This morning, I came upon Ben Kuhn's fantastic piece on attention, which, despite being primarily focused with the work of a senior developer, left me with much to contemplate about my own life. That is, the life of the person writing this blog entry, quarantined and in a Visa limbo. I've always kind of scoffed at people who wrote on productivity, laughing the idea of life-optimisation off. Who treats productivity itself as an end? But something about Kuhn resonated with me.
Maybe it's my scatterbrained tendency towards breadth in choosing hobbies. It's one of my biggest faults - I'm above average in playing the guitar, piano, bass, drums, in analysing music, in writing, in playing some video games, in programming, but I've never excelled, largely as a result of my inability to maintain a strict routine for an extended period of time. I'd always blame it on a lack of guidance, an aimlessness or my own laziness (the truth comes out!), but acknowledging this hasn't ever really done anything for me. (This is also why the subject matter covered by this blog will prove to be diverse, perhaps to a fault!)
Maybe it was the subject matter. All the writing on productivity I've seen prior to Kuhn's has been on fields I didn't relate with one bit. Surely the focus on work as a developer, with which I've recently grown increasingly enamoured, along with the fact that the article is actually not strictly about productivity, rather one's attention, had a role to play in catching my interest.
Maybe it was that as of recent, I've managed to put myself into a relatively consistent routine. Since July, I've been able to segment my day, as well as areas of the house/office into productive and non-productive times/zones. Until the start of September, my work at Investree dominated my day, especially towards the end with my rapidly increasing involvement in Sprint #5. Since then, I've been filling my productive time up by grinding through MIT Open CourseWare, studying Korean (열심히 공부하고 있어요) and working on a React web-app.
Most likely, it was all of the above. And in any case, the catalytic factor in making the article stick in my mind is of little value to me. I actually decided to write this entry to contemplate my current routine, which principally is a result of circumstance, not any sort of premeditated planning.
The Routine
My day-to-day has changed multiple times in the past, what is it now, 6 months? Since quarantine started, basically. It's veered, as we inch closer to the days I once again become a university student, towards bearing a dominance in productivity. These days, it can be summed up as follows:
- 09:00-10:00: The basic morning routine: wake up, shower, brush teeth, wash face. (this time block also includes in-bed-phone-time, a must-have for someone still on a summer holiday)
- 10:00-12:00: Brew a coffee (most days, this is a pour-over with milk) and do daily reading. I use Feedly to aggregate news sites and blogs. I'm considering switching off it due to a few frustrations I have with it, but it does the job for now.
- 12:00-13:00: Lunch. If I'm eating out with the family this might take until 13:30. I also tend to take any supplements around this time too. I squeeze a couple games of Smash Bros. here too.
- 13:00-18:00: This is the dedicated productive block. A 5-hour span where I do anything from study Korean, work on my web-app or anything else that would fall under my productive umbrella, of course with regular breaks.
- 18:00-19:00: Dinner time.
- 19:00-00:00: Free time. I might play video games, write up a blog entry, listen to an album, watch YouTube or a movie - point is, this is the dedicated unproductive block.
Despite my fairly strict adherence to the routine, it's actually descriptive more than it is prescriptive, as I'd hinted at earlier. It grew out of my desire to follow a more structured Korean syllabus after being sorely disappointed with Duolingo and my desire to expand my programming skillset out of the backend work I've been used to. But to say it hasn't worked would be a complete misjudgement. I finished the first unit of the Korean course today (1/7 of the way through!) and initial commited my web-app this past week. The rapid growth of my skillset has come as a result of my attention no longer being divided, as Kuhn would point out. This is such a plain and obvious observation to make, but it it's important to realise, and this has been why a fear has been festering all this while.
With my return/arrival to Uni looming, it's becoming more and more clear that I won't be able to keep this routine going for long. A shame, considering how well it's worked out for me. Taking modules again means I might just have time for the one Korean lesson a day - or God forbid one every two days - and even less time for my web-app. The scary thing is that's not even the main source of my fear. What I haven't at all mentioned is that Jakarta, especially COVID-era Jakarta, is a particularly asocial part of the world for me. Having friends again? Seeing non-family, non-work people face-to-face? Incredibly exciting. The price I'll pay is that it'll throw a spanner in the works of my routine.
Learning Korean, just like starting a blog, was not something I'd anticipated I'd do this year. I always imagined I'd learn it one day, what with my love for K-pop, but I always thought I'd learn Mandarin or German first. Or I'd beef up my Spanish. This was how it happened, though, and I'm committed, so the idea of progress being bogged down is a scary one. To maintain above 10% focus on what is important, to be able to allow for genuine learning and growth, part of the routine will have to be sacrificed. Let's hope it isn't this one.
This one's been ramble-y. Sorry future me, but I wanted to get these thoughts down!