One way to improve our life is to think of it in terms of discrete events that we want to do more or less of. Here are some tools that can help us do that.
"one thing that seems to work is explicitly earmarking time as time you’re allowed to spend on other things, and to create events within that window."
Having just started my PhD and feeling overwhelmed by how difficult it all is, I've already naturally arrived at this conclusion, and I feel slightly proud of this. This is why I bought a nice piano and a yoga app subscription: they allow me to have tasks that aren't the Big Task, but that I also enjoy doing.
"if paying attention to it doesn’t help you reduce it then it’s more load bearing than you were giving it credit for." - this is definitely something I've noticed. Sometimes things like Twitter are contextually load-bearing. E.g. I sometimes benefit from letting myself chat to people for an hour, say on a day when I've worked hard, I'm tired and I don't intend to use Twitter for work or political reasons (both of which will be more tiring than just talking to friends about shit). On those occasions, the thing to watch out for is that I don't let using it socially shade into using it in ways where there's more of a requirement to keep my wits about me or curate content/an image.
"one thing that seems to work is explicitly earmarking time as time you’re allowed to spend on other things, and to create events within that window."
Having just started my PhD and feeling overwhelmed by how difficult it all is, I've already naturally arrived at this conclusion, and I feel slightly proud of this. This is why I bought a nice piano and a yoga app subscription: they allow me to have tasks that aren't the Big Task, but that I also enjoy doing.
Personally, I find viewing life as a series of events useful in a different way. It allows me to be less attached to some ideal version of me.
See the Diachronics (i don't like this term: i prefer the narrative-inclined) vs Episodic dichotomy as explained by Burkeman here https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/may/01/tangles-of-life-narrative-oliver-burkeman
"if paying attention to it doesn’t help you reduce it then it’s more load bearing than you were giving it credit for." - this is definitely something I've noticed. Sometimes things like Twitter are contextually load-bearing. E.g. I sometimes benefit from letting myself chat to people for an hour, say on a day when I've worked hard, I'm tired and I don't intend to use Twitter for work or political reasons (both of which will be more tiring than just talking to friends about shit). On those occasions, the thing to watch out for is that I don't let using it socially shade into using it in ways where there's more of a requirement to keep my wits about me or curate content/an image.