Time Control

In this downtime I’m doing some planning. How do you structure your week? How do I do work, contribute to society, and still have time to wild out with my friends? Go see family? Go on dates? Eat? Workout? It's a problem that everyone seems to have a different answer for. So I thought it was time to review where I'm at and where I want to be.

I feel like I am often chasing time because my days are too open but I would like to have more control and consistency. I have a budget for money, why not time? I could probably just cut out a lot of things but then I have a big blob of time and my focus is still easily scattered. 

It takes me a lot of mental power to decide if a work opportunity is good or not and I'm hoping this will help me filter things more clearly.

And when I do have free time to socialize, how long can I afford to go out for? I'm past the age where I can stay out until 3am and it doesn't matter.  And I don't have enough money for it to not matter. I'm in the middle. 

So what do I do? Aside from planning my next year using OKRs I thought about what I could do at the daily/weekly level. 

Here's what I came up with. I started on paper because it's still the best. I asked myself, "What's an ideal workday?" Then I needed to understand what is work. I think planning to the minute will make me go insane so I created bundles for morning, work, and evening. I left gaps to keep it flexible and account for commutes or random events.

Saturday is completely free so that I can go to smack city with my friends on Friday night and/or that evening if I so choose to. And I have all morning Saturday and Sunday to recover. Because life after all is about balance. 

Here are what the bundles include:

• Morning Routine: Write, pushups, stretch, get ready, breakfast, check socials
• Evening Routine: Dinner, review day, catch up with a friend, read etc (aside from dinner these interchangeable, not a checklist)
• Work: Writing, shooting, editing, publishing (I realized all the small things associated with these tasks are the things I forget which is why I should double how long things take me)
• Break: Walking, photos, dance, getting a bite, etc

I'll track how this works for the new year and post any iterations. Let me know if you have any thoughts, tips, or feedback.