17 Productive Things to do with your Free Time

The Benefits of Not Watching TV

In this video, the speaker discusses the benefits of not watching TV and provides 17 alternative activities to do instead.

Alternative Activities to Watching TV

• Learning a new language, writing a blog post or reading a book can help one grow more than watching TV.

• Taking an online class is one of the best inventions of the internet. Resources like Khan Academy, edX, CosmoLearning and Coursera offer many courses from top universities for free.

• Creating a website is a great place to practice writing and consolidating information. It's also a good way to get your face on the internet and use it as your resume.

• Starting a YouTube channel can change one's life. It's easy to create content about whatever interests you.

Physical Activities

• Going for a walk or run outside is great exercise and can clear your mind.

• Doing yoga or stretching can help with flexibility and relaxation.

• Playing sports with friends or joining an intramural league is fun and social.

Creative Activities

• Painting or drawing can be therapeutic and allow for self-expression.

• Playing an instrument or singing can be enjoyable and improve musical skills.

• Cooking or baking something new can be rewarding and delicious.

Social Activities

• Volunteering at a local organization helps others while also providing personal fulfillment.

• Meeting up with friends for coffee or dinner allows for socialization without relying on technology.

• Joining clubs or groups based on personal interests can lead to new friendships and experiences.

Productive Activities

• Cleaning or organizing one's living space can improve mental clarity and productivity.

• Planning out goals and creating a schedule can help with time management and achieving success.

• Learning a new skill, such as coding or graphic design, can be useful for personal growth and career advancement.

Conclusion

• Watching TV is not necessarily bad, but it's important to consider alternative activities that can provide more personal growth and fulfillment.

Building a Website

In this section, the speaker talks about the benefits of having a website and what he has included on his own website.

Benefits of Having a Website

• A website provides a place for fans or potential employers to learn more about you in an organized and creative way.

• The speaker's website gets around 10K visitors per month, which is good but doesn't generate much income.

Sections of the Speaker's Website

• The About Me section provides information about who the speaker is and what he does. It serves as his Home page.

• The Resource section includes information about the YouTube gear he uses, books he likes to read, and other related topics.

• The Article section contains articles associated with each YouTube video as well as book notes on books he has recently read.

Meditation

In this section, the speaker discusses how meditation has changed his life and provides tips for starting a meditation practice.

Benefits of Meditation

• Meditation has helped the speaker manage stressful situations by changing how he thinks.

Tips for Starting a Meditation Practice

• Set a timer on your phone for five to 20 minutes when you first wake up in the morning to meditate.

• Use Insight Timer, which is a free meditation application that can be downloaded on your phone.

• Calm or Headspace are paid resources that provide good guidance and high-quality audio for meditation practices.

Hiking

In this section, the speaker talks about the benefits of spending time in nature and how hiking is a great way to get outside.

Benefits of Spending Time in Nature

• Spending time in nature has been associated with better feelings of well-being and lower probabilities of various health issues.

Tips for Hiking

• The journal Nature recommends at least 120 minutes of outside time per week, with a peak association at around 200 to 300 minutes.

• AllTrails is a good application for finding hiking trails near you. It includes rankings and reviews.

Cleaning Your Apartment

In this section, the speaker discusses how having a clean work environment can help improve focus and relaxation.

Tips for Cleaning Your Apartment

• Spend about 15 minutes before bed every night cleaning up your apartment so that you wake up to a clean space.

• Check out "The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up" book or online resources for tips on cleaning up your place.

Cooking Something Great

In this section, the speaker talks about the benefits of cooking and encourages viewers to try it out.

Benefits of Cooking

• Cooking saves money, makes tastier and healthier food, improves quality of life, and can also improve the quality of life for those around you.

Note that there was no timestamp provided for this section in the transcript

Cooking and Dreamlining

In this section, Zach discusses his favorite sources for free internet recipes and cookbooks. He also shares two of his favorite healthy recipes that he cooks every week. Additionally, he talks about the dreamlining exercise, which is a way to figure out your dream life.

Cooking

• Zach recommends Binging with Babish, Serious Eats, Budget Bytes, and Allrecipes as great sources for free internet recipes.

• He likes the "Cooking for Two" cookbook and the Wagamama Restaurant Cookbook recipe book.

• Zach's two favorite recipes are a chicken stir fry recipe and a vegetable curry recipe. Both are healthy and reheat well.

Dreamlining Exercise

• The dreamlining exercise helps you figure out your ideal life by outlining things you want to have, things you want to be doing, and things you want to be.

• It takes anywhere from one to five hours but can have life-changing effects.

• Tim Ferris and Spartan Traveler offer detailed guides on how to do the exercise.

Writing in a Journal

In this section, Zach talks about the benefits of writing in a journal.

• Writing in a journal can help with organization by helping prioritize tasks.

• It can also serve as a brain dump for anything stressing you out or just thoughts that come up during the day.

• Writing down what you're grateful for can help shift focus towards positive aspects of life.

• Reading old entries can provide nostalgia and insight into past thoughts.

