How to Spend Quality Time Alone

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These are the top five methods to help you learn how to spend quality time alone, which will improve your single life and help you feel more comfortable in your own company.

One of the biggest, most important life lessons singlehood teaches us, is to spend quality time with ourselves. Yet, we won’t be able to learn it, if we don’t take steps and be proactive in pursuing it. Our single life is a wonderful opportunity to start spending quality alone time, and learning how to do so. Which is the core of single life, because during this time we spend more time by ourselves by default. Instead of avoiding this time, which will only make us wallow and more bitter… We need to learn how to embrace it and ourselves, how to enjoy our own company. And to do so, we need to learn how to spend quality time with ourselves, and not just waste it away. Utilize this opportunity to not waste your time on your phone and social media, but to actually make your alone time invaluable.

This list includes the top methods that will help you spend quality time with yourself, and learn how to do it most effectively.

Two important rules of thumb:

Be cautious not to waste your time: Not all of your time has to always be meticulously planned and spent wisely. It’s okay to also have downtime where you just wind down and relax. However, you should make sure to limit this time, as it can easily suck you in and you can find yourself wasting your time away. Which will only make you feel worse.

Evaluate the value of your time: What is considered time well spent? Which activities are of high value and quality? The answer to this may vary for each person, as every person is different and has their own interests. Yet there are a couple components that stay the same:

Productivity & efficiency – is your time and work efficient? This doesn’t mean just being busy, this means getting things done properly in a reasonable timeframe. You need to learn how to be able to generate the fruits of your labor without wasting time and efforts, and still maintaining a certain level of quality.
Significant & meaningful – part of not wasting time, means spending it focused on things that are important and deserve your attention. You’re not just doing pointless tasks to feel busy and productive, you’re actually working with purpose. It’s important to pay your time and attention to the things that really matter and have significance in the goals that you’re trying to achieve.

1. Hobbies – Do things you love and enjoy

I preach about this again and again, and I do so because hobbies are a huge part of spending valuable alone time. Choose an activity you’re good at and enjoy, whether it’s already in your life, or isn’t and you wish to nourish it. Then start making and scheduling for it, no matter how hectic your time gets. It’s important, and should never be perceived as something you can skip like nothing. Of course there are exceptions, but you have to make sure you understand this can’t be a recurring thing. Besides helping you battle loneliness, hobbies add value to your life, they’re a great, productive way to spend your time. Especially since you can’t always be around people, and you need more substance. Hobbies are a great way to also spend some of your downtime, when you don’t want to just waste it away by lounging around or binge watching.

Ideas for hobbies:

Puzzles
Musical instrument
Sports – swimming, dancing, football, basketball, soccer, etc.
Art – writing, drawing, painting, sketching, sculpting, glassblowing, etc.
Woodwork or building
Sewing or knitting

2. Passions – Invest in your dreams and passions

When you’re single, most likely your passion, which is usually your career (or strive for it to be), is your baby. It’s one of the biggest, if not the biggest focal point of your life, and is also usually the center of your attention. Or at least it should be, because during your singlehood when you have so much more time and energy (which is no longer focused solely on a romantic relationship…) You have more capacity to nourish and nurture your passions, the things that burn deep within you, something you love and believe in. Which should always be the case, but is more so when you’re single and don’t have anything or anyone else to take your time and energy. It is also a great way to spend your time, as it adds value and helps you feel productive. Like you’re doing something important with your life. So choose your passion, create your goals and start working towards them every day. It’s also okay to do some trial and error if you’re not sure yet what you want.

Ideas for passions:

Writing – a blog, books, poetry, etc.
Designing – home decor, fashion, interior, etc.
Art – drawing, painting, sculpting, glassblowing, beeding, knitting, etc.
Sports – swimming, tennis, football, basketball, soccer, dancing, etc.
Cooking or baking

3. Skills – Nurture and grow your skills

Part of building and working on your hobbies, means developing and growing both existing skills and new ones. If you want to get better and good at something, you need to spend time doing it. The more you do it, the better you will be at it. You need to practice and exercise your abilities daily, at least in some way, shape or form. This will improve your performance and knowledge. Spending your time developing your skills will add value to your life in several aspects. It will enhance your abilities and the quality of your life, and make you feel better because of it. Which will make you an overall better and happier person. Developing and growing these skills takes awareness and self reflection. You need to track your progress and persevere through the hard, lazy times. Some don’t have direct methods or ways to work on them, they are part of completing daily tasks and activities.

Ideas for skills:

Professionalism Skills – maturity, patience, self confidence, integrity, etc.
Organizational Skills – goal setting, prioritizing, scheduling, time management, etc.
Life Skills – cleaning, maintenance around the house, home organization, etc.
Personal Life Skills – adaptability, effort, flexibility, patience, curiosity, responsibility, caring, common sense, etc.

4. Educate yourself – Learn new things and skills

In every guidebook to success, it is mentioned in one way or another, that the road to being successful is continuous learning. One of the biggest aspects that differentiates successful people from the rest, is that they continue to broaden their horizons. They pick up a book instead of binge watching another show. They take more courses to develop skills and progress in their field. Apart from helping you achieve success, educating yourself will also open your eyes to new ways of thinking and give you ideas. It will make you wiser and not just guess your way around blindly. Educating yourself will also make you feel good about yourself, it will give you a self esteem boost. And yes, knowledge is power. It will also make you spend your time better, in ways that will provide satisfaction.

Ideas for educating yourself:

Taking courses – either to improve your skills for your career and to advance in it, or to revamp your hobbies and general skills.
Reading books – reading and learning more about topics that interest you, that help you learn more about your field, self help and success books, etc.
Watching educational YouTube videos, or listening to podcasts
Lectures and conferences

5. Dates – Take yourself out on proper, fun dates

Spending valuable time with yourself is not only measured by the productiveness of your time and efforts spent. It’s important to learn new things and skills, to make progress in your work. But it’s no less important to also have fun, to enjoy the time you spend with yourself. One of the main reasons you enjoy your time with family and friends and want to spend it with them… Is because you do interactive and fun activities together. Which is something you also need to do with yourself. Not only will it help you enjoy your alone time, but will also bring you closer to yourself. Dating yourself is one of the most important components in building a self-relationship, which consists of spending valuable and high quality time with yourself. And dating yourself is never a waste of time and should never be overlooked.

Ideas for dating yourself:

Events – festivals, movies, theatre plays, local fairs, etc.
Home dates – movie night, spa day, home cooked dinner date, etc.
Attractions – theme parks, museums, zoos, etc.
Outdoors – walks, picnics, beach / pool day, parks, hike, etc.
Others – tours, workshops, shopping sprees, etc.

In conclusion – find the right measurements for you

Think of this post as a recipe, it will give you the ingredients you need to learn how to spend valuable time with yourself… And you need to find the right measurements for you. Don’t be afraid to just go for it and try. Play around with it and do some trial and error, because at the end of the day, that is how you learn and find the right amount for you. Just like with everything else in life, it’s all a matter of balance, and it’s never the same for everyone. It’s okay to see what others are doing to get inspiration and motivation, but then make sure to adapt it to you, and what’s best for you. Make sure to incorporate and integrate all of these five methods into your life, as they are all crucial for your journey. Each method adds value on its own, and they all feed off each other and make them stronger and better when combined.