Unstructured time addict

I’ve made a useful realization. I’ve been feeling out of control lately, like no matter how much I get done there is always more to do and too many things left unfinished. I think this is because I have grown used to a behavior in myself that I don’t like.

I’ve grown used to the idea that I do not use checklists - even though I like making them.

Over a normal day I tend to do the thing I think of first, or the thing that’s directly in front of me, without referring to any notes. It gives me a feeling of freedom, like I am doing what I want, instead of what I’m obligated or told to do. This illusion of spontaneous choice gives me some enthusiasm for otherwise boring jobs.

But if I never refer to a list, the non-obvious jobs keep accumulating, and a feeling of helplessness creeps over me. How do I get myself to do these things? Maybe I just can’t?

Motivation is a tricky business. However I might wish to compartmentalize the facts, my mind refuses to play along. For example, I can tell myself that consistently sweeping the floors will prevent dirt from building up, and I won’t need to spend an hour mopping them later on — but without a to-do item, I won’t notice the floors until they’re visibly dirty and the mop is required. If I set a to-do item, I’ll never check it. If I get more serious and set a calendar alert, I’ll see it and say, “Ugh, I don’t feel like sweeping floors right now.” I have given myself the right to ignore my own alerts if they do not suit me. It’s rather schizophrenic.

Of course, what’s really going on in that example is that some part of me is okay with having dirty floors, at least temporarily. A dirty floor is not going to kill me, cost me a lot of money, ruin my social standing, disrupt my job ... it’s just not a high priority, and if my calendar says otherwise, I will fight my calendar, and my calendar will lose.

There are so many things I could regiment, and benefit from doing consistently, that I just leave to chaos so I can preserve that sense of freedom and unstructured time. Shopping trips, exercise, social visits, skill development, every kind of household chore... But I adore unstructured time. Immutable appointments loom in my consciousness like brick walls, even if they’re hours away, and so I have enormous trouble setting artificial ones for myself, let alone honoring them.

It’s not that I don’t get things done. I actually get quite a lot done. The shopping and exercise and practice does happen. It just happens ... chaotically. But that lack of order causes me to miss obscure or optional tasks, which accumulate, because I’m almost as relentless of a procrastinator as I am a restless doer of tasks, and I never know which version of me is going to dominate.

(Perhaps this is why people hire personal trainers or assistants. It adds that sense of being obligated to someone else to tasks that are actually a personal choice.)

So I’ve realized I need to ask a question: Yes, no unstructured time is very bad for my spirit, and it makes sense I’ve tried to maximize it. But how much unstructured time is actually enough? A day has 24 hours; does 24 hours feel like enough? No? How is that possible?

And there’s the insight: I have become hard-wired to feel like I do not have enough unstructured time, no matter what. This feeling has motivated me to design my life and set my schedule a certain way, and that has kept me sane and happy in a world of ever-increasing speed and adulthood pressures, but it has grown too powerful and run unopposed for too long. If infinite unstructured time is not enough, then my only real option is to find a way to be okay with an unsettled appetite for it, and trust myself to run a schedule that won’t force me into starvation.

I need to jump-start my schedule with something structured. Something clearly beneficial and not too onerous, to earn the trust of my own schizophrenic mind. Perhaps something that I tend to do anyway. Most importantly, it can’t be something that I do not honestly, personally value. Imposing structured time just to sweep my floors is not going to cut it.

Here are a few ideas:

A once-a-week calendar alert to call up a close relative on the phone and chat. A rotating list of people.

A block of hours Wednesday evening during which I pick some item on my home-improvement list and try to make progress on it. (Painting, gardening, repair, etc.)

An hour or so on Tuesday, after the farmers market, where I do a regular shopping excursion to fill in any ingredients I didn’t find.

Let’s see how this goes...