Where to start? Six months ago life was crazy. But let's go back even farther. In college, I noticed a trend about Americans.
Anytime I would mention how busy I was, the reaction I received from those around me was almost always the same. Some form of "Oh yeah, if you think that's busy, let me tell you about..." [insert any combination of classes, events, clubs, activities, social gatherings, parties, concerts, teeth brushings and personal hygiene grooming, normal meal times, etc.]. It was quite annoying. It felt as if everyone was insecure that someone out there might be busier than they were and so immediately had to compete. It felt like the more packed your schedule directly correlated to how cool you were. It was some badge of honor.
It was a turn-off. But graduating college didn't end that trend, entering the workforce was the same thing. I'm now a decade and a half removed from college and I still get that feeling. I've lived in all parts of the US, and it's everywhere I go. At this point, I rarely talk about everything going on my life for fear of starting an unintended and "friendly" pissing contest.
Fast forward to today. As I said.. life was crazy six months ago. I'm a mid-30s gentleman who belongs to a blended family of 5. We have three kids ranging from two and a half to 15 years of age. The youngest kid is ours, then we both have a child from a previous marriage. I'm a senior software engineering manager at a medium-sized public company who runs multiple teams with almost two dozen engineers. My wife is an accountant who after having our youngest and re-entering the workforce, decided she wanted to become her boss. So in mid-2017, she started her own bookkeeping business. We live in the South Bay Area of Los Angeles, SoCal coastal living, beautiful but "busy" and expensive if done the wrong way.
Imagine juggling two shared schedules with our two co-parented kids, mixing in pre-school, elementary school, and high school along with all of their extracurricular activities. Throw in the demands of a high-stress engineering management job and a newly founded business. While still trying to balance life with enjoyable personal and family activities.
At a certain point, I took a step back and realized I was too busy. Right around when our youngest turned two, and we were able to start breathing again. I wanted to change that. I decided my new goal in life was to be bored. It felt great; it felt liberating; it felt like a solid plan. But not everyone seemed to agree.
During a conversation with some colleagues, someone mentioned being super busy both personally and professionally. I tested my new philosophy: "I recently decided my new goal in life is to be as bored as possible so I can get as much done." ... "I don't think to be bored works that way..." was the response I got.
True, but only I set up things incorrectly. Here's my logic. First, I seldom watch TV. I go through the occasional binge-watching phase but in general, a typical week is maybe a total of 2-4 hours a week TV, videos, movies. Second, I don't do social media. Years ago I abandoned them believing they are a significant time-sink. With those two removed, I removed my most significant time wasters.
Now I just had to take care of all the rest of the time-sinks. Invite to do some random activity? Nope! Something fresh or fun to do? Not Cool Enough! Something "productive" that is worth doing but probably won’t bear any fruit? Pass! Do anything? No thanks, I'm good! Within reason, I do have a wife and kids and ambitions after all. But in general, “no thanks” became my new best friend. As planned, this then had the effect of freeing up my plate. And as expected, once boredom was achieved, deep down I didn’t want to be bored. So I pulled out my list of long-running value-adding projects and started prioritizing.
In other words, I started focusing on those important but not urgent tasks. For those unaware of the important vs. urgent quadrants, here’s an article that nicely sums it up: https://observer.com/2017/03/urgent-vs-important-the-simplest-way-to-stay-productive-and-do-the-right-work/.
However, instead of trying to add urgency to my important but not urgent tasks with deadlines or accountability, as the article above suggests, I went the opposite direction. By creating artificial deadlines and accountability, that only increases the stress and pressure in your life. Much fun? Improved energy levels and productivity? Instead, by actively focusing on removing the distractions from my life to enter boredom, I was creating time to focus on what’s important but not urgent in a calm and composed way. I was able to get clarity in thought.
And so here we are today. The night has run out, so I didn't get to the reason for starting a blog. Which is probably pretty important to know since writing a blog seems like the opposite of being bored. But, as typical, a work emergency came up requiring after-hours attention, and so here we are. Up next I'll discuss a bit about the past six months and why I decided to start writing a blog now.
