How I spend my time

Published 2022-04-18

I want my time spending to match my values. I also want to tackle some impossibles along the way while keeping my sanity. Here is a sketch of how I plan to spend my time.

(Note: This post is just one part of the Google-to-Snowflake series. Other posts: 1. Why quit Google 2. Interview tips 3. How I spend my time 4. New work mindset at Snowflake)

Summary (See this for the detailed calendar)

My values. Truth, Love, Play. See here for more details.
Weekday balance is 70% truth, 30% love / play. 25% of the truth-seeking activities are self-driven, outside of work. It is critical that my full time job is relevant to my truth value — beware of anything else [money, status, …] that chips away at the truth value proportion.
Weekend balance is more flexible. Save mornings for deep work. Then the rest of the day is filled with more socials.

Calendar breakdown. Here are some note-worthy activities outside of the usual 40h work.

Morning deep work. Mornings are for self-driven projects / learnings. This should not be related to paid work. It’s something that I want to do even if I retire.
Learning. Make time to learn about (1) topics directly related to your work (2) topics adjacently related to your work, or the larger field (3) anything else that’s non-work related. Books / Youtube are good for this.
Brainstorm. Make time to brainstorm and think in solitude. Do this in a variety of enviroments: [walk, in a room, driving].
Play, socials. Always end the day w/ play and socials. Batch up most of the socials to the weekends.

On guilt. Sometimes I wonder if I could do more. Here are some reflections to assuage my guilt.

Reason 1: Desired ratio. Prior to creating the calendar, I already planned for 70% of my time to be spent on the truth value. I got almost exactly that ratio for the weekday. In a way, don’t feel guilty because this proportion is optimal as per value-based budgeting.
Reason 2: Diminishing return. 70% is enough. If I trade off 10% time from play / love to truth, I may be gaining very little productivity points for larger loss in happiness / wellbeing.
Reason 3: Weekend to mentally reset. It’s good to have a shift in balance of time spending on the weekends. This may also help me have a different mindset at the start of the week v.s. middle of the week -> more creative.
Reason 4: Avoid burnout. Pace yourself. End the night with play. You want to be productive and happy long term. This is a marathon, not a sprint.
Reason 5: Grit training. Being gritty during recovery is part of grit training.
Reason 6: Past experience. I have tried ~30h post-work studies prior to my short stint in comp neuro (after being inspired by Nate Soares). That was fine for the short term, but I didn’t feel that it was sustainable, and felt bad that I’m not tending to my other values (especially socials). 20h should be enough.

Comment via: medium

This site is open source. Improve this page.