Fill Your Days With Purpose & Meaning
I’m writing this blog quite awhile after reading this professional development book from Janes Agenda masterplan Class. The name of the book is called Digital Minimalism. The author, Cal Newport, says to ‘strategize your free time’.
The message is pretty basic: we tend to waste a lot of time on social media in this day and age. In the Janes Agenda course, part of the assignment was to time track for an entire week - no matter what task. At the end of the week, we checked in to see how much time we spent on various activities.
It was just this past week (at the time of writing this) that I noticed I was getting very easily distracted. As soon as someone texted me, it was an excuse to check my email and then I would start tracking a package. Or, my kids would go “Hey, mom!” - I would deal with whatever the issue was, and start cleaning up somewhere around the house. I was also spending 15 minutes watching Facebook videos in the middle of the day. While that’s not bad, it was while I was supposed to be working. And that is bad. (Shame on me!)
I know why I was easily distracted - I am exhausted. I’ve been getting to bed late because my kids go to bed late, getting up at 5am and then not finishing my work in the allotted time because I constantly get distracted. I would work late into the evening, and then go to bed late once again - It’s truly a viscous cycle.
Say you’re on vacation for example. If you’re sitting in a hotel room, or even by the pool working all day, then you’re obviously not taking advantage of, or enjoying your vacation. On the opposite side of the spectrum, if you lay by the pool all day, browsing social media or catching up on your friends news feeds, or even reading a book the whole time, are you truly taking advantage of your vacation time?
What I would do is have some special planned time (i.e. guided tours of your vacation spot, a boat or helicopter ride, planned shopping trips or purposeful exploration or family time.
I think at the end of the day, we are all so burned out from working our 5 to 1's and our 9 to 5’s , and even then, we have to plan our own trips - it all gets exhausting. At the end of the day, I get it - we’re all too exhausted to do anything that requires effort, so we sit there sluggishly on our phones, looking at the next Tin-Tok trend.
What would make our lives so much more rewarding is continuing to be busy, even when we don’t want to be. We might not have the motivation to do more “work” when we’re supposed to be “relaxing”, but we would get so much more satisfaction out of it. I’m thinking of our passion projects here - things like building that tool shed in the backyard or setting up the garden on the May long weekend - maybe renovating the bathroom? What about taking up a new hobby like learning how to horseback ride, or playing the flute? These things take time and fit into your big goals.
Imagine how much more accomplished you’ll feel if you accomplish one of your yearly goals over laying on the couch, mindlessly scrolling. For me this year, it was cleaning my basement and my garage. I really wanted to get it done before the end of the year. I actually see what people mean when they say “done is better than perfect”. My basement isn’t perfectly polished and smelling like pine sol, but everything is in place where it’s supposed to be. At least I know where to find something when I go to look for it.
So the next time you have scheduled time off, and you find yourself reaching for your phone, turn to your calendar or planner instead and do something meaningful with your time. You’ll feel so much more successful and better about yourself, and you will have accomplished something that gives your life purpose and meaning.
Good luck!
Sandra
