaimed authors, and have everything necessary for a writer-to-be: motivation and inspiration, revealed secrets and useful advice. But but without having more time to just sit down and work on it, I don’t think my writing will get much better.

Writing book has been on my mind for quite some time now, but I’ve yet to decide which one to write first – there seems to be one interesting idea coming to my mind after another. I’d like to finally get started in this direction :)

Give back to my community

It doesn’t really matter what I should do for my community – start a life coaching for a particular age group, do top performance coaching or provide technical training – I just want to share my experience and let my positive energy affect the lives of others.

So far I haven’t been doing much. I’m considering giving an evening class on blogging, but still haven’t decided whether I can commit this much of my time on a regular basis just to enjoy helping others.

I’ve been doing this before though, and loved it. I think I could make a good teacher in another life, because I really enjoy talking people through basics and helping them recognize new opportunities by applying the knowledge I share. I also love talking to people and working on sharing my experience on various levels of complexity, matching the appropriate target groups.

Teaching is a challenge, but helping people grow is also one of the greatest rewards.

Travel around the world

Well, getting around the Europe (or Ireland even for that matter) would be a good start!

I haven’t been very good with seeing places so far, don’t know exactly why. Now that Liza is a bit older, it’s much easier to get around and we intend to first explore all the beautiful places in Ireland, and then start seeing more of Europe.

I’ve got friends in Russia, United States, Canada, Germany and Australia – so these countries would be good candidates for starters. I would like to do travel much more though – something tells me I’ll really love traveling and updating a travel diary or something (probably a blog) as I go.

I’m not sure whether I’ll ever more to another county for good, but I certainly don’t rule out the possibility of moving somewhere for temporary work. With my intention to live off passive income, it soon wouldn’t matter for me where to work from, as long as I’ve got an Internet connection.

You get the idea

These would be the first few ideas that I’m ready to get started on. In fact, I’m slowly working on each one of them already, as I would hate to wait for that perfect moment in my life when I have enough time to do everything. The truth is, I will never have enough time, as I’ll always be interested in trying new things out and developing new skills. That’s why I choose to try my best at all these directions now. I get to have fun and learn new things, and prepare myself for the much better times when I’ll have that extra 36 hours a week :)

What will you do when you’ve got this much more time on your hands? Let me know in the comments, or, even better, make a post about it and send me a link! Be sure to mention it to Ed in his post as well, he plans to make a list of all such posts.

Filed Under: Personal Development

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Saedel says

    September 11, 2007 at 2:21 am

    Great post/idea! I could use most of your list, too. :P Is it allright to give you my permalink when I’m done doing my own list?

    Keep it up, guys! *thumbsup*

    Reply
  2. Edward Mills says

    September 11, 2007 at 2:44 am

    Hi Gleb. Great list! You’re the first one who hasn’t had something musical on your list. But you do have the write a book one, which is another hot one! I hear you about spending more time with the family. I would like to spend a lot more FUN time with my family. Far too much of our time these days is squeezed in between errands and appointments and discussions about logistics. It will be great to have plenty of free days to spend exploring and adventuring.

    I didn’t know you were a climber. That’s something that has always interested me but that I’ve never “had the time” to explore. Maybe I’ll add that to my list.

    Thanks so much for joining in. Maybe I’ll see you out here in California when you begin your world travels!

    Reply
  3. Causalien says

    September 11, 2007 at 7:15 am

    My answer is pretty simple.

    Total emersion into a sport.

    Reply
  4. Gleb Reys says

    September 11, 2007 at 9:30 am

    Hi Saedel,

    Great to hear you got some inspiration from the list! :) Sure, let me know when your post is up!

    Reply
  5. Gleb Reys says

    September 11, 2007 at 9:33 am

    Hi Ed!

    Thanks for reminding me! I will add something musical to my list. The plan is to explore this area when we get one of them entry-level synthesizers for Liza – I’ve always wanted to learn something piano-like, but although my little sister went to musical school and we had the instrument at home, I never played.