Learning to Code and Doing Yoga

In this section, the speaker talks about how coding has helped her in designing her website and recommends freeCodeCamp as a great resource for learning to code. She also suggests doing online yoga classes as an alternative to watching TV.

Learning to Code with FreeCodeCamp

• The speaker was surprised by how much coding comes into play when creating a website or figuring things out on the internet.

• She uses coding mostly for designing her website and setting up her email newsletter.

• FreeCodeCamp is the best resource she has found for web development in the beginning.

• The website offers little challenges and exercises which help her learn better than just watching someone lecture or talk through code.

Doing Online Yoga Classes

• Instead of watching TV, the speaker suggests doing an online yoga class or any exercise class.

• Doing something is a hundred times better than doing nothing.

• She recommends two of her favorite power yoga courses, one 60-minute course and another 30-minute course by Travis.

• Fitness Blender is another good application that offers free HIIT workouts.

Becoming a Tourist Wherever You Live

In this section, the speaker encourages viewers to become tourists wherever they live by exploring their city's tourist attractions.

Exploring Your City Like a Tourist

• Leaving your apartment or house and walking around is one way to explore your city like a tourist.

• Looking at resources on the internet such as Time Out can help you find what tourists do around where you live.

• Time Out is probably the best resource because it also lists events happening at certain times of year.

• Other good resources include TripAdvisor and Earth Trekker.

Organizing Your Computer and Email

In this section, the speaker shares tips on how to organize your computer and email for better productivity.

Organizing Your Email

• The speaker is an Inbox zero person but getting there was not easy.

• She recommends deleting everything that is a year or more old and then going through every single email before then, categorizing and deleting things that are not needed in the inbox.

• Having a small inbox helps with organization since emails are one of the primary ways we communicate nowadays.

• She will link a couple of good guides to actually going through this process.

Organizing Your Mac

• For organizing her Mac, she goes to the Apple icon on the top-left, About This Mac, Storage, Manage.

• She looks at Documents on the left and deletes anything that seems unnecessary or hasn't been opened in the past year.

• She checks her Downloads folder and deletes or moves any files. There should be nothing in that Downloads folder after that.

• She organizes everything under three major categories: personal, school or YouTube. And then has sub-categories within those files.

Playing an Instrument

In this section, the speaker suggests playing an instrument instead of watching TV. He explains that playing an instrument can improve creative skills and cognitive functioning.

Benefits of Playing an Instrument

• Playing an instrument can improve creative skills and cognitive functioning.

• Studies show that we should know what's going on about 85% of the time while playing an instrument. The remaining 15% should be challenging.

• The speaker recommends JustinGuitar and YouTube as great resources for learning to play guitar.

Update Your Finances

In this section, the speaker advises viewers to update their finances regularly to get a general sense of how much they are spending, where they are spending money, and what their income is.

Managing Personal Finances

• Get a general sense of where your money is going by tracking your expenses.

• If you have a personal business or any business, it may make sense to check your finances more frequently.

• Excel is a useful tool for managing personal finances. QuickBooks is recommended for managing business finances.

Create a Reading Stream

In this section, the speaker suggests creating a reading stream by following blogs written by smart people who post their thoughts and ideas on the internet for free.

Recommended Blogs

• Some of the smartest people on the internet post their thoughts and ideas on blogs completely for free.

• Be careful not to accumulate too many blogs or posts that you end up not reading.

• The speaker recommends Nat Eliason's, Ali Abdaal's, and Seth Godin's newsletters, as well as Zen Habits, Derek Sivers, Oliver Emberton, Get Rich Slowly, cdixon, Mark Manson, Paul Graham's essays, Sam Altman, The Technium, Wait But Why and Wise Bread blogs.

Read Instead of Watching TV

In this section, the speaker suggests reading instead of watching TV. He explains that reading improves writing ability, critical thinking ability, focus and communication skills.

Benefits of Reading

• Reading improves writing ability, critical thinking ability, focus and communication skills.

• The speaker reads for about 30 minutes to one hour before bed every night and spends at least one long morning on weekends reading.

• He reads one non-fiction book and one fiction book. If a book bores him or he doesn't like it he stops reading it.

How to Develop a Reading Habit

In this section, the speaker shares tips on how to develop a reading habit.

Start with Fun Books

• Start by reading books that you are interested in.

• Read fun books like "Red Rising" series, "Mistborn" trilogy, and "Harry Potter" books to get started.

Introduce Non-Fiction Books

• Once you have developed a reading habit, start introducing non-fiction and learning books.

• Always keep a fun fiction book going on in the background for enjoyment.

Use Shortform Application for Book Summaries

• Shortform is an application that provides the best book summaries on the internet.

• The summaries are well-made and organized.

• Shortform has very detailed descriptions of every single section of the book.

• Use Shortform to solidify learning and retention of a book's information after reading it.

Try Shortform for Free

• Check out Shortform completely free for five days using Zach's special link shortform.com/zach (with an H not K).

• Get 20% discount on an annual subscription.

Conclusion

In this section, the speaker concludes the video and thanks viewers for watching.

End of Video

• Thank viewers for watching.