Everyone gets 24 hours a day, but not everyone uses those 24 hours equally. How to use my daily leisure time more efficiently has been a long-standing concern of mine.

I've set short-term goals, long-term goals, adopted Pomodoro and GTD, used Gantt charts, created standard daily schedules, and even made weekly reports. I put a lot of "effort" into making the day entirely about "effort." Most attempts differed slightly, but they were mainly part of the process of finding a daily pattern that suited me.

As a developer, I filled most of my time—whether work hours or leisure time—solely with development-related activities. I think I tried quite hard. After over 13 years like this, something akin to burnout came knocking. As I got older and my responsibilities grew, the pressure unnecessarily increased.

For a while, I put down my mental burdens and thought a lot. Even now, seeing code adorned with various colors through syntax highlighting in a pretty font brings me great happiness that I'm doing this kind of work. However, after long deliberation, I decided to reduce the proportion of development-related things in my life and dedicate more time to other things I enjoy. But there were many things I wanted to do, and my leisure time was far too insufficient to do them all "well." After several short trial-and-error periods, I found my own way to utilize time, focusing on consistent execution without breaking the flow and rhythm, while alleviating the pressure.

A year has passed since then. Now, I'm quite fond of this method.

Available Leisure Time

Unfortunately, everyone only has 24 hours in a day. I pondered extensively on how to secure as much leisure time as possible within that short day. At one point, I tracked my commute routes for several months to find the most efficient one, and I even created six different daily schedules with 30-minute increments for waking times to find the optimal daily pattern. After various experiments, I realized that no matter how much I squeezed, the maximum leisure time a working father could secure per day was about 3 hours.

I excluded about an hour to an hour and a half for spending time with my child and resting. To get 3 hours of leisure time, I could use six hours a day for sleep. Initially, the goal was 5 hours and 30 minutes of sleep to secure 3 hours and 30 minutes of leisure time, but after several months of trial and error, I increased sleep time to 6 hours and reduced secured leisure time to three hours per day.

The things I wanted to do during my leisure time were development, writing, music, reading, meditation, and exercise. Reading was excluded from leisure time because I utilized commute time, and exercise was also excluded as I could do it during lunchtime at work. What remained were development, writing, music, and meditation. Although I secured three hours, I couldn't use all three hours entirely. No matter how I squeezed the time, it was insufficient to do everything I wanted "well."

The 25-Minute Rule

In his book "Novelist as a Vocation," Haruki Murakami mentions writing 20 manuscript pages a day and adds the following:

"Even if I want to write more, I stop right around 20 pages, and even if things aren't going well that day, I somehow push myself to write up to 20 pages. This is because, when doing long-term work, regularity holds significant meaning. Writing a lot when you can, riding the momentum, and resting when you can't – that doesn't create regularity."

Reading this significantly changed my thinking. Just running unconditionally isn't always good. Eventually, you get tired and collapse. I thought it was more important to place greater meaning on progressing gradually at my own rhythm, even if slowly, without breaking the flow.

Without hasty expectations for results, if I consistently and regularly do something I want to do well for at least 25 minutes a day, I will improve bit by bit. If it's productive work, it will somehow be helpful someday. The important thing isn't what the goal is or how much I've achieved, but that I'm continuing without breaking the flow.

I decided to consistently dedicate at least 25 minutes per day to each of the three areas during my leisure time: "Development," "Writing," and "Music."

The Realistic 25 Minutes

The initial goal was to do every category I wanted for at least 25 minutes each day. So, I invested a total of one and a half hours daily, 25 minutes each for development, writing, and music. The 5 minutes in between were used for short breaks or extensions. I usually woke up between 5:30 AM and 6:00 AM, completed my morning routine (stretching, shower, meditation, journaling, meal replacement shake, coffee), which took a little over an hour. Then I focused for about two hours from 7:00 AM to 8:30 AM and started getting ready for work from 8:30 AM. I read for at least 25 minutes during my commute (50 minutes round trip). Starting the day like this made my steps to work lighter and kept me in a good mood all day.

After some time, it seemed better to create a weekly plan for each category and utilize it flexibly rather than doing every category daily. This was because sessions usually exceeded the minimum 25 minutes, often going over an hour. So, I made a weekly plan that allowed me to 'train'(?) in just two categories per day. If I only did three categories for exactly 25 minutes each, it was either a day I didn't feel like doing anything, or a day I needed to fill in at least 25 minutes because I had missed a few days.

Current Weekly Plan

My current weekly goals for utilizing leisure time, refined through continuous adjustments, are as follows:

1. Exercise at least 4 times a week (40+ minutes per session).
2. Read a book at least 5 times a week (25+ minutes per session).
3. Meditate at least 5 times a week (20+ minutes per session).
4. Write at least 3 times a week (25+ minutes per session).
5. Code at least 4 times a week (25+ minutes per session).
6. Work on music at least 2 times a week (25+ minutes per session).
7. Practice piano at least 2 times a week (30+ minutes per session).
8. Play intently with Lime (my daughter) for at least one hour a day (This is the hardest).

Time is allocated differently based on priority. This plan allows me to pursue things I like and want to be good at using non-work hours, while still having about one weekday for rest that doesn't have to be productive. Only a maximum of one session per day counts towards the goal. Since the aim is to build habits and not break the flow, doing it twice in one day doesn't count as two sessions. (Living quite intensely, aren't I...). If I don't complete the weekly goals during the weekdays, I use the two weekend days to catch up.

