How you spend your time?

How do I spend my free time- I am a single empty nester so all of my time…is my time. I love scrapbooking and currently am on a home project kick doing all the things. I am busy. I also love karaoke.
Do I engage in activities that I think are a waste of time-yes. TV watching to me, is a waste of time. However I love and do it often haha!
Do I feel pulled to change the way I spend my time-I used to. I have changed my thoughts about this and no longer feel the pull or judgment to change. I do what makes me happy.
Was i raised in a particular environment-yes. Similar to yours jeremysgirl. We had to be productive all the time. We had to schedule every minute of our day. We had to be the best at everything we did, or, we might as well not be doing it. Nothing was just for pure enjoyment. This absolutely impacted the way I used to feel about my free time.
Does my current life situation dictate how i spend my time- oh yes. I work a lot. I work a rotating days off schedule 12 hour shifts. I manage my chronic illness (RA) and keep up relationships with my adult children. All these things have to come before any “free time” choices I make.

I spend my free time reading, thrift shopping, internet surfing and watching my shows on TV.

I go to scrapbook as often as I can as well.

My non free time I care for my 3 year old DGD. I retired to do that. She has a one month old sister now and in fall I may be watching both.

I often take DGD to lunch and we go iceskate together and I take her to art class.

My boys are grown, done with college and on their own for the most part. It is just husband and me.

How do you spend your free time?

 My free time is spent on social media, watching tv with DH, scrapbooking, reading, and exercising. Also, DH and I do things together, go out to dinner, go to the movies, and recently we have been taking dance lessons.

Do you engage in things that you think are a waste of time? 

  Ehh, sometimes.  I need to exercise more and after work I can waste time sitting on the couch internet surfing instead of working out. I need to break that habit. Wasting time to me means that I’m neglecting things that I want to make high priority to do low priority things. That said, I try not to put too much stress on myself by making everything high priority. Currently, high priority items for me are my health and my relationship with my husband. So, that means today I got my workout in this morning and this afternoon I feel free to do what I want. I’m squeezing in some household stuff like laundry, but for the most part I’m going to relax.

Do you feel pulled to change how you spend your time? Are you content with it?

Some, as I said before I need to make fitness more of a priority. When it gets warmer I want to spend more time outside with DH being active. Otherwise, no I don’t feel I need to change what I do in my free time. I don’t feel guilt for taking time to do things I enjoy. 

Do your current life circumstances dictate how you spend your free time?

Definitely, we are empty nesters for the most part. DS is away at college finishing his last semester. DH and I both work full time. I work 4 days a week, up at 5 am and home usually around 5-6pm. Work days my free time is more limited. DH and I usually eat dinner and then watch tv until I go to bed around 9-9:30. If I stay up later it’s difficult for me to get up. I know I function better on 8 hours of sleep so I make it a priority. DH is working from home most days and he likes to spend time together in the evenings. 

Basically I thought we could have a discussion about how you feel about your free time? Do you find it productive? How much of it do you actually have outside of work, sleep, and family activities?


Im good with how I spend my free time usually. I’m not always as productive as I could be, but I don’t stress over it. I wish I had more free time on my work days, but on my days off I have a good amount.

I think that at this stage of my life I am spending more time deciding what my priorities are and trying to structure my life around them. DH and I like to travel, so I spend a good bit of my internet time looking at travel stuff and planning trips. I also make time to friend relationships. I have lunch at least once a month with a friend and we go to scrapbook retreats twice a year. I love that time away and would never consider it a waste of time. 

 Great conversation and topic, jeremysgirl. I have enjoyed reading everyone’s posts. Also, I don’t judge how others spend their free time. You do you!

Crap I can’t figure out how to trim this, but yes TNR is trap fix and release cats. I also vaccinate and de parasite. It’s so rewarding! I have a yard full of cats and I love being the crazy cat lady 😂

TNR is trap/neuter spay/release.  Done on ferals/colony cats to reduce the surplus kitty population.

I am turning 65 in May and retiring in 36 days.  If I am at home, I read, watch tv, stamp, play with the cat, clean, cross stitch, waste time on the Interwebz. If I am not at home I am at the barn with my horse.  I am taking the summer off (the summer of George!) then hopefully can work at the barn 10 hours a week to pay board.  I am single no kids.  If I want to spend my retirement watching bad tv and eating potato chips, that's what I will do.  I have been a productive member of society via working 41 years and feel no obligation to do anything else.  

Now that I am home during covid, this is how I feel. Leaving the scantuary of my house just ruins the whole day for me. I REALLY try to combine trips out now.

Same to all of it, but especially the part I bolded! I feel ya!!

What a wonderful life! What a wonderful attitude! If someone doesn't like the way you live, they're not your sort anyway, even if they're your sister.

How do you spend your free time?
Any way I please. I left my career and only worked part time at "mommy jobs" after my kids were born. I raised 4 kids and had a husband with a very high pressure job. I held the whole $#it-show together with housework, carpools, homework, PTO, fundraisers, sports. It was a privilege to be able to handle it all without a full time job, but I still never felt I got everything done right and had no time to myself.

Now we're empty nesters, retired, and we moved back home to Florida. My best friend died just after we moved back down here, and she left me a ton of her art supplies. I paint almost every day understanding that I may never be good at it, but I love it.

