What should one do in one’s free time?

Long time back, someone asked me if they could decide and improve. It turns out it is very much possible. In fact it is possible in a day. The improvement will not happen in just one day, but you can start in one day. The day you start, they day you change.

Below are some of the best ideas I have always worked on. You would see the same thoughts again and again on Quora by various people.

The success lies in execution. Execute as well on these ideas, and you will grow very quickly!

• Health:
  • Make yourself as fit as possible.
  • Athletic people not only achieve more, but also are dynamic, and that is the impression they leave.
  • Eat healthy, rest enough, exercise everyday, and drink a lot of water.
• Personality:
  • Become a public speaker
  • Participate in debates
  • Improve your body language
  • Learn how to give better presentations
  • Learn to dress better. Simply ask yourself – why not?
  • Read a lot of material online or from books
• Knowledge:
  • Learn new things and diversify your knowledge.
  • Learn computer programming, business management, data science and so on.
  • Learn how to apply your knowledge on various problem statements. Without application of knowledge, your skills will not be apparent to others. This is key towards success.
  • Read great content such as bloomberg or Tech Market Intelligence, MIT Technology Review, Harvard Business Review – Ideas and Advice for Leaders, Bloomberg.com.
• Wisdom:
  • This can be learned from books. The more you read, the better wisdom you can acquire.
  • Learn for example about stock markets, investing, project management, design, technology. There is just no limit to this.
• Life journey:
  • Make some rules in your life and stick to them.
  • Examples:I will always wake up by the sound of alarm.I will never sacrifice my lunch.
  • I will never go to bed later than 11:00 PM
  • I will never go to workplace late.
  • Choose friends that inspire you
  • Seek to get mentors in the real world who can help you achieve more, and let you find out your mistakes and clean them up
  • Inspire others, but do not sacrifice yourself every now and then
• Constantly become a better version of you:
  • Lot of content and ideas exist on Quora. Pick those ideas and execute.Constantly measure your performance and actively seek improvement strategies.
• Interpersonal skills:Learn to delegate.
  • Just try this with friends, then with colleagues.
• Learn to say no:
  • Without this, you would sign yourself up with redundant, non-value-adding, and rudimentary tasks.
• Learn to ask: This is a really powerful thing in the world!
  • Practice this where things don’t matter.
  • For example – call up your cable company and ask for a discount.
  • Call up your cell phone data provider, and talk to them to give you upgrades for no charge.
  • Talk to airport staff to see if they can give you a free upgrade.
  • Try to ask a few people on LinkedIn to see if they can mentor you for 30 minutes, and then get their words of wisdom.
  • Ask your mentor for better tasks.
  • Ask your colleagues for feedback on how you can improve and what they perceive is your biggest weakness – then eliminate that weakness.
• Take a strength-finder test:
  • Identify your top five strengths and work on maximizing impact using those strengths.Identify your top five weaknesses and seek input from others on how you can improve. This would not be easy, but worthwhile.
• Learn how to come up with a list like this:
  • Then come up with a plan.Execute as well as possible.

That said, you should also begin learning programming now. There is no need to wait.

Check out some of my other answers on programming, machine learning, deep learning and so on.

Stay blessed and stay inspired!