If I complete the entire plan for the week, my reward is to rest mindlessly over the weekend. However, I usually end up spending a few hours on whatever went best that week or whatever I want to do more of. The morning routine, including meditation, is done daily unless something special comes up.

Results

I started this in August 2019, so it's already been a year using time this way. By adopting the mindset of "just try it, even if just a little," instead of only thinking about what I want to do, I've achieved some small but personally satisfying results considering it was done using leisure time.

• Writing: 1 thriller short story, 1 unfinished fantasy series, numerous blog posts.
• Music: 4 tracks fully mixed and mastered, numerous unfinished drafts.
• Piano: 4 textbooks completed, mastered several pieces including the Wedding March, Musetta's Waltz, Pachelbel's Canon.
• Reading: Completed 32 books as of August 2020 (excluding development books).
• Development: Developed a time management app (Cocoa FW version, Swift UI version, React version), developed a blog.

Listing them out, it doesn't seem like much.

At some point, I started wanting to write well. I'm just writing recklessly, even though it's amateurish. I've read many books on writing. Since I completed a thriller short story, maybe I can call myself an amateur novelist now? (Nope..). Nowadays, I mainly write blog posts. Only about one out of three gets published. The other two... I just can't bring myself to publish them.

Reading: Organizing this for the article revealed a surprisingly high number. Excluding development books, I used to read maybe two books a year, so I've improved a lot. I started reading more indiscriminately to improve my writing, but seeing the number makes me feel 괜히 (unnecessarily/kind of) proud. I'm reading books from various fields, mainly using RidiBooks.

Music, which I once had grand ambitions for, I intended to keep as a hobby and a meager talent, but I mostly just bought equipment sporadically and could hardly make time for it. I lost much of my touch. I hadn't properly made a single song in almost 8 years, but I achieved some meaningful results. If I keep at it, I think I can regain my old feel. Lately, I'm using the time mainly for copying songs to study trends.

I'm also steadily practicing the piano. I've finished the four textbooks I aimed for and am currently practicing the final piece, Pachelbel's Canon. I started piano as part of my musical activities, but if my daughter wants it someday, I'd like to play a Wedding March I arranged myself at her wedding. Maybe that's why I practiced the Wedding March the most.

The proportion of development in my leisure time has significantly decreased. In the development sphere, I created an app to manage the leisure time utilization method described in this post. It has features combining Pomodoro and time tracking apps. Initially, I developed it natively for iOS, considering the Apple Watch. I developed it using the Cocoa framework, then redeveloped it with Swift UI. Feeling that considering the Apple Watch wasn't necessary, I redeveloped it again using a React + Mobx combination. It was a roundabout way, but I approached it with a learning mindset. It's currently on hold because the main designer (my wife) hasn't delivered the designs on time. Next, I developed my blog. I had been running it on GitHub Pages using the built-in Jekyll, but this time I developed it using Gatsby. Development is now complete, and it was deployed on August 15, 2020. I'm working on additional features afterward. I'm considering writing about developing a blog using Gatsby. For now, there's a post written by a dear junior colleague, so I'll link to his post here.

Advantages

The 25-minute leisure time method had three main advantages: motivation, focus, and the habit of execution.

1. Motivation If you plan to study for an hour every day, you need an hour of free time. If one day, things happen and you don't have that hour, it's easy to give up, thinking, "Not today. Let's start tomorrow." Even though 30 minutes would have been fine. But what about 25 minutes? 25 minutes is a duration I could definitely carve out from spare moments, no matter how busy I was. Even on days when I had time but really didn't want to do anything due to laziness, starting with the thought, "Okay, let's just push through for 25 minutes," often led me to surpass 25 minutes and even go beyond an hour. The 25 minutes act as a fuse, making my lazy self focus for longer. Of course, even if I finish after just 25 minutes, I'm satisfied with that.

2. Focus The 25-minute time constraint had the power to make me focus even outside the designated time. For example, with writing, 25 minutes is often insufficient just to write meaningful content, so I have to focus entirely on writing during that time. This leads me to think about what I need to write during spare moments throughout the day – while commuting, showering, exercising, or even reading. I think about content to add to my current piece or ideas for the next topic. A small anxiety that I might not be able to write during the 25 minutes because I have no topic or can't think of how to continue makes me think about writing even when I'm not actively writing. Ultimately, the 25-minute time constraint makes me use even smaller pockets of free time meaningfully. The same applies to development and music. To make the 25 minutes more meaningful, I constantly think about the next task.

3. Execution Habit When there's something I want to do, I've developed the mindset to just try it, even if just a little, instead of setting grand goals or overthinking things first. Rather than setting a target and running, I believe that if I at least start walking and assess the situation, realistic goals or plans will emerge. After all, it's something I want to do. There were so many things I had thought a lot about but never executed, when I could have just tried them for 25 minutes a day, a week, or a month. Whether it will work out, whether I have talent, or whether it will make money – I think I can only find out by trying. At the very least, I will improve somewhat, and it will be helpful in some way.

Finally

Lately, due to prolonged remote work because of COVID-19, my schedule has changed a lot. I use the leftover commute time for exercise, but strangely, although about three hours should be remaining, they aren't. My sleep has increased a bit, though.

Anyway, this method of utilizing leisure time seems suitable for people like me who have way too many things they want to do and also worry a lot. Nowadays, seeing and hearing so much has increased the things I want to try and need to do. It seems we're already in a world where just one profession or one talent isn't enough. It will likely become more so, not less.

Let's survive well.