Stuff I Am Doing This Week: Trying to Do All the Things I Need to Do
I'm so tired.
I don’t think struggling to find or make the time to do all of the things I want to do in a day, week, or month is a particularly unique experience. I imagine most people get overwhelmed by the never ending tasks that are required to simply exist (unless of course, you are rich and can outsource things like cooking, cleaning, and putting on your make up). So I’m not really saying anything novel about this other than I feel it a lot and it’s often really overwhelming.
As someone who is single and lives alone, most of the boring things that you need to do to maintain your day to day life (the cooking and cleaning mentioned above) falls 100% on me. I have probably said this before, but it’s sometimes really exhausting to realize that if I want to eat, I have to make myself something, and if there’s a mess, I have to clean it up. I would say that 85% of the time, I really love living alone — I love having my own space that I can decorate and occupy just as I want. But when I have to cook three meals a day and then clean the kitchen afterwards? Oof.
Recently, I mentioned that I am behind on some of the goals I have set for myself this year and a huge contributor to this lack of progress is my seeming lack of time. To be fair to myself, it is hard trying to find time for personal goals in between balancing everything else. Carving out hours to work on a project doesn’t come easy when I am also working a full time job, trying to have a social life, read 50 books, watch the latest TV shows, exercise, eat enough fibre, and still get 8 hours of sleep. It’s so hard.
But lots of people do it all of the time, everyday. There’s hundreds of people everyday who find or make the time to work on their own personal goals. Sure, they have different sets of responsibilities; jobs and/or kids, and sure, maybe they have varying levels of help, but they still do it.
Surely I, a girl with no real responsibilities to anyone but myself, could find the time in the 24 hours we are given to try a little harder to make things happen?
With that in mind, this week I took to the internet and did some extensive research (read: I googled and read posts on Reddit) about how people found the time to work on personal projects when tackled with life’s responsibilities. While answers varied, two things stood out: people used any spare time they could scrape up to work towards their goals and they protected that time.
So I decided to give it a shot. For one week, I tried to set a system in place to make a little time everyday to work on personal goals without letting the daily maintenance of life fall to the wayside. Here’s a quick recap of how it went.
What I Did:
The first thing I did was accept that I need to really spend less time on my phone. I have been saying to friends for weeks now that I really wanted to do this in general, but now I really had to take it seriously. Most mornings before or after work, I would spend a fair amount of time scrolling. I installed the Opal app (thanks, Eunice!) and discovered that I would spend 205 days on my phone this year based on my current screentime. No wonder I was never getting anything done! And for what?! I couldn’t even tell you anything memorable that I was doing on my phone. So I got more disciplined about it and in the mornings especially, tried to limit my screen time.
Probably most importantly, I laid out a system that I hoped was both possible and sustainable. I work a hybrid job and am typically in the office Tuesday to Thursday, meaning I have limited time in the mornings. The schedule I landed on has me working on my personal goals on the mornings before work where I don’t have to wash my hair (it takes a long time) and on the evenings after work where I do. I continue to alternate this schedule back and forth throughout the week, carving out anywhere from 45 minutes to 2 hours (though it is usually closer to an hour) to chip away at my passion projects.
In between these personal project hours, I worked to make sure that all of the other stuff I needed to keep life moving was done well ahead of time. If the dishwasher needed to be emptied, I just did it as soon as I could instead of leaving it for later. This seems like a small thing, but making sure I wasn’t letting the other stuff pile up was key in letting me protect that time for myself.
What I Learned:
The system is working for me and overall, feels sustainable. While it has only been one week (so it is going to be a while before to get it to stick), I found myself feeling considerably less stressed and more focused in all areas of life, including at work. Knowing that I had time carved out and protected for the things I wanted to do made me more motivated to get other things done. This was probably the most productive week I have had in a long time and the mental impact it has had — especially since it didn’t feel impossible — feels really good.
I have to let go of perfectionism. When I am allotting limited time towards goals, I have to accept that any time used towards them is good, even if it is not a lot. In a similar vein, if I don’t produce immediately perfect work, that is okay, too. It’s better that I make progress and go back and polish later than opposed to try to complete a perfect product out of the gate every time. This is incredibly hard and probably the hardest part about it all.
I’m so tired. Trying to optimize as much of your time as possible is tiring - especially since using time before work means that I am really sticking to getting up on time. By Thursday afternoon, I was so tired from the last few days of extreme productivity, even though mentally it felt great. I have to make sure to prioritize rest as well.
There’s still not enough time. Utilizing this time means that I am having to give up other things - social time, phone time, TV time; the other fun, brain rot stuff that I would enjoy in my spare time. But this is also something I have to make peace with, that I’ll probably never have enough time to everything, but if I do my best as much as possible, that’s good enough.
In other news this week, I’ve been listening to berlioz (shout out to Alana, who introduced me!), watching the NANA live action movie (was it the best live action anime movie I have seen? Yes. Was it still pretty bad? Also yes), and being mad about the existence of hot cross buns. See ya next week!