How to kill time meaningfully

Hey everyone,

I hope all of you are in good health and spirits. May Allah keep all of us safe and healthy during this horrible situation of rapidly spreading coronavirus (COVID19). More and more people are getting effected by this every passing moment worldwide.

Some countries are in complete lock down situation and people have been forced or requested to stay home and quarantine. Many of us don’t have any issue staying home for safety of ourselves and our  families. But, some having difficulties doing this. As they either feel bored or don’t find any meaningful way to kill time.

There are many ways to kill time like watching movies, YouTube or Netflix or playing video games. But, I call all of these waste of time. Yes, I occasionally watch movies and play video games as well. Actually, I play video game at least an hour a day. But, I do this after effectively use my free time for different meaningful things and projects. Playing video game is a way to relax my mind and freshen-up. Here are some useful ways, to effectively use or meaningfully kill your free time, that I have been using myself these days.

Workout or Meditate

Health, fitness and safety come first and top of list. If you are doing it already that’s good. Otherwise, start and built a routine for workout, yoga or meditate for at least 30 minutes or more a day. There are many ways to do proper body workout at home. You can setup a home gym with minimal set of equipment like dumbbells, barbells, chin-up bars, etc. Or you can use your own body weight for this. What? My own body weight? Yes, that’s what I mean. There are type of workouts that you can do using your own body weight. Go Google it, you will find so many videos and articles on this.

Meditating and yoga are relatively easy. You just need a clean and silent corner in your home and a yoga matt or probably a simple matt. Again, go Google it to read and watch so many different articles and videos on these.

Learn a new skill

I believe these are also best times to learn a new skill. Whether you want to learn programming, graphic designing, sketching or painting, public speaking, cooking or any other new skill, you can learn this by using plenty of free time you have or this time at home. And again there are so many online courses (both free and paid), articles and books available for you. You just need to decide and take that first step.

Start a side hustle

This one is my personal favourite; Because I am working from home and this is something that help me execute different business ideas and earn some income from it. My main profession is Software Engineering. But, I am blogging, vlogging, sharing information on social media (this one is also an item in our list), trading forex and just started an online retail website. If I can do these many things why can’t you or anybody else do this?   So don’t sit idle or waste your time in other things, start working for your dreams and goals.

Start a new hobby

Learn a new skill or build a side hustle are both good options and choices. But, these will stress you out sometime and you might start feeling too overwhelm that you will quit. But, finding and following a hobby helps you relieve that stress, and helps you put your skill learning and side hustle on side for a while. So find something light and meaningful that will help you feeling relax and keep you distract for a while.

Read books and articles

I have intentionally suggested only books and articles for two reasons. 1. Books are great source of information and wisdom. Each book has something meaningful hidden in it. You just need to read and find that hidden gem that will help you learn something for good. 2. Articles are another source of information and wisdom. By articles and blogs I mean something useful and meaningful, it can be related to your profession, side hustle, hobby, personal and business development, etc. You can always search online or ask someone to recommend a good book to read and blog to follow. But, final decision should be yours and it should be based upon one single agenda. That’s to learn something new and meaningful.

Start a Blog, Vlog or Social Media Page

When you start a side hustle or read books and articles. You will find one thing very common in these. That’s Knowledge and wisdom. In this world, of easily available online information and fast internet, everyone has something to share and teach. Many successful writers, bloggers, vloggers and social media influencers are actually sharing information they read or experience. Many best-selling books are biographies or how to guides. Those are ways to share their own experience and side hustles with others. Many good social media personalities and accounts/pages are just sharing their own stories or information that they find or read somewhere else.

Complete that long awaited project

I just recreated this website and blog this weekend. Although, this is still work in progress. But, this project was on hold for almost two years. I was just using Blogger platform to host my blogs, which looked horrible and not so user and mobile friendly, considering I have built much better blogs and websites for my clients and my own projects. But, I was so lazy and didn’t have time and motivation for this. So I just started working on this 3 days ago to kill time and finally migrated from Blogger. Another project I started and completed recently is of my online eCommerce website. That one is also still in progress but it was on hold since I quit my job in June 2017. Damn almost three years. So you should also have one or two business ideas or projects on hold that you can start to meaningfully use your time.

Spend time with Family and Friends

Last but not the least. And also another option other than starting a new hobby for relaxing and meaningfully use your time is to spend time with family and friends.

I don’t recommend hanging out or partying. Because, situation is not good.

But, we can spend time with family at home and friends online. Play games with kids, teach and educate them your traditions, religion and life experiences.

Remember this

Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.

Theophrastus

See you later.

Stay at home and stay safe.

Allah Hafiz