...scheduling an hour for happiness
Productivity purgatory
I’ve been thinking a lot about time recently – how we use it, how we waste it, and how we might mistake our management of it for meaning.
I didn’t necessarily “find myself” in six weeks of travel but I did find enough space and time to see the shape of my life more clearly.
And when the routines I depended on dissipated in the heat, I noticed which ones mattered, which ones didn’t, and what actually makes a day feel well-lived…
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Good morning! How are you?
I’m back in the UK and in a familiar writing place, somewhere near Sheffield city centre.
And, from the top, I want to say that nothing that follows is necessarily new or original but, in its lived experience and application it is hopefully still engaging and helpful.
You see, World of Books’ AI would have me believe that my recent thinking (e.g. this newsletter from Spring), my recent feelings (to be discussed following six weeks of travel below) and my recent reading mean that either Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals would be a perfect present for me or that I wrote it.
It might be some relief to you to know that I believe in the former and have just bought myself the book, but it’s not unlikely that you or I (or Burkeman) as humans, living in similar spaces (and possibly also growing up in the north of England), exposed to similar foods and media and politics, might come to similar conclusions.
Without having read his book, I won’t assume I know it all – and I am properly excited to read it – but the essence, as I wrote back in Spring, seems to be that there will always be more to do and that happiness, maybe, comes more easily from selective task mastery rather than mass task completion.
The pursuit of happyness/optimisation
It’s a tenet of our Western lives that there’s always more to do.
Whether it’s at work, managing our homes, or just chilling out, if you can multi-task and watch videos at 2× speed, why wouldn’t you?
Indeed, how good does it feel when we do get ahead of everything, when we clear that inbox, when we finally clean the oven door and shower screen, when we complete that Netflix series…until the next email or meal or show comes along.
Perversely, I wonder if this productivity and optimisation culture also feeds into the deep sense of procrastination many of my clients and friends talk to me about.
When you don’t get the thing done because you’ve been designing the perfect mechanism or routine in which to do the thing, then you’re likely missing the point…
I’ve experienced first-hand how, when we plan, the gods laugh.
Planning and structure and goal-setting are all important.
Look, spending five to 10 minutes to plan the next 60 minutes of writing during my English exams probably was a good use of time.
But are those minutes and hours and days we plough into planning and productivity routines right now helping or hindering our abilities to reach completion or feel enjoyment? I think mine were, and I know I’m not the only one.
In the U.S., self-help books alone generate over $1.2 billion annually, with most buyers averaging 35 years old and over 60% returning for repeat purchases.
Around 80% of Americans believe in self-improvement, with 65% pursuing it for better mental health. Their top focuses include wellness, productivity and spirituality.
Additionally, self-help podcasts grew by 35% between 2019 and 2022 and apps reflect shifting habits too, with 70% of users preferring mindfulness and meditation tools. It’s quite clear that investing in happiness and personal growth has become as common as paying for a gym membership.
Psychologist Mark Travers, writing for Forbes.com
Life optimisation isn’t pointless – but it might be missing the point
“You look so happy”, “you look so healthy”, “do you have to come home?(!)”
Just three telling sentences from family and friends this past month and a bit.
I left the UK on 13 October and got back on 26 November.
In that time, all the cooking I did amounted to pouring pancake mix on a griddle.
I spent five of those weeks in hostels where sleep wasn’t always impacted, but I’d wake up around 6am whether I wanted to or not.
I took long-distance and overnight buses, ate a piece of fruit every other day, ate tacos and tortas every day for a month in Mexico and burgers every other day for a fortnight in America, trained when I could rather than on set days and didn’t run once.
Oh, and it was a deliberate effort to keep my wee clear.
There was nothing optimal about the above – no structure, impacted sleep hygiene and sometimes food quality, more reactive than proactive, massively reliant on other people – and yet I did feel happier and healthier and, at times, like I could stay on the road forever.
A lot of my guardrails had fallen but it wasn’t all chaos out there; there were still things that were structured because they enrich me rather than drain me.
