“It’s what you do in your free time that will set you free—or enslave you.”

Jarod Kintz

 I “people watch”, a lot.  I used to do it as for a living, well, sort of.  As a federal agent, charged with protecting some of the highest office holders in the country, “people watching” was a staple.  It’s called counter-surveillance, in that profession’s jargon, watching to see who’s watching.  Over the course of years, participating in that activity, one’s level of awareness of human behavior rises to a level, that somedays, you wish it wasn’t.

I’m not an expert, and don’t pretend to be one on TV, but I have observed some consistencies in our species.  What people waste their free time on, waste their life on.  What people invest their free time in, reap reciprocal benefits and rewards.  Whether or not you are “wasting” time or “investing” time, is easy to determine based on what results you are getting in life.  I’m not the “free time police” and I don’t want to be.  We all “waste” a certain amount of time, now and then.  I don’t judge people, but I do recognize that bad habits produce bad results, and good habits produce good results.

I use this filter whenever I’m deciding if I’m “investing” time or “wasting” it: “Will this activity produce a return on time invested or is it a drain on my resources?”

Example:  Going to Vegas or Atlantic City to play in the casinos.  The odds are tilted in the house’s favor, no matter how good you are, and since I’m not that good, it would have to be either a “waste” of time, or purely entertainment at a set budget of a few hours.

Example:  I gave up golf in high school, realizing the amount of time I would have to spend just to be average would never produce a return on that investment.  (If you love golf, I’m not judging you, many of my friends do, but calculate the hours per week you put into it and ask yourself, what is my return on the time invested.  If your health and stress levels are immensely better by playing those amount of hours than that’s a return. You might assess if you can play fewer hours and still get the same benefits.  No matter how many hours you are putting in,  if you’re still overweight or stressed out, you might want to rethink golf and switch to a different activity.)

It all comes down to this: Time is finite for each of us.  They make more money everyday; there is only produced, in each of our lives, 24 hours everyday.  I budget my free time like nobody’s business, because it is nobody’s business, it’s my business, and I run that business like a multi-billion dollar corporation.  Ask yourself, “How do I run mine? When was that last time I audited the books? What is my return on investment from doing this activity?”

Boo Yah!