Anytime I would mention how busy I was, the reaction I received from those around me was almost always the same. Some form of "Oh yeah, if you think that's busy, let me tell you about..." [insert any combination of classes, events, clubs, activities, social gatherings, parties, concerts, teeth brushings and personal hygiene grooming, normal meal times, etc.]. It was quite annoying. It felt as if everyone was insecure that someone out there might be busier than they were and so immediately had to compete. It felt like the more packed your schedule directly correlated to how cool you were. It was some badge of honor.
It was a turn-off. But graduating college didn't end that trend, entering the workforce was the same thing. I'm now a decade and a half removed from college and I still get that feeling. I've lived in all parts of the US, and it's everywhere I go. At this point, I rarely talk about everything going on my life for fear of starting an unintended and "friendly" pissing contest.
Fast forward to today. As I said.. life was crazy six months ago. I'm a mid-30s gentleman who belongs to a blended family of 5. We have three kids ranging from two and a half to 15 years of age. The youngest kid is ours, then we both have a child from a previous marriage. I'm a senior software engineering manager at a medium-sized public company who runs multiple teams with almost two dozen engineers. My wife is an accountant who after having our youngest and re-entering the workforce, decided she wanted to become her boss. So in mid-2017, she started her own bookkeeping business. We live in the South Bay Area of Los Angeles, SoCal coastal living, beautiful but "busy" and expensive if done the wrong way.
Imagine juggling two shared schedules with our two co-parented kids, mixing in pre-school, elementary school, and high school along with all of their extracurricular activities. Throw in the demands of a high-stress engineering management job and a newly founded business. While still trying to balance life with enjoyable personal and family activities.
At a certain point, I took a step back and realized I was too busy. Right around when our youngest turned two, and we were able to start breathing again. I wanted to change that. I decided my new goal in life was to be bored. It felt great; it felt liberating; it felt like a solid plan. But not everyone seemed to agree.
During a conversation with some colleagues, someone mentioned being super busy both personally and professionally. I tested my new philosophy: "I recently decided my new goal in life is to be as bored as possible so I can get as much done." ... "I don't think to be bored works that way..." was the response I got.
True, but only I set up things incorrectly. Here's my logic. First, I seldom watch TV. I go through the occasional binge-watching phase but in general, a typical week is maybe a total of 2-4 hours a week TV, videos, movies. Second, I don't do social media. Years ago I abandoned them believing they are a significant time-sink. With those two removed, I removed my most significant time wasters.
Now I just had to take care of all the rest of the time-sinks. Invite to do some random activity? Nope! Something fresh or fun to do? Not Cool Enough! Something "productive" that is worth doing but probably won’t bear any fruit? Pass! Do anything? No thanks, I'm good! Within reason, I do have a wife and kids and ambitions after all. But in general, “no thanks” became my new best friend. As planned, this then had the effect of freeing up my plate. And as expected, once boredom was achieved, deep down I didn’t want to be bored. So I pulled out my list of long-running value-adding projects and started prioritizing.
In other words, I started focusing on those important but not urgent tasks. For those unaware of the important vs. urgent quadrants, here’s an article that nicely sums it up: https://observer.com/2017/03/urgent-vs-important-the-simplest-way-to-stay-productive-and-do-the-right-work/.
However, instead of trying to add urgency to my important but not urgent tasks with deadlines or accountability, as the article above suggests, I went the opposite direction. By creating artificial deadlines and accountability, that only increases the stress and pressure in your life. Much fun? Improved energy levels and productivity? Instead, by actively focusing on removing the distractions from my life to enter boredom, I was creating time to focus on what’s important but not urgent in a calm and composed way. I was able to get clarity in thought.
And so here we are today. The night has run out, so I didn't get to the reason for starting a blog. Which is probably pretty important to know since writing a blog seems like the opposite of being bored. But, as typical, a work emergency came up requiring after-hours attention, and so here we are. Up next I'll discuss a bit about the past six months and why I decided to start writing a blog now.