I still worked out at least three days a week and I still followed my programme and hit records because good coaching and programming typically do the thinking and guesswork for you. I walked everywhere, so cardio didn’t need scheduling, it just happened, and I watched myself get leaner and stronger without micromanaging it.
And I practised Spanish every single day because it was a privilege to feel welcomed in another language and culture and have the ability to enrich my experience with a new vocabulary and burgeoning understanding of being.
Finished versus fulfilled
Before I left, I could have told you to the hour where I’d be in the week ahead – client check-ins, podcast edits, newsletter writing, which piece of kit I’d be using in a workout, what time I’d be asleep.
I was effective.
What I couldn’t tell you was where the learning was outside of researching, or the spontaneity outside of Saturdays – which, you may know, since December 2021, I’ve kept free for friends and family and, occasionally, no plans at all.
You see I’d squeezed every drop of time from my calendar without ever feeling like I had enough of it, and even those Saturdays, tailor-made for fun and chilling out, began to feel like a drag.
I’d grown dissatisfied with the work done and fatigued by the work to come. Outside of the running, I wasn’t really present.
Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed.
Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment
I cried on the plane home
Not because I didn’t want to come back, quite the opposite in fact. I was excited to be back. Still am!
I’d not had some big revelation, I just felt overwhelmingly grateful for the time I’d had.
Few of my friends are in a position to disappear for six weeks in October and November. Most wouldn’t be able to afford the time off, or move their work in the way I can. And yet there I was – in often perfect weather, eating out every day, speaking Spanish in lessons and then out in the world, learning new things constantly, moving through cultures and moments I’d never have found at home and still getting the work done.
The gratitude hit unexpectedly hard. I described it to my mum as simultaneously the same physical feeling but the exact opposite experience of hitting rock bottom as described in this podcast with Maddie. I was crying from my stomach, eyes were uncontrollably streaming, and yet I was so warm and positive and, there it is again, grateful.
It also made me think back to being upset with my parents before I left. I’d tried to explain that part of why I don’t want kids is because certain things in my childhood felt so difficult that I wouldn’t want anyone else ever to go through them – not least someone I’d co-created! But on the flight I didn’t feel angry about those moments.
If anything, I felt sad at how sad I’d made them feel in trying to describe it. And, in between Milk and Eddington on my little TV, I just felt aware – aware that even the best parents are usually learning as they go, trying to manage their own lives while shaping someone else’s.
We can’t change what happened – bad or tough or painful – but I can let my people know how much they mean to me and how thankful I am for them in my life right now.
Routines that make life smaller and larger
Some routines are scaffolding – training, learning Spanish, movement, hydration. They create stability without suffocating spontaneity.
Others compress your days so tightly that even “free time” becomes another thing to manage. They remove friction and – maybe you’ve felt this too – the possibility of surprise.
On the road, the only routines that survived were the ones that palpably shifted the tone of my day. Everything else disappeared, and the beauty of exploration and new and different swept in, and I feel happier and healthier for all of it.
I wasn’t craving more time or structure or optimisation after all; I was craving new, challenging and uncomfortable with a view to it all getting easier with practice and in so doing improving my life no end.
You can’t outsmart time
You can build all the routines, task lists and spreadsheets you like, but if you’re not sleeping enough, eating enough or staying hydrated, the whole system collapses.
Pick a few things to get genuinely better at and work with a friend or colleague or coach who can help you bake progress into the work you need to do to see them through.
Look, you probably can do anything you put your mind to; you simply can’t do everything all at once.
Online fitness coaching
I want to work with five women between 25-35 who want to start the next chapter of their fitness journey before Christmas, so they finish the year feeling proud rather than like they’re playing catch-up before the new year’s even started.
If you really would prefer a fresh start because December already feels a bit much, then let’s lock you in with 2025 prices now and begin in January with a clear plan and real accountability – reply to this newsletter with DECEMBER for more details and check out the post below on Instagram to see what six weeks of tacos did to this man[n]…
And that’s it from me!
Much love and I’ll see yas in the next one
J x
At risk of overhyping it, I can't recommend 4K Weeks highly enough— easily one of the best books I've read in the past 5 years. Enjoy.