Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about how I spend my time outside of work – in particular, I’ve been struggling with figuring out how deliberate I should be about my free time. To me, being deliberate means spending that time on activities I find meaningful and not just doing whatever is easiest (whether it’s scrolling aimlessly on my phone or just doing half chores left and right). I worry a lot that in a few years, I’ll look back at my early twenties as a working “adult” and regret that I didn’t do more productive things with my time outside of work. On the other hand, I also know that life is often best lived with spontaneity, and I wonder how much I should be structuring my free time into deliberate time versus go-with-the-flow time.
When I reflect back on my time in college, I feel that I spent my free time getting to know people, investing in friendships that I found super interesting, and traveling and exploring new places. I feel proud that I was always on top of the best places to eat and hang out in Boston/Cambridge, and I also feel a retroactive thrill when I think about how on-the-go my life cadence was – both of these things make me so happy because they affirm that that I maximized my flexible schedule and (meagre) savings.
I think a large part of my anxiety nowadays is that I feel the bar for how I spend my free time should be higher if not at least on par with where it was during college. I supposedly have more freedom and disposable income now, so shouldn’t I be doing even more with my free time? On top of that, during college, the intellectual burden of course work did follow me around on weekends/evenings, but with work, I should be able to fully unload everything work-related during my downtime and I should be really extending myself not just in a leisurely way through socializing and traveling but also through intellectual challenges.
I often think about the people who start a company on the side on top of their day jobs, or the ones who have crazy intense passions like dance or music that they pursue through hours and hours of practice every week. I feel that my piece meal attempts at picking up hobbies pale in comparison and it frustrates me a lot.
A lot of this boils down to what I want to accomplish with my life outside of work. I think ideally, I’d like to master a few skills and hit a few milestones every so often.
For example, goals for the rest of 2018:
- Try a new recipe once every two weeks
- Cook dinner with friends once every two weeks (can be the new recipe)
- Have friends over once every two weeks
- Bake once a month and make it seasonal
- Use my mornings on going to the gym, writing (for my future blog?!), and catching up with friends instead of just doing piece meal chores
- Do chores in condensed blocks rather than small pieces left and right so they feel more contained
- Spend more time doing one-on-one activities with friends on weekends (rather than being lazy and just spending all my time with E!)
- Go for a bike ride at least once a month (I do own a bike after all)
- Try not to only use the car on weekends now that we have a car – important to still walk or take transit to different places to explore