I need to always commit to filling “free time” with valued activities.
Now, I don’t mean “free time” like, any time I have that doesn’t have some scheduled activity or where I’m home or not working or anything. I’m referring to periods of time where I could be doing something but my options are very limited, such as when I’m driving a car.
These are times when I have a choice between doing something productive such as listening to Spanish lessons and educational audio-books, something mindlessly entertaining like listening to the radio, or nothing at all.
As a quick side-note: while writing this, I realized that I should be filling ALL of my time, without qualification, on things I value. That could be a whole other blog post but it’s actually more profound of a thought than I had originally imagined.
But for something like driving a car, it’s time where I’m already just sitting there doing nothing, and I could be productive. I could be learning and improving. And over the course of my life, I’m going to drive a lot most likely.
It’s worth mentioning here that I do not value mindless entertainment very highly. It’s extremely easy to access anywhere, anytime, it isn’t fulfilling, and barely does anything for me even in the short term. Therefor, it’s not something I should be doing a whole lot of.
While driving a car, I need to be doing valuable things. At the moment, that means learning Spanish. In the future, it could mean lots of other things.
I think there are a lot of these “free times” when I could be productive. Maybe I’m waiting for something to start or get done, I’m traveling, or I simply don’t have motivation to do anything else.
It’s worth noting, too, that I don’t think I need to have a high burden on myself for these things. I don’t need to necessarily commit to extreme attention and active listening. Attention and focus are limited resources, and if I always require 100%, I know I’m just not even going to do it.
But even having a Spanish disc on and passively listening to it is likely to be beneficial. At the very least, it will be much more beneficial than listening to the radio! So I need to do it.
I think that focusing heavily on this will have significant benefits long-term. Compared to most people who will never do anything productive while driving or in these other “free times,” I should be fairly far ahead of the curve.