Creating Structure
Remember that scene in Office Space about having a million dollars? Here is a neat little animated refresher:
In the movie, Peter goes on to say that if he had a million dollars he would do absolutely nothing. That is the whole point. If you have enough money that you don’t have to work for a living (and a million dollars wouldn’t do that for most of us), how would you spend your time?
I think a better question is “what would you do with 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year?”
That is sorta kinda what I have. I made a major life change in March 2008 when I stopped working as a full-time employee in order to focus on entrepreneurial ventures. March 2009 was a little tough because I realized it was the one year anniversary and I felt like I could have been more intentional about how I spent that time.
As I am quickly approaching the two-year mark I am again reflecting on how I spend my time. Now that I have the freedom to decide how I want to spend my time, my life has become very ambiguous and unstructured. I think it is time for some self-imposed structure.
I was just reading How To Create a Balanced Life and it has some key steps that I really agree with:
- Eat right: I had been doing really good about this, and my diet now is much better than when I was traveling all the time. There is room for improvement (like not skipping breakfast!!!)
- Exercise: Again, I was doing really good, but this has fallen off in the past few weeks. Exercise time is really great for clearing the clutter out of my head and gives me more energy.
- Know when to say “no”: My default has been to say yes to things until I am over-commited. I am hoping by creating a schedule for myself it will be easier to see when it is full.
- Sleep: I tend to “work” until late at night. I am going to schedule down time at night and stick to it. This will help me get to bed earlier and thus get up earlier.
There are a few more suggestions, but those are the ones that I really agree with.
Tonight I am going to create the first iteration of my daily schedule. In addition to getting up earlier, including daily exercise, and scheduling time for meals, I also want to establish regular office hours where I will have dedicated work time as well as some weekly tasks like grocery shopping that I always seem to put off until the last minute. I also have a weekly schedule for when I have time with my kids. This allows me to schedule more intentional parenting time.
I have enjoyed the supreme flexibility of not having a schedule. I just feel like I can do a better job of getting done what I want to get done if I am more intentional about how I spend my time.
Admittedly, it is a good problem to have.
Afterthought: I think I will include time for a few blog posts a week, too 
