Productive Activities For a Spare Minute
When you have some spare time or get bored with what you’ve been doing, switch activities and spend this time productively! Doing something simple that requires less effort and engages you emotionally will help you rest and achieve better results all in all!
Collabio Spaces is here to share the best top 20 activities that will allow you to make the most of every spare minute. So, how to be more productive in life?
1. Start or Fill Your Journal
We’ve already covered the positive effect of journaling and shared tips on how to benefit from this activity. So, if you have five minutes to focus on your experience and write down the lessons learned, do that! This is one of the ways to be more productive.
No matter whether you use a paper notebook or an app such as Collabio Spaces — you can always open your personal journal to get extra motivation or outline mistakes to fix in the future.
2. Read Articles About Lifehacks
There are many blogs with useful lifehacks — simple and unobtrusive reading material that will definitely come in handy in the future. Choose from articles about productivity, cooking, upgrade of professional skills, hobbies and so on.
Among the best web resources that we recommend are The Lifehack which is a broad source of information on almost any topic, Dumb Little Man (by the way, we have already collaborated with this blog on this article about setting up a productivity space), MakeUseOf on use of technology.
3. Watch Useful Videos
TED Talks as it is a huge deposit of useful information from the best experts in the world. Choose topics, languages and duration of videos and start watching and learning how to be more productive in life!
Here is an example of an inspiring speech called “Why you should treat the tech you use at work like a colleague”. It is about your collaboration with technology! Yeah, it is totally our favorite topic! :D
YouTube offers plenty of interesting videos on any topic:
- professional knowledge, skills and best practices in any field,
- how to videos,
- hobbies,
- workouts,
- office lifehacks,
- psychology advise,
- and others.
Did you know that experts in different fields and online schools hold their on-airs on Instagram? Find an expert whose work inspires you, subscribe to their updates and wait for the newest info from the field!
4. Listen to Podcasts
Don’t have time to watch videos? Podcasts about how to be more productive in life are your best fit!
Here is our top list of great productivity podcasts:
- Beyond the To-Do List is hosted by Eric Fisher and offers a great variety of episodes on productivity hacks to choose from.
- The Tim Ferris Show, the author of The 4-Hour Workweek, speaks about every chance to get more while doing less.
- David Allen’s Getting Things Done 2-minute tips won’t take much time, but you will learn a lot from them!
5. Find New Skills You Would Like to Master
Got a free minute and can’t find anything to innovate in your field? May be you would like to learn something brand new!
If you have always wanted to learn how to cook the best lasagna in the world or to speak Chinese, maybe it’s time to make an effort? Analyse what you need to start and read about others’ experiences to get inspired. In any case, you are on the right path!
6. Review Your To-Do List or To-Buy List
If you’re tired of working on everyday tasks, take a break and think of simpler things. For example, update your to-do list:
- remove the things you’ve done,
- update the deadlines,
- add new tasks,
- and don’t forget to plan your breaks!
If you want to completely forget about your workday for several minutes, think of what you would want to pamper yourself with and create a short to-buy list. For example, write down what you wish to have for dinner. Maybe, a piece of cheesecake with lemonade or a chocolate bar with wine? :)
7. Clean Your Desktop
Want to get things in the order? Start with your desktop. The first things you see at work — your working table and the home screen of your computer. If it is cluttered, you get tired just from looking at it!
Remove everything that wasn’t in use for a week or more from the table. It’ll be more convenient to search for office tools if they are not covered by old paper documents, notebooks from 2017 and ink-free pens.
Do the same with your digital desktop. Keep only those shortcuts and files that you use often. Another simple hack — create a folder named for example ‘Desktop. Nov-20’ and move everything to it. Your shortcuts will still be there when you need them!
8. Organise Files and Folders on Your Laptop or PC
Moving and grouping digital documents don’t require much effort if you already know the right places for every file. This is also one of great ways to be more productive.
It is more complicated if you don’t have an idea of how to organise them. In this case, we highly recommend to check out this article. It will help you to set your online and offline productivity spaces! We bet that your desktop will look its best afterwards!
9. De-Clutter Your Inbox
Sometimes we can have a true chaos in our e-mail inbox that keep us away from being productive. So, if you need a change of activity and not overload your brain, try to sort your incoming messages and clean the inbox.
Be careful not to erase too swiftly! Among all these advertising announcements may be a potential partnership inquiry! ;)
10. Unsubscribe from Unnecessary Newsletters
As for adverts, unsubscribe from everything you don’t need! We usually delete such items from the inbox and forget about them for a day or two, before new ones are delivered.
Stop this! Clicking just one button at the end of every email will free you from this reoccurring necessity. This activity doesn’t require much thinking, so your brain can just relax.
11. Update the List of Upcoming Meetings
This is similar to updating your to-do list. We meet with dozens of people (even online!) every day. Colleagues, partners, friends, relatives, neighbours… If you are planning to see someone, create an event in the calendar not to forget about it. Also, you will be able to see how much spare time you have!
