Alright this one's going to be an interesting one because today, cooincidently unlike other days, I had absolutely nothing on my To-do list.
It went like this: Yesterday night I forgot to remind the authorized to renew the interenet plan ( thank god for that ) and so I ended up breathing the next day without the internet.
Well, the next day I woke up at 6:30 AM without an alarm. Now that's a good kick up right? I usually schedule my day on Cron and add my tasks on Todoist but not today. Now without going through the usual news and gmail, I found myself free, free to study anything or just let your mind wander around ( I'll be writing on that topic very soon. ). I for one wouldn't have approved of this, even now while I'm writing this I feel this constant nudging that how could I have done this! I've been using Cron since 4.5 months now. And it seemed like I was depending on it a bit too much. And after coming to India for the vacation I felt like there had been a crack in my relationship with Cron. My ability to focus had degraded, each day I used to schedule and it all felt so rigid- the feeling soon became overwhelming and then today arrived. I see today as an experiment as well. Without any goal, I just picked up my geography textbook and started reading a new chapter. Belive it not, I read through the whole thing! I mean that was excellent for me because I for one amn't really that excited about Geography. But it was different today, without no sense of time, within two hours I was done highlighting.
I still had my doubts about today, without my laptop I couldn't figure out my next task! Yesterday I would have checked my Todoist for any pending tasks but not today. The feeling was free. I wanted to binge read this book but couldn't get time for it. Well, today was the day! I started reading and if I said that I got lost in it, I'd be lying. After every chapter I kept checking the clock. I took intervals after every two chapters and the feeling wasn't good. I went back studying and was done by 12:00PM.
Not having anything to do is really a hastle isn't it? Parkinson was on spot when he proposed that "Work expands to fill time". I couldn't agree more. There are 24 hours in a day. It's a problem in today's time. We are all so boombarded with emails and calls from bosses that we rarely get the time for our actual priorities. In the Perpetual Guardian in New Zealand, Andrew Barnes ( the founder ) tried an experiment of switching to a 4-day week from a 5-day week. The employees and even the HODs were surprised at this. They were obviously skeptic about this but Barnes had more for them in store. He proposed that if the workers could be productive enough in 4 days then this change would be permanent. His intention and focus was to reduce his worker's stress and it did happen! They got the same results as they did when the 5-day week system was in action. This was because people were more relaxed now that they had an extra day off. They weren't sleep deprived anymore and could spend quality time with their priorities and thus came the change in the quality of their work. The productivity level sky rocketed.
An extra day in fact even an extra hours is just enough to get a fresh mind. But sadly we have limited Andrew Barnes and we can't really rely on every single company to appoint this sort of system. So we need to tweek something else. Rather than having an extra "day" off, why not space out your calender a bit more? Have more breaks, and if long sessions suit you then have longer ones betwen each session!
I tried this a few days back and found it really enhanced my seratonin. I found more time to practice code and resume my French lessons!
Sometimes, at moments like these, ( listening to [Calm's "Music For Reading Playlist"](calm.com/app/program/x0S1uFuSu0Calm - The #1 App for Meditation and Sleep) and just breathing in ) I feel like a dove on a voyage, without a mission or a destiny, just observing your mind and your surroundings. But then again, this might be what Lauren Berlant refers to as Cruel Optimism. It's impossible these days to take time off, all these schedules, meetings, emails to respond to, tasks can seem heavy. Robin Sharma explains this issue in his book, The 5AM Club. He explains that how just giving yourself an hour to breath in can be life changing. He calls it the "Victory Hour". It spans from 5:00AM in the morning to the next hour ( 6:00AM ). I realize not all of us may have that sort of opportunity to experience it since, well, most of us aren't really so punctual with our sleeping patterns but just giving yourself 15 minutes is more than enough.Yes, 15 minutes is all it takes! You can medidate during that, walk around in your nearby park or even at your house! Disconnect from the people for fifteen minutes and explore the wonders of nature.
During the morning, our brain is like this child filled with curiosity. It'll grab any ounce of knowledge. The hour after you wake up is indeed the victory hour. The content you inhale during that time is sure to stay with you that's why it's necessary to have a headstart. Perform some yoga ( which is in my opinion, the most profound form of peace ), take a walk and smell the rose.
Waking up at 5:00 might occur as a hassle for many people out there. If that doesn't suit you then after just coming from work or school, just take 10-15 minutes off. Come home, take a seat, and just close your eyes ( don't sleep! ) to think about what you have done. How did you interact with your peers or how the day just went. Journal on a daily basis and keep smelling a rose.