Struggle with life purpose / project schedule

[jordankingbn2]

When working on something like a personal development project or life purpose.

If I schedule a rest time at the end of the day, say at 8pm i clock off and relax, whether it be watching a movie, going for a walk, listening to music, reading a book or researching something, 

Also, when I have the 8pm clock off time, it makes me want to work even less because now it feels like my day is just about enduring through to 8pm til I can. (it creates this distinction of work (not fun) and rest (fun).

i've also tried scheduling those times during the middle of the day, but then I never want to get back to working again after taking one of those rests so that does't work

By the way, I go to the gym during the day and cook etc, so it's not like i'm working the entire time til 8pm

 

but i feel like I should have some kind of rest, but don't know how to incorporate it
 

[The Renaissance Man]

@jordankingbn2 You could start by adjusting to a schedule you can actually manage. End the day at 4pm instead of 8pm, and enjoy yourself for the rest of the day. Are you happier? Are you more, or maybe equally productive?

This solution doesn't waste your entire day like a break in the middle of the day, yet it's not as extreme as working until 8pm.

[jordankingbn2]

The thing is, 9-11am I work on the life purpose, and then from 4-8pm.

The reason I structure it that way is because of my circadium rhythm, from 11.30/12 - 2 or 3pm I have an afternoon slump so I naturally feel tired for LP / Personal development type work, which is why I use that time to apply for jobs, and to the gym.

And then around 3 or 4pm - 8pm is when I continue the work I was doing at 9-11

This is broken up by food in between etc, so I’m not working the entire time

Also because a lot of my work is deliberate practice, I work in really short bursts doing drills and have lots of mini rests in those 4-8pm periods

 

Edited March 13 by jordankingbn2

[LordFall]

Why do you feel like you need some kind of rest? Because you're exhausted or because society told you?

The book So good they can't ignore you by Cal Newport will help you a lot. It talks about different intensities of work. Watching a tv show/movie vaguely related to your industry and relaxing while getting new ideas is like .5/10 productive but it's also relaxation. I find pure entertainment extremely boring unless I'm very high on weed and even then I think about my life purpose and different fantasies I wanna accomplish in life.

The book relentless also talks about how some people are built different. For some people 2 weeks getting drunk in Cancun would be amazing. For some others it would be boring and anxiety inducing if anything. 

[The Renaissance Man]

@jordankingbn2 No problem, you could do 4-6pm instead of 4-8pm. Same ideas I shared. At 6pm, it's time to live and have fun:

23 hours ago, The Renaissance Man said:

and enjoy yourself for the rest of the day. Are you happier? Are you more, or maybe equally productive?

What do you think?

[Michael569]

I think what you're describing is sort of a curse of being competent enough that you can organise your life so effectively that working on your life purpose every day is no longer a luxury or a possibility but it becomes a reality. So the rules of usual 9-5 work/life don't apply to you anymore because you have to master your own time and at the end of a day there is nobody there to give you a pat on the back and say "good job today". No boss to celebrate success with and no promotion to be secured. Its just you against you and every day feels like a drag even you are probably achieving more than 80% of your peers clocking at 9-5 job. Tho it may feel like the opposite.

What the LP course doesn't fully tell you, I feel, is how miserable working on your LP often is  The results are amazing and those moments when you feel like its working and you are on a path towards something greater than yourself is the best feeling ever but the hours and hours and hours of manual grudging work that nobody praises or rewards you for is frustrating and disheartening. I've experienced that more than enough time where I should feel achievement at the end of the day but all there is , is a feeling of incomplete void. Somebody raised a thread about the misery of pursuing the path of self help optimiser and this is basically it. You become so competent that it takes a lot of imagination for someone to actually appreciate what you've achieved. (often including yourself). Not to mention you yourself have to create a system of tracking achievements and milestones otherwise you'll go crazy with feeling of inefficiency. 

But the opposite is a mid life crisis so savage that some people actually ponder taking their own life. Fathers who have an epiphany in the midst of their 50s realising they have pissed away their most productive years in some corporate job, had kids too early, pushed their dreams aside and no longer have time or energy or mental vigor to go back to school and get re-educated. That sort of misery will outweight any grudging work you put into your LP today by a magnitude of ten thousand. So its suffer now or suffer later but if you are conscientious enough that time will come ad that is as guaranteed as the next day's sun coming on the horizons. So you are on the right path, just need to fine-tune day to day operations. 

On a practical note, it also sounds like you're simply not giving yourself break and instead are whipping to achieve performance. Could you share a little bit more detail on how your day to day routine looks like from morning to evening?

How do you measure progress in your work? 

How often do you take time to reflect on past period? 

Do you have a mentor or someone to help you create a structure or navigate path forward?  

When was the last time you've taken a holiday? 

How do you celebrate success albeit a small one? 

 

Edited yesterday at 09:42 AM by Michael569