Time (Spending It)
It's difficult being a mortal creature: all time spent is time lost. You can only ever be doing a finite amount of things at a time, and you only have a finite amount of time to do them. This makes it infinitely important that you choose to spend your time wisely. When people say time is money, they mean time is a kind of currency, that you wouldn't go throwing away valuable money, so you oughtn't go throwing away even more valuable time.
There's no one "good/great" way to spend your time. This depends on the person. You have to know yourself and know what you want to do, and you have to spend your time doing that. If you let yourself get distracted from that, you're throwing good currency into a rapid river. Sometimes, however, there are things that are easier to do that make you feel as though you would prefer to be doing them, but it isn't the case. The things you want to do, the things that will give you more pleasure and fulfilment, they take more effort, but probably bear greater fruit in the end. Unfortunately, this makes you feel like you don't want to do them at the time, but that's only because the dumb stupid ancient part of your brain is having difficulty thinking about the future. It's difficult to act in such a way that will benefit a future self when it is you now who is being affected by the action. Why read and learn how to write better from the old pros, when you can just browse social networking sites and watch youtube videos of people you admire, doing things with their lives? Why practise writing when you can -- I don't even know what I do so much that I waste my time on, that's how bad it's gotten. It's mostly social networking sites, I think. Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter. (Edit: Oh, and of course, YouTube. That darned YouTube).
I got it right during term time, when I tried to create a rigid schedule to structure my days. I got the idea of escaping time wasting down to a T, but I don't know how I feel about its execution. I tried and it worked sometimes, but it didn't feel organic. I know how your spend your time can't be executed in a completely organic fashion, otherwise you'll give in to the easy activities as opposed to the activities you want to do that fulfil you. A bit of active thought is necessary, but -- at least for me -- a solid schedule might be too much. So, what, then?
I need to figure out a way to see the progress of my finished labours from the things I love to do. Little things that show I've been spending time on the things I love to do, without concentratedly thinking, "I have to do this", lest I make them out into chores.
For reading, I like Goodreads' book challenge widget. That shows you've been doing what you mean to. I may start aiming harder to catch up with my target on that. For writing, perhaps I can set myself weekly wordcount targets.
As for reducing my time on the Easy activities, perhaps I need to start rationing my time on certain websites. I'm not sure of the most realistic way to do this yet. Perhaps I can give myself a block for social networking/youtubing in a day, and refuse to do it outside of that. I wonder if I could commit myself to that? This sounds like one of my self-revolutionary ideas that I always get pumped for initially, but that always ends up fading to dust with time. But I can only try, right?
I'll give myself 4 hours a day of this Easy activity time, in the afternoon as a kind of wind-down. From 6pm-10pm, I'll let myself go wild on social networking and YouTube, but before that nothing, and after that I must promise myself to shut it all off.
I guess I should really start that today.
We'll see. (That's sort of become a catchphrase for this blog now; I swear I've signed so many posts off with it).
There's no one "good/great" way to spend your time. This depends on the person. You have to know yourself and know what you want to do, and you have to spend your time doing that. If you let yourself get distracted from that, you're throwing good currency into a rapid river. Sometimes, however, there are things that are easier to do that make you feel as though you would prefer to be doing them, but it isn't the case. The things you want to do, the things that will give you more pleasure and fulfilment, they take more effort, but probably bear greater fruit in the end. Unfortunately, this makes you feel like you don't want to do them at the time, but that's only because the dumb stupid ancient part of your brain is having difficulty thinking about the future. It's difficult to act in such a way that will benefit a future self when it is you now who is being affected by the action. Why read and learn how to write better from the old pros, when you can just browse social networking sites and watch youtube videos of people you admire, doing things with their lives? Why practise writing when you can -- I don't even know what I do so much that I waste my time on, that's how bad it's gotten. It's mostly social networking sites, I think. Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter. (Edit: Oh, and of course, YouTube. That darned YouTube).
I got it right during term time, when I tried to create a rigid schedule to structure my days. I got the idea of escaping time wasting down to a T, but I don't know how I feel about its execution. I tried and it worked sometimes, but it didn't feel organic. I know how your spend your time can't be executed in a completely organic fashion, otherwise you'll give in to the easy activities as opposed to the activities you want to do that fulfil you. A bit of active thought is necessary, but -- at least for me -- a solid schedule might be too much. So, what, then?
I need to figure out a way to see the progress of my finished labours from the things I love to do. Little things that show I've been spending time on the things I love to do, without concentratedly thinking, "I have to do this", lest I make them out into chores.
For reading, I like Goodreads' book challenge widget. That shows you've been doing what you mean to. I may start aiming harder to catch up with my target on that. For writing, perhaps I can set myself weekly wordcount targets.
As for reducing my time on the Easy activities, perhaps I need to start rationing my time on certain websites. I'm not sure of the most realistic way to do this yet. Perhaps I can give myself a block for social networking/youtubing in a day, and refuse to do it outside of that. I wonder if I could commit myself to that? This sounds like one of my self-revolutionary ideas that I always get pumped for initially, but that always ends up fading to dust with time. But I can only try, right?
I'll give myself 4 hours a day of this Easy activity time, in the afternoon as a kind of wind-down. From 6pm-10pm, I'll let myself go wild on social networking and YouTube, but before that nothing, and after that I must promise myself to shut it all off.
I guess I should really start that today.
We'll see. (That's sort of become a catchphrase for this blog now; I swear I've signed so many posts off with it).
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