Leisure time activities: Keep your time well managed

Time management techniques

When you have too much time on your hands, leisure time activities beckon. For those who cannot sleep more than a few hours – seven or eight hours at the most – a day, time hangs heavy. Given that you utilize 6 –7 hours for your normal routine activities, you still have 9 –11 hours in which you can:

1)     Make something

2)     Participate in something

3)     Rest in peace

 

People collect things or they make them. While not many have the ability to make bags or delicious dishes, they do have an inclination to participate in creative activity. Here in this article we discuss some fine ideas that will help you spend time usefully. 

Go for a picnic, join a reading group – find somebody who wants to do things you like and start. Make the right turn and you will never go wrong. Social groups will help you develop better orientation in your life. 

Though it sounds ominous, resting in peace is one of the best ways one can enjoy his or her leisure. A calm and peaceful place with a gentle breeze blowing and enough sunshine to keep the cold away is perfect for getting the kinks out of those muscles while you relax. 

I)                  Good ideas for your leisure

1)     Gardens and landscaping ideas

Main things you can grow in the gardens are kitchen items like herbs, vegetables and spices. For those who want something for their living room vases, you can grow flowers.

a)     People with garden space: You have to plan out your garden space according to your needs. If you plan on growing vegetables, then you make garden beds that have enough clearance for the growing plants. You must also provide the support so that the fruits and vegetables grow big and in good numbers.

b)    Indoor or hanging basket gardens

2)     Travel ideas

If you have the travel bug, you can indulge in some travelling and sightseeing. Tourism is a never ending adventure where limits are imposed only by your own self on what you should do and what you should not. Exotic lands abound world over and you meet people of different cultures and see marvelous tourist spots.

a)     Inland travel

i)       Mystic land of Coorg

ii)     Backwaters of Kerala

iii)   Conoor

b)    Foreign tourism

i)       Spain

ii)     Thailand

iii)   Skiing Holiday spots

3)     Handicraft

a)     Basket weaving: Now, this is an art that you can learn. It involves simple methods and your investment is very low. For improving your interest in making basket case and type is mentioned on these websites. Different types of baskets need different material and each case will require a different skill. Obvious advantage of this hobby is that you can sell these baskets or teach the skill to your immediate social circle, say brothers and sisters, friends and relatives or even teach online by uploading some material on to the Internet. 

b)    Cushion making: This is another kind of leisure time activity that helps you relax literally and figuratively. Here we see a practical example of how you can make some interesting cushions for your chairs and divans.

i)        First kind of cushion making is in-situ cushion. You cut a piece of rubber or foam and stitch the cloth around it. This is easy to make and does not involve elaborate measurements or stitching patterns. 

ii) The second kind of stitching involves measuring the amount of padding and cutting your cloth according to that measurement. This is tougher to make

4)     Join blogging websites

a)     Social sites: These sites maintain a list of membership and have an agenda (most of them leave this to the members) that involves making websites and interacting with other member’s websites. 

b)    Commercial sites: These sites are basically aimed at making money. The primary sources of money are from visitors while the secondary source is through advertising.

i)       One of the top blogging sites is Wikinut. Here you get up to 50% of the revenue obtained through advertisements. You do not need AdSense account and so many writers who have problems with their AdSense find this site very beneficial.

ii)     Of course the top site if you do have AdSense is HubPages. This gives you two or three streams of revenue.

c)     Personal sites: These sites help you keep your life on track. If you get response from readers you immediately form bonds with people of your type and thus improve the quality of your life.

i)       Blogger: One can begin writing very easily on Blogger. You do not need any technical skill or any knowledge of programming languages. 

5)     Check out story sites and poetry sites -- Reading at your leisure

This is a nice leisure time activity for aspiring writers and for people who wish to spend some hours in quiet solitude. Writing stories and poetry is not too tough. Here are some sites to help you start your literary journey.

·        Write On Writing.Com

This is free to join but you must upgrade if you want all the features of the site. It is a fun interactive site.  

·        Join Writer’s Cafe

Writer’s Café is a place where you can meet other writers, participate in discussions and even store your writings.

·        http://authonomy.com/books/

At authonomy, budding writers can publish their books free of charge.

·        http://storymash.com/

Story mash gives writers a part of the revenue too. So, you can write stories there and earn. 

6)     Cooking and kitchen specials

a)     Writing your own recipes: For avid cooks, writing their own recipes is pleasurable and provides readers with an exciting array of new food items they can relish. 

b)    Reading and practicing other’s recipes

If you are not conversant with recipes and cooking, you can visit some of the online cooking sites. You will find many sites on the Internet that have hundreds of chefs and recipes for different occasions and different levels of cooking expertise.

First is the America’s Test Kitchen. You can learn very elementary things like making an omelet or complicated stuff like preparing chocolate soufflés. If you prefer Indian cuisine you might visit Manjula’s Indian Kitchen.

7)     Walking

Other than jogging walking is perhaps the best exercise one can do. It boosts the metabolic activities and keeps you free from all sorts of unwanted diseases. Walking has an added advantage of telling your metabolic reflex rate. This is the indication that you get when you walk too much or walk too less. You mind tells you whether to go on or to stop. If you keep walking for a fixed amount of distance every day, you will get accustomed to these signals. 

II)              Local activities

If your locality supports leisure time activities, you can join a local group and participate in fun activities. Some fun activities are given below. 

a)     Trekking: You can indulge in trekking in any kind of terrain. You only need good trekking gear like hiking sandals, protective clothing site negotiating and walking aids. Choose a good route where you have pleasant scenery along with birds and animals.  

b)    Swimming: For people living by large water bodies like lakes and rivers, swimming is a pleasant way to spend the time. Swimming provides good all-round toning of muscles. As a recreation sport, it is preferred by many people over other sports that are more rigorous.  

c)     Picnicking: This is perhaps the best way to spend time. After packing your picnic boxes, you head out to the hills or nearby jungles, parks or amusement spots in your area to have a good time. Take a camera along and capture scenes of nature that you can share with your friends online. Or you can store them on your website on the Internet.

III)           Internet and Shopping – online stores

Shopping is a craze – for some a necessity. The advent of online stores is a blessing since one can get anything they need with a few clicks on their computer or cell phone. Here are some links to popular shopping sites.

·        The biggest online store in India is Amazon.

·        This is followed by eBay where you can participate in auctions too.

·        My favorite spot is Rediff Online Shopping plaza.

·        The other big shopping site is Flipkart.

Need and advantages of managing time well

Most successful people have their time planned out in a very correct manner. They begin their morning with a clear frame of mind. Doing exercises and eating good nutritious food keeps their bodies perfectly tuned. And when it is vacation time, they have their family vacation well planned out. 

The above list of activities is not comprehensive but only indicative. You can add some other activities too. You have to be occupied throughout the day. This will give you refreshing sleep at night. Good sleep helps prevent diseases like congestive heart disease and hypertension. People who suffer from sleep apnea do not sleep properly. 

Managing your time well keeps your productivity rate up. This is why many top companies will employ management consultants to advise them regarding the best techniques for improving business productivity.