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A Rebuttal to an Earlier Rec o' Mine
If you think about the day in quarters it can help if you feel like you've wasted the day or had a particularly bad one. Basically you take the hours from 8am to Midnight (the other 8 being rego sleeping time) and split it into 4.
8am - Noon = Quarter 1
Noon - 4pm = Quarter 2
4pm - 8pm = Quarter 3
8pm - Midnight = Quarter 4
This is not to try to weigh your day better on the good or bad scale, nor is it really pushing for the modular nature of existence. It is really just a way for you to reset back to 0 every 4 hours.
For example: This morning I woke up groggy and gross at 11am, rotting in bed until noon (quarter 1). I finally ate around 12:30pm, was dealing with some annoying health things, didn't do any tasks really, but at around 3:30ish I started writing a substack post (quarter 2). At around 4ish I made a graphic and posted the substack, then I went for a walk, got back from the walk around 7, and made a new resume that I will print out tomorrow as I go in a billion businesses begging for work. (Quarter 3) Now, at around 8:23pm, I am going to make dinner, hopefully shower, and work on a zine. We'll see what happens.
All this to say is if you have little landmarks throughout the day, you can recenter and try again. So, though I thought today was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day it has ended up pretty alright.
Feb 8, 2024
Related Recs
I really struggled with all the unstructured time post-grad and my body totally flipped like what do you MEAN I have nothing to do and if I do nothing, nothing will happen? This rec is annoying, but as a skilled layabout, it really helped me overcome the whole “what do I do all day” thing and also the “why am I falling asleep at 3 AM and waking up at noon?” thing to make a loose schedule and try to adhere. If you’re applying for jobs, school, or even just pondering what to do next, think about:
At what time during the day do I feel most awake and alive? Then, block out like four hours around that window. I try to do 90 minutes of focused work at a time with like 60 minutes between for chilling. So, if you can start with two little blocks of working on applications or doing some intentional, focused pondering, great. Gradually, you can increase the amount of work if you want.
Then, plan the rest of your day around things you need and want to do - move your bod, eat, socialize. Things like talking a short walk in the morning to get some sunlight, going to the movies, and calling friends, lighten me up! Keep it simple babe!
Post-grad, I laid on a couch for three months in stay at home girlfriend mode totally consumed by fear. I asked a lot of older people how they figured things out and they told me that nobody ever does. I like to do some meditations on intention and listening to yourself (linked). And I agree with capyboppy...try to stay present and pay attention to what you got going on right now! The weight of future is heavy becuase you probably want your life to be sick and meaningful….and that’s cool.
Jun 11, 2024
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the work-eat-scroll-sleep-repeat pattern had me in a chokehold for ~3 years after I graduated from college, realized that a large part of the reason I struggled to break the cycle was because I’d want to “rest” after work but eventually do something enriching in the evenings, but didn’t actually have an idea of what I wanted to do so the lift to get off [app] was less willpower and more decision paralysis; the friction of figuring out what to do was what was keeping me in the cycle ~90% of the time.
what has worked for me:
1. going outside immediately after work (especially if working from home) to run an errand or go to a book or record or coffee shop
2. keeping a list of projects i want to / am currently working on or skills i want to develop and making progress on those
3. reading a book
4. (most effective) taking a class (writing, pottery, filmmaking for me) and either going to the sessions or doing the assignments
but also sometimes you literally just wanna rot and that’s cool too!
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i tried a couple different ways to structure my time:
1. daily timeblocking (3*/10): setting 5-6 to wind down; 6-7 for dinner; 7-9 for enrichment; etc… didn’t work at all for me. too structured.
2. theming days: (5*/10): mondays are for reading; tuesdays writing; etc… worked slightly better but sometimes you wanna do a different thing than the theme, introduces decision paralysis of whether to power through to build routine or to follow your instincts and have max fun
3. big list: (7*/10): here are all my projects (and subtasks) or hobbies or chores or errands i want to do; i give them a number score of how urgently i want to do them, then do the one i want to do most thats higher priority. bonus points if at the start of the week or month, you put some activities on a calendar for specific days even randomly to just have a schedule when you don’t have something you’re particularly called to do so that’s your default activity and not scrolling. works the best*!
(*for me)
Jan 16, 2025
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I’ve learned that after a trip I always need to take 12 to 24 hours to help myself readjust back to my life. I find that giving myself that time to do simple housekeeping chores help me shift back into every day work mode.
If something goes wrong in my morning or some point of my day, I stop, take some deep breaths, and say to myself that a bad moment does not make a bad day. Something about that mindful shift really helps me leave that in the past and, be present.
Oct 7, 2024
Top Recs from @colinlrhoades
Feb 23, 2024
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it's the morning paper
Jan 30, 2024
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I will never lose my place. Just hitting pause for now.
Jan 29, 2024