12. Delegate Tasks
Too many responsibilities at work, and this keeps you away from being productive? The deadlines are coming closer and you are feeling that you need 28 hours in a day to cope with that load? Think on it, set priorities and delegate something to your teammates or other departments.
Don’t be shy to tell others about your problems, talk to your manager and you’ll find an alternative solution. All in all, you are not alone — your team is always happy to help!
13. Network and Communicate
Spare time is a great moment to chat. Escape the screen and let your eyes relax. To talk to a colleague while having a cup of coffee is a brilliant idea. People share ideas, inspire and motivate — so why not to use such a fruitful resource? ;)
Also, if you are not against spending some time networking on socials, go to LinkedIn and find people you’d like to connect to. By the way, we’ve covered this topic in our article “6 Ways Technology Contributes to Your Productivity Every Day”, in its Networking section. Grab these tips and start establishing new connections without hard work while being productive!
14. Set Your Goals for the Next Year
The end of the year is an ideal time to draw conclusions and set goals for the next year to come. Did you achieve everything you planned for this year? If yes, you’re awesome! Go ahead and think of goals for 2021! If not, use a spare minute or two to think of what stood in your way and if you want to carry that goal to the next year or to ditch it completely — that is also OK!
We are sure that next year will be much more pleasant for everyone and we ourselves can make it even better! Create a short list of your goals and plans. It’s time to dive into your dreams and imagine what the next one will be… A new business project? A new position at work? Financial bonuses? And what about your personal plans? Write them down — this will help to make an almost physical imprint in the memory, so you will always subconsciously remember the goals, even if you do not do it purposefully.
15. Meditate or Do Exercises
Active exercise before work and physical relaxation after it — an excellent solution for both office and remote workers. The first will give you a boost of energy and wake you up. The latter will clear your mind and reboot the attention.
Also, if you are bored or tired, 5 minutes of exercise will help you not to fall asleep at the workplace. ;)
16. Get Motivated
This is not only for motivational speakers. By the way, those motivational speeches don’t work for some of us while others find them super inspiring. Still, motivation can be found everywhere, if you set a favorable environment for it:
- Turn on your favorite music
- Get into a comfortable position
- Look for cat memes on your Facebook feed. :)
The last one was a joke, of course, but what helps is to visit websites with inspiring visuals, like Pinterest. There are tons of images with quotes, useful information, drawings. Better set up a timer, as the feed suggests similar options and you can surf the website eternally.
17. Create a Useful Post on Socials
Much have been said about consuming useful information, but what about trying yourself in the role of its creator?
Collect thoughts that you could share with others. What will be useful for your followers and friends? Perhaps an experience from your work or recommendations of a new hobby. Everyone has expertise in something, so why not share yours with others?
The post does not have to be a longread, sometimes a few lines are enough to fit the meaning an bring value.
When your post will start to collect likes, it will be an additional motivation for you!
18. Start Your Own Blog or Vlog
Have more thoughts about being productive to share? Wonderful! Posting something in your own written or video blog can serve you well in the long run:
- You’ll have all brilliant ideas in one place and can search among them.
- You can build your online reputation as a professional in your field.
- In your CV you can add links to your blogs, when you are looking for a new job.
19. Leave Reviews
We use productivity apps, services, products and other the repeatedly throughout the day. However, not always we share our opinions about them. And commonly people share negative feedback more often than they express their support. This is a good time to think of the businesses, whose services you use and give them some support in a form of an overview of what you enjoy about their services and what they could do better. If you are still hesitant, think of this:
- First of all, other people will have more information to base their decisions on.
- Secondly, managers will know what you like and what to improve. So, you can influence your experience and even the price you pay!
By the way, we at Collabio Spaces, are always happy to receive any feedback. So, if you have tried our app, we’ll be grateful for a couple of words! Also, you can get a trial version to test the app before subscribing! ;)
20. Call Your Relatives and Friends
To finish our article on a positive note, we recommend you to reach out to people you love — in writing, by phone or video. This can never be boring or exhausting and will fill you with bright emotions and warm feelings!
People are the most valuable part of our lives, just keep it in mind and when you have a free minute, don’t be lazy to text someone who means much to you.
BONUS
Books Are Never Forgotten!
Reading a book is one of the best things to do when you have a break from work or free time before going to sleep. This is especially good activity for long winter evenings. When you stare at the phone’s screen that emits blue color, that artificial ligh makes your brain think it is still a daytime. That can make it more difficult for you to fall asleep later. Read a paper book and don’t worry about possible insomnia and the book plot might continue in a restful and sound sleep.
Now it’s up to you to choose what to do when you’ll have your next spare minute or just get bored at work! Also, if you have any story on how to be more productive in life or what you usually do during breaks, feel free to share your experience in the comments! ;)
