525,600 Minutes, of Which 109,200 Are Yours

Killer life or couch-ridden exhaustion? Your call.
As I wind down one of the toughest projects of my career, I find myself thinking of two things: I work entirely too many hours, and I miraculously have a pretty decent quality of life. I put my kids to bed at night, go running with friends, take the motorcycle or bicycle out on weekends, and generally keep the momentum up. Here's the breakdown:

Early morning: Get up early as hell to go running and get kids out the door
Morning, Afternoon, Early Evening: Work, work, work
Evening: Dinner, hang out with kids for an hour, walk the dog
10:00 PM: Freedom! Quiet! Work panic notwithstanding, here's the free time.

Weekends are better, but I only assume 10 hours per day of 'free' activity, since there are planes to catch, bills to pay, and dance recitals, softball/baseball games, and birthday parties. So... many... birthdays... I'm at Target almost every weekend buying some Journey Girl thing or Lego set to celebrate the birth of someone or other.

So... self-actualization in spite of the clutter of daily life? The secret: Kick television out of your life. There is no other way. Spending less time in bars is probably a good idea, but I have this thing about not trusting teetotalers.

In a broad sense, I carve out about 10 hours a week to read and another 8-10 to exercise. In the grand scheme of things, that's a lot of 'me' time for 50-60 hour workweeks and raising kids. Granted, the kids get the short straw, and I'm trying very hard to do better with my weekday parenting, but this isn't about them.

About that secret. Taking TV out of your life immediately flips the script. Instead of vapid consumer, your brain is going in the opposite direction; production. Thinking about your next move in life, solving work problems with the freedom from immediate crises, dreaming of where you want to go next, freeing up time to talk to your special someone, learn something, and in general, be a better you. All of this momentum, activity, and thought give you better depth and breadth to solve the work problems, run that fantasy sports league or Ragnar team, and frees up time to live life, instead of watching people on TV pull you down by showing the life you could have (or a sparkly Hollywood version of it), if only you weren't sitting passively in front of an LCD screen absorbing product placement.

Trust me- the only thing lost from eschewing TV is the ability to gab about GoT, NFL, or The Bachelorette at work or those awkward first few minutes of a plane flight. However, a quick glance at Reality Steve or a Google search will keep you up to date at a 'survival' level at the water cooler. Naturally, the subterfuge won't hold up if you're in the conversation too long, but it'll keep you out of the general ostracism that goes with being a non-TV watcher. Live well!

    Comments

    Post a Comment

    Popular posts from this blog

    Wall of Thanks

    Image
      I've been thinking about this for a really long time. We're the sum of our experiences, and while I can take credit for some of my good fortune, I stand on the shoulders of the many, many people in my life that helped me learn something whether it was terribly negative, wonderfully positive, or something right in the middle. For many of the people in my life, I could write page after page, but instead I'm going to give each person one sentence, and not the easy, obvious sentence, but one that's particularly dear to me. Without further ado, my Wall of Thanks: John Jamison - Teaching me how to shave correctly. Michael Gura - Smoked Salmon is good and yes, it's not all that hard to start your own company! Keith Goodwin - Made me realize many of us join the military for the same reason; to catapult ourselves out of a dead-end. Sabrina Menear - She was only one year older than me, but she seemed so knowledgeable and worldly. Also introduced me to the Scorpions 'Lov
    Read more

    The MetaMatrix

    Image
      Hasn't this thought exercise already been conducted? Zuck's been posting messages for Meta on Bloomberg lately talking about augmented reality and how it'll help firefighters working in a burning building, among other things. This got me thinking about the Digital Twin work I've been doing in the highway traffic management space, along with The Matrix, Total Recall, and Wall-E. From the sound of it, the huge investment Meta's made in the Metaverse hasn't gained a lot of traction, but I wonder if it's because we're at a 'good enough' phase of living life online. For example, you can watch movies while doing dishes or driving- who wants to be tied down with a clunky headset? With a very small sample size of kids and adults in my neighborhood, it seems like the grown-ups get disoriented while the kids get a hot-spot on their forehead from the weight of the device. It seems like most of enjoy some good, always-on distraction, but don't want to
    Read more

    Back to School (SWM Seeks Ninja 400)

    Image
      So Many Things Wrong... Looking at this picture (and others) of my fellow motorcyclists and me in action really helps sort out what's going right and wrong with my riding. When I dice it up with other novices, I'm at the point where I can out-turn and out-brake people on liter bikes, but I'm also getting smoked by folks with whom I'm evenly matched, and then there was my track-neighbor who was riding a Ninja 400, getting faster by the session. It was her marked improvement (and willingness to study the craft and receptiveness to coaching) that's the focus of this post. Basically, I can pass the majority of people in my run group, but there are a few people I get stuck on. Our speeds are close enough in corners that whoever's in front stays in the front until we get to the straightaway. This is basically how it went w/my friend on the 400. If I was in front, I'd pull away most places, but she would never be too far off as she carried speed and I overbraked.
    Read more