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What to do when no one tells you what to do anymore
You left your job and have all the freedom in the world. Now what?
coryzue.com
The enjoyment/value dance is a difficult one.
Recently we (the UK) had a week of hot, sunny weather. And the dilemma was whether to spend time enjoying it, or to spend the time working.
It was quite interesting because when I went out to enjoy the weather I felt guilty about not working towards my goals. But when I was working, I felt guilty that I was missing the good weather that we rarely get to enjoy.
Your graphs were pretty focused on work + goals. And you mentioned your 40h week for work, do-gooding, and exercise. Do you have Mon-Fri kind of schedule, or do you just aim to hit those hours across the full 7 day week?
I'm mostly curious if you say 'fuck it I'm doing X today' and how you deal with it when it comes to progress on goals. Is it infrequent enough that it's not significant enough to be concerned about?
Other than that, I enjoyed this article - having regular commitments and a schedule definitely helps keep on track when you're not being told what to do or where to be.
Thanks Dave - glad you could relate to the enjoyment/value tradeoffs.
I used to lead a much more flexible life, but now that I have small kids it is much harder to get anything done outside of the 8-5 window when we have child care so that's mostly what I plan around. I do try to sneak in a few hours of work/exercise on the weekends but I cant count on it.
For the specific problem you proposed I would probably just go for it and enjoy the weather, but aim to make up the time some other week when it's raining. I know some people are the opposite but me and most people I know are all likely to err on the side of "working too much" rather than "working too little" so I find whenever I'm on the fence that I should probably do the fun thing.
So yeah, I do sometimes say "fuck it, I'm going surfing", and I never regret it.
I can definitely see how having a family can help keep on track schedule wise.
That's basically exactly what I did - I took off a couple of days to enjoy it. And I didn't regret it at all. There was the slight guilt in the moment, but that's on me. Unsurprisingly we had rain for about a week after which allowed me to catch up, so you were right on the nose.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who takes advantage of the flexibility occasionally. We just have to be mindful that it doesn't get out of hand.