A full week of paid work is the board on the bench. What remains after that board is squared looks like soft wood still under the blade: Saturday morning, a Sunday hour, the gap after dinner on one weekday. Those pieces are real. They are also short. If they smear across the week they crowd sleep, the commute, and Monday.
A carving gouge scoops a clean channel without tearing the grain. It does not remake the board. It takes one sweep. Free hours work the same way. Write a maximum. Put that groove on the pad. If an offer needs every weeknight, it is not free-hour work; it is a second job wearing leftover clothes.
What sits in one channel
Start with one visible block. Saturday morning is the default used on this desk because it does not steal weeknights by default. A person can add a Sunday hour or one weekday evening. Adding every evening is not free time. That is a second shift.
Write the start and the stop before the week begins. A block that is only "when I have energy" slides off the pad. The day job will take it.
What crowds the main bench
Unpaid setup that has no end date, learning that is sold as a condition of the first invoice, and work that needs a weekday night every week do not belong on this pad. Those grooves crowd the rest of the week.
Gouge Pad does not publish earnings promises. The question is whether free hours can sit still long enough to be counted, priced after costs, and marked in a weekly note. If they cannot sit still, they are not free.
Read next: free hours as controlled shavings and marking the sweep before you cut.