Maintaining Balance

in #life7 years ago (edited)

In the past 10 days Laura and I have bought a bus and started a project that neither of us had any experience in whatsoever.

This whole process has had a really interesting effect on both of us, causing a lot of abrupt researching and learning how to design every inch in an aesthetic and ergonomic fashion. What this has done as well though, is take away from a lot of other areas of our lives that would usually have a lot more focus toward them.

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Things like my goal of writing every day of 2018 have suddenly taken a back seat to a seemingly much larger (and more exciting) project.

An area that I did not know I would have to face so quickly was the fact that I need to learn how to manage my time and my tasks. I still need to write every day (which I haven't been), I still want to read more, and I need to remember to eat more than just breakfast before running off to work on the bus.

When I was living in Philadelphia I made a rule that I was not allowed to do anything else in my day until I had read for 3 hours. I stuck to this relatively strictly and it had an amazingly positive effect on me. It seems evident to me that in order to combat whoring all of my time into this one project, I need to set some ground rules just as I did in Philadelphia.

Here are 2 that I will be implementing:

  • Writing at least 1 post will now be the first thing I do each morning before completing other tasks
  • After writing we'll go to the gym - Laura and I find that when we start each day with a gym session we end up being incredibly productive for the rest of the day

It's not that writing a post or going to the gym is taking a priority by being first, but there are certain things that you know will not get done if you leave them till the end of the day. I think it is really useful to identify which things have tended to be delayed and then left incomplete, so you can put an emphasis on getting them done at the start of the day (if they're important enough).

A similar version of this happened when I was at university. I ended up playing more video games than I should have and it took away from other areas of interest at the time such as photography. I recognized this and sold all of my video games so I didn't have that distraction anymore. After a few months, I felt comfortable buying some games again as I had built sufficient self-control to be able to spread my focus and not get sucked in from excitement.

It's always really interesting to review how you spend your time. There are actually some cool apps that can help you track it, I am sure you'd be surprised at the amount of time you find you could save! And if you find some things are having a negative impact on your life then don't be afraid to be a little ruthless and cut the cord so you can focus on what matters.

Thank you for reading!

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@jeremyc - i think it's a matter of recognizing your energy levels and capitalizing on them. i'm the same way when it comes to writing. if I leave it till the end of the day/afternoon I won't be nearly as productive. It's great that you're balancing writing with physical work outs! Do you have any suggestions for at home work outs? Also good luck on your adventurous project!

Absolutely agree. It take s a certain level of consciousness to recognize where you are at energy-wise and to take advantage of it in the moment. Definitely a powerful skill!

In terms of at-home workouts I would check out Scooby on youtube. He has a tonne of great exercises you can do at home!

Let me know how it goes :)

Ditto on that!

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll take a look into it and let you know it goes :)