Do you engage in activities you think are a waste of time?

Every minute I spend cleaning or doing laundry. Necessary evils, but life is short and there's a lot of world to see!

What does that term mean to you?

It means time spent doing something that doesn't make you happy.

Do you feel pulled to change how you spend your time?

Not a chance. When my husband retired, he went from a wound up, type A to a loving, laid back guy who wears Hawaiian shirts, takes naps, and tells everyone who will listen how great his life is. I could never have predicted that. We live in a wonderful little town. I am president of a non-profit organization who does community service so I'm surrounded by smart, caring women who want to make a difference. It takes a lot of my time, but I get a chance to use skills that were dormant when my kids were growing up. I could spend a little less time on social media, but apart from that, it's wonderful.

Are you content with it?

Our life is magical! We go where we want, when we want. We visit our kids who are spread all over and spend time with friends in similar circumstances. After years in harness, we're very grateful for our life.

Were you raised in a particular environment that impacts how you spend your time? 

I was raised in a chaotic household where there was always a lot of anger and tension. I sought solace in schoolwork, music, and extracurriculars rather than drugs and alcohol like my siblings. As long as I was in by curfew, nobody gave a rat's @$$ what I did. They had bigger things to worry about.

Do your current life circumstances dictate how you spend your free time?

Yes. I live in a community with great weather and a lot of opportunities for recreation. We go to concerts and theater, we boat, we see friends, we just spend time together doing nothing. If I have any complaints, it's that we go to happy hour too often. 

Do you find it productive?

Apart from the time I spend on my non-profit, not at all and I'm fine with that. 

How much of it do you actually have outside of work, sleep, and family activities?

All my waking hours.


Are you judgmental of the way others spend their time even in cases where it doesn't directly impact you?

I couldn't be bothered to judge how someone spends their time. None of my business as long as they're not harming anyone.

both of these statements resonate with me. I agree- I have never been a 'high-energy' person... if I'm doing something I LOVE, like gardening, then I will spend a lot of time doing it, but I am not a 'rush around and get things done all the time' person with my free time. (I'm a procrastinator so I do have to rush around sometimes, though.)

I'm not sure how I would define 'waste of time' for myself. If it's something I like doing, then it's NOT time wasted in my opinion. It might seem like time 'wasted' to another person, but I don't care about their opinions, so... lol.  I don't consider running errands, taking care of the pets, cooking dinner, etc. my 'own' activities, We both work quite a ways away from home- both of our commmutes are 1 hr+ one way, so we don't have a lot of time in the evenings.  I guess I would say I only have a couple hours every weekday evening (at the most) that are 'free' hours... We typically watch a program on television, and I do something else while we watch- I will surf the internet, read a book, or lately I've been cross-stitching.  Once it gets more consistently nice weather outside, I will probably spend at least part of those couple hours of free time outside weeding, planting flowers, etc.

I am a horrible housekeeper, and I hate coming up with a meal idea every evening... currently, the major housekeeping that gets done is mostly done by my DH.  I can't *WAIT* until I can retire so I can spend all day long every day doing what I want-- I would much rather even do *task* type activities when there's more time to devote to them.

ETA:  I will say that some of my current attitudes were formed by my childhood-  EVERY Saturday morning was spent cleaning the house, doing laundry, and grocery shopping.   My mom even still scrubbed the kitchen floor (in the 1970s) on her hands and knees...  I think my aversion to housework is a reaction to that.  

ETA2:  both myself and DH are introverts so we don't feel the *need* to be social very often, and with the three dogs, we can't just go places away from home whenever we want.  

crimsoncat05

If you really dislike meal planning (& I think many people do), why not consider making up a 1- or 2-month rotation based on your previous menus? Life is too short to spend lots of time on a repetitive task that's avoidable if you don't enjoy it. Makes the grocery shopping list easy, too--just repeat, adding any staples or household items you've depleted. HTH

I'm kind of in the same place, adjusting to empty nesting and being a single parent for a lot of years so I was always scheduled from wakeup until bedtime and free time was spent with the kids doing outings or movie nights, or whatever. I work from home for myself so sometimes when DH works out of town there isn't anyone expecting anything of me from Monday morning until Friday evening. I have some chronic pain and health issues and I find it really hard to work from a schedule and I almost feel guilty if i'm not working or cleaning, or doing something productive.

I usually work 4-6 hours throughout the day, in 30-45 minute time frames. When I'm not working I make sure to work out (either yoga or a workout on youtube and I always do two workouts on the VR headset and practice doing headstands), I make sure there aren't any dishes before bed, take the trash out, and tidy the main living area so that I wake up to a fresh space. I feed and walk the dogs everyday, throughout the day and I make at least one meal for myself. I tidy up and wipe down another area each day and make sure I talk to my dad and dh on the phone. If there is anything that must be done, i write it down the night before and I refuse to feel guilty for not doing anything other than my bare minimum some days.

Some days I lay around and binge netflix for hours, I take care of my houseplants, I organize things in the house if they're making me crazy, sometimes I try new recipes. I sit on the patio and people watch a lot and I take the dogs on extra long walks to look at street murals. I take long baths and read books, play solitaire, scroll tik tok, play with the dogs, try weird shit from pinterest, whatever I feel like doing.

I'm over being busy, it's just not my jam.