Time, time, time.

[mangosteen]

I've been insanely busy (as mentioned oft times before), but unlike most other times over the past few years, I don't feel nearly as put-upon as I have in the past. Realisitically, if I don't fill up my time with things I want to do, other people tend to fill up my time for me. So, when I have a weekend schedule that looks like:

get up
get to the Israel Bookshop
go to Home Depot for gardening stuff
go home, study Chinese
continue studying Chinese
breathe
study Chinese a bit more
start making up business cards for my photography business
go out to dinner
see Mirrormask
go home
study more
sleep.

.....I start to wonder. Ordinarily, I'd be saying "when do I get a weekend? when do I get time to rest?!?!?" when the reality of the situation is that this is restful in a "I'm doing things that I want to do, when I want to do them, and how I want to do them, and it's fundamentally different then sitting in my cube and doing work." kind of way.

It is also fundamentally different from people asking me to run errands for them because they didn't have the time, but they indirectly affected me, and needed to be done, and so I felt put-upon to do them myself, thus giving away my time for others. Lazarus Long got it right. A person who steals your time is a most pernicious thief, indeed. There's nothing wrong with doing a favor for a friend, but let's just say that I wish I was aware of how people took away my time, much earlier in life.

When lifecollage and I bought a house-like object, budgeting of financial resources became much more vital (but more fulfilling, because we weren't throwing away money on rent). There was less slop room than what I was used to, although it wasn't completely eliminated, and it just meant that we had to be a bit more discplined. It also has meant that I make better use of the spare cash that I do have.

The same thing goes for my temporal resources now. I'm doing a lot of stuff. I have a lot less slop space in my schedule now, but I'm doing a lot of things that are important to me, and I'm now realizing that having "free time" for the sake of having "free time" is overrated.

Note: You will all be pleased to know that I now have a paper planner. Keeping things in my head was fun in a "winning a bar bet" sort of way, but it's really not suitable to how I want to live my life, going forward.

Observation: Having free time in which you're going to relax because you've earned it (by your own standards, naturally) is one thing. OTOH, keeping yourself from doing stuff you really want to do because you like the concept of "free time" in the abstract sense, but don't actually use the free time for anything, nor have any reason to need the free time in the first place, is not nearly as useful.

Nowadays, my response to "When do you get downtime?" tends to be "downtime from what?" Granted, I sleep in an extra hour or two on the weekends, but I get very grumpy if I don't get the day moving by the mid-morning.

I don't know when or how I became so incredibly type A, but I'll tell you this. Much more often than not, one of my last thoughts before I go to bed is "I have had a wonderfully full day." , and it's thoroughly worth it.

Comments

[shadesong.livejournal.com]

Keeping things in my head was fun in a "winning a bar bet" sort of way, but it's really not suitable to how I want to live my life, going forward.

*nods* I did that before my brain fell down. Now there are lists.

The other advantage of lists, when they are to-do lists: I get to cross things off and therefore have concrete evidence that I have Gotten Stuff Done.

OTOH, keeping yourself from doing stuff you really want to do because you like the concept of "free time" in the abstract sense, but don't actually use the free time for anything, nor have any reason to need the free time in the first place, is not nearly as useful.
Nowadays, my response to "When do you get downtime?" tends to be "downtime from what?"

This is... a topic of discussion right now for me and docorion. (I know "docorion and I" = incorrect, but it looks better. *frown*) He says that I push myself overmuch; I say that I do too little as it is. I don't need free time, I don't want extra nap time - I want to be doing things! But he wants me resting. Which is good for my body, yes, but my mind quite resists.