Unstructured Time & Goal Setting
I’ve been home for the past 5 weeks.
Since I’ve been here, I’ve had some responsibilities and things I have had to take care of. Overwhelmingly, though, the time has been pretty lax.
On one hand, that’s been super nice. I haven’t had a break like this in 12 months. And I haven’t had a break this long since since the spring before I came to college.
On the other hand, though, I don’t feel particularly happier right now. Slightly more relaxed, but I have found that my relaxation is more associated with my mental state than the amount of things I have to do. As long as there is not a crazy huge burden on me.
I am convinced that we can do anything we set our mind to. If I told you that tomorrow you could meet Mark Zuckerberg, but you’d have to create a crazy presentation in the next 12 hours that will take you 10 of them (and I’m assuming you’d want to meet him), then you would put in the effort to make it happen. If I didn’t tell you that and you had nothing else going on, you might watch some TV, waste some time on the internet, snapchat a bit, maybe be a little productive and then sleep more.
It goes to show the value of goal setting. When there is a sense of urgency, we work harder, faster and more efficiently.
Having been in both buckets relatively recently, I don’t think the working harder, smarter, etc. has many downsides. It makes us feel infinitely more productive (which from an ego and just all else perspective is a net positive), we get more done, find new opportunities and feel like we are making progress in our lives. We experience more, learn more and can look back with more pride on our accomplishments. If we can control the anxiety or nagging feeling of responsibilities, then it makes this fast lifestyle pace even more valuable.
When there is nothing going on, it is easy to shirk and sleep longer or watch more TV.
The less that you understand yourself and what you enjoy/need to be happy, the more dangerous this unstructured time is.
If I could decide exactly what I wanted to do each day and I knew that doing X would yield me 10 utils, doing Y would give me 50 utils and Z would give me -5 utils, then surely decision making would be easy.
It doesn’t work like that, though. And the less we know about ourselves, the harder it is to make those calls.
It has led me to conclude that an orientation towards action, especially as you are figuring things out (which, lets be real, pretty much everyone is to some degree), is extremely beneficial.
This action does not even have to be professional oriented. It could involve working out, going skiing, spending time with other people, cooking, etc.
I suppose it depends on individual preferences, but I will say that the days blow by when there is little structure. If you want to get things done, set goals that challenge you just enough that it requires a particularly high level of effort, but is still feasible to accomplish.
Just realize the opportunity cost
Maybe this is the biggest take away. With this extra time, I am more comfortable starting new TV series, FaceTiming friends, being around my family in down times and so on. It has been nice, no doubt. But there is a great deal that I am sacrificing. If I committed to it, I could have built a really interesting project over the last five weeks. I could have finished 10 books. I could have learned to play an instrument.
It’s no good to always think about opportunity cost, but depending on what you want to accomplish and how quickly you want to go through life, there’s some inherent value in goal setting and pushing yourself in times when you would otherwise take it very easy.
