How To Enjoy Free Time Without Thinking About Work

Many people do not know how to disconnect from work. Guilt for focusing their attention elsewhere overwhelms them.

Although it may seem strange, some people suffer when they are on vacation or during the weekends. Do you also find it difficult to disconnect your mind from work and enjoy your free time ? Here we will tell you how you can clear your mind of work obligations and live your life!

Do you enjoy your free time?

While it is true that we must do what we are passionate about and be happy with our work, we must not abuse it. Simply because it saturates us and prevents us, in the medium and long term, from focusing our attention on other issues.

Today, we are so absorbed with problems and obligations that, even when we are on a paradise island, we think about the office, the accounts, the paperwork, the tasks to be done, and so on.

Enjoying free time is not a whim.  It is something normal and absolutely necessary in human life. Beyond sleeping at night or not working during the weekend, it is very important to be able to enjoy periods of rest.

As much as we love what we do (work or professionally speaking), work involves a very high mental or physical wear (or both) that affects our well-being and health.

Responsibilities, obligations, schedules full of tasks and pressures make the backpack we carry on our backs heavier every day. That stress should be reduced with a good dose of rest and relaxation.

We should avoid filling our agendas with additional work-related activities as this does not benefit us at all.

Learn to stop

We must learn when and how to stop. We cannot always be active. Rest is necessary even when we think we don’t need it.

It is true that we want to make the most of everything and use free hours to do everything. From exercise, meeting friends, shopping, even going to the doctor. But we need to make a stop, for our health both physical and mental.

Free time, as the name implies, should be “free” from any stressor and used to:

• To rest.
• Recreate ourselves.
• Relax.
• Relieve stress.

Warning signs

If during your free time you only think about work, you feel guilty about resting instead of working or you think you should do something more productive with your life, instead of lying on the couch for a few minutes to watch television, then you may have a work addiction problem.

Stop for a moment and think: it is better to have a good rest to be able to perform better than not to rest and reach total exhaustion.

Tips for enjoying free time

Our work usually occupies a large part of our time and therefore it is often difficult to stop thinking about it.

Achieving total disconnection can be a difficult mission but we must not give up for that. Here are some tips to enjoy your free time without thinking about obligations.

1. Perform different tasks in leisure hours

This means that if, for example, our employment includes spending hours in front of a computer, in our free time we should carry out activities that do not have to do with computing. These activities can be: exercising, reading a book or magazine, walking outdoors, and so on.

2. Differentiate between work and leisure spaces

This tip is especially useful for those who work from home. Try to create an exclusive corner for your work activity and avoid spending time there when you are not working.

You can also work from a coffee shop or outdoor space a few times a week and even rent a coworking space. In this way, you will make physical divisions  between work, rest and recreation.

3. Choose tasks that we like for free time

If in the hours that we do not work we only comply with unpleasant activities, we will never have a truly good time.

Certainly we should take the opportunity to go to the dentist or do the shopping, but we could also use this time to do the activities that satisfy us the most. Play with our children, paint a picture, take care of plants, and so on.

4. Put your phone aside

So difficult but so necessary! We certainly do not enjoy our surroundings when we are staring at a screen. Especially if we pay attention to labor issues. If you go to the park, to a dinner or to the beach, put your phone away  and enjoy the scenery, the company or the moment.

Enjoy your free time without guilt. Life is finite and as such, we should take advantage of every moment to be happy and share time with the people we love.