After a full week, the pieces that remain are small: a Saturday morning, a Sunday hour, the odd weekday evening. Without a fence they slide into the day job — answering one more message, polishing one more slide, saying yes to one more unpaid favour that looks like “just a minute.”
A rip fence does one job: it holds the board against a known edge so the cut stays parallel. Leftover time needs the same edge. Write a maximum before the week starts. If the board is longer than the fence, it belongs to another week.
What counts as leftover
Leftover hours are the ones that do not belong to the employer, the commute or the unpaid care already on the calendar. They are not “found” time stolen from sleep. They are the offcuts of a week that has already been paid for.
What the fence refuses
Work that needs three quiet weeknights to set up does not sit against this rail. Learning that only pays after a month of unpaid practice does not sit here either. Those boards lean; they do not run parallel.
Ripfence makes no earnings promises. The point of the fence is not more money — it is a clear edge between the main week and the side cut.