    Yes, climbing turned out to be much more fun that I originally though, so I’ll definitely get back to this one.

    As for seeing you there in California, you can count on this – I’ve been to this wonderful state couple of times in the past and there’s definitely a hope to visit it in the future. Incidentally, that’s where I’ll want to live if I ever move to the US as well.

    Thanks for the idea and the inspiration for a post, I had great time writing it Ed!

    Reply
  6. Gleb Reys says

    September 11, 2007 at 9:38 am

    Causalien,

    It’s interesting how almost everyone relates fun and joy with sports. Physical activities must be really good for us :)

    Reply
  7. Jan says

    September 12, 2007 at 1:21 am

    Great list. I really wish I did have that many more hours a week!
    – I am a photography lover as well and would spend more time on that hobby as well as paint
    – I would fix up more of my house on my own (learning to do the thinks I hire contractors for)
    – Work out more regularly
    – Spend time with friends and family
    – Do more community service

    Now if only that extra time would actually be available!

    Reply
  8. Gleb Reys says

    September 12, 2007 at 1:39 am

    Great to see we have so many similar goals!

    This extra time is here, we just have to free it up :) If you come up with a clever idea how to do it – please count me in, I’ll be really interested! :)

    Reply
  9. Matthew Roberts says

    September 12, 2007 at 6:11 am

    That’s a great list.

    If I had 36 more hours per week, I’d use it to train and work on expanding my limits in everything I do.

    Matthew

    Reply
  10. Gleb Reys says

    September 12, 2007 at 9:29 am

    It sure is going to be fun when we get there, Matt! Can’t wait for my 36 hours to finally free up :)

    Reply
  11. Liz Tufte says

    September 13, 2007 at 12:50 pm

    Swim with dolphins.
    Buy land to create sanctuaries for rescued animals.
    Spend fun, quality time with family.
    Spend fun, quality time with 8-year-old daughter of our best friends.
    Travel to see friends in other parts of the country.
    Spend more time with my horse.
    Regular practice doing animal communication & healing for animals, especially reiki.
    Actually take vacations!

    Reply
  12. Gleb Reys says

    September 13, 2007 at 1:18 pm

    Liz,

    People like you should be the first in the line to get the extra 36 hours. Good luck with your intentions, sounds like a very thoughtful and useful way to spend your time.

    Reply
  13. Saedel says

    September 15, 2007 at 2:44 am

    Hello Gleb! Just dropping by to say that I just finished my own list!

    Saedel’s list at PlanetSaedel

    Thanks for this idea, it was fun writing it!

    Reply
  14. Gleb Reys says

    September 16, 2007 at 4:36 am

    Hi Saedel,

    Thanks for confirming the link! I got the trackback and noticed your post. Great stuff, and quite a few things for me to consider too! :)

    Reply
  15. Personal Growth says

    September 22, 2007 at 12:46 am

    This is really neat as far as it goes with me all you have to do is that your mind needs a state of change and that is the in thing that many of us have to work towards and like some of you have mentioned over here you have have to listen to music or you will have to try out a different sport and you will really feel diffferent.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. What Would You Do With 36 Free Hours Every Week? | MonkAtWork.com says:
    September 12, 2007 at 9:32 pm

    […] says he’s going to compile a list of all the folks who contribute to the idea, by the way… it’ll be interesting to see what other folks come up […]

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  2. 36 More Hours A Week at Planet Saedel | PlanetSaedel | PlanetSaedel.com | Saedel Pensoy says:
    September 15, 2007 at 2:13 am

    […] should say, Gleb’s list fired me up! Probably because upon reading his list, I realized we have something in common. Here […]

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  3. The 4-Hour Work Week Meme Roundup - Evolving Times - The Law of Attraction Resource for Personal Growth says:
    October 17, 2007 at 11:01 pm

    […] Gleb at Personal Development Ideas. […]

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