Paret-optimized priorization of GOALS for maxium life enjoyment [example to theory topic]

[Stahlmann]

Hello,

So this a little derail from this topic:
http://forum.earlyretirementextreme.com ... f=7&t=8103

My parameters:
1. I am student of Mech-Eng in Middle Europe (I am planning to end studies in next year).
2. I really like my free time.

My questions:
1. How would you optimize your time during your studies (if you had opportunity to study one more time)?
a) but really I mean how much time did you spend time (like family 10%/studies 20% etc.)
2. How do you balance your life/work after graduation?
3. Do you see any edge in my specific case [maybe I will upload more data]?

Or maybe in general:
4. How did you find inner peace during transition from college to work?

Cheers

[Stahlmann]

Seriously, no thoughts?

[Ego]

Or maybe in general:
4. How did you find inner peace during transition from college to work?

Okay, I'll bite. After getting my first full-time job I remember thinking..... Where did my time go? There seemed to be no time left for the things I wanted to do and the people I wanted to see. Out of sheer necessity I dropped some of my hobbies and friends so I could focus on the most important few. It was hard. I got very good at a skill I believe to be a serendipity-killer, one that removes much of the joy from life. I got good at saying no.

Then I had an interesting experience. I started to realize that the middle-aged people at work did not struggle with this so much. They became habituated. But the head-exploding experience was when I realized that a significant number of parents with young kids actually looked forward to work and dreaded the weekend.

How did I find inner peace? It took a while but together with Mrs. Ego we realized that we didn't have to do what everyone else was doing. I think it helped that we were both, in our own ways, foreigners in Southern California. We were weirdos.

Years ago one of my Navy Seal friends who had just returned from Mountain Warfare training told me that the instructors drilled into their heads the fact that it is easier to stay warm than it is to get warm. Same goes for weirdness. It is easier to continue being weird than to get weird. In other words, it is hard to transition from normal to weirdo. We just stayed weird.

[ducknalddon]

But the head-exploding experience was when I realized that a significant number of parents with young kids actually looked forward to work and dreaded the weekend.

I read a paper recently that said that women in the US had slightly lower levels of happiness when looking after their kids than whilst doing domestic chores, for German women it was slightly higher but not much in it.

[Dragline]

Addressing the OP, you first need to have goals and state them clearly to yourself. Write them down somewhere and organize them into short, medium and long-term. To be useful, they cannot be vague. So "enjoying free time" is not a goal. Compare that with something like "participating in a half iron man triathlon" -- that's a concrete goal. Similarly "working out" is not a goal. Going to the gym for three sessions per week of one hour each is a a goal. Goals get trickier when they involve other people (relationships), but they can and should still be outlined.

So for your studies, for example, is it important that you achieve certain grades? Learn certain things? Impress someone and get a recommendation? Just pass and move on? I varied the time and effort spent depending on the goal.

There is no balancing, really. You are just pursuing the goals that you lay out.

But after you determine what your goals are, the first thing is to eliminate activities that are not helping you reach them. This frees up time and money to spend on pursuing goals. This is where much progress can usually be made, because most of our habits are not based on conscious decision-making, but just casual mimickry of others habits.

[Stahlmann]

Well, personally I have got quite different problem.
I am probably world-class slacker and that worries me the most.

[Stahlmann]

Well, personally I have got quite different problem.
I am probably world-class slacker and that worries me the most.

___

Goals get trickier when they involve other people (relationships), but they can and should still be outlined.

Yeah, sure. Any tips in that part of life?

[BRUTE]

nothing wrong with being a slacker. brute is also a slacker, but it can work out very well.

[7Wannabe5]

Slacker = Human Energy Resource Conservationist

[Dragline]

Well, personally I have got quite different problem.
I am probably world-class slacker and that worries me the most.

That's why your real issue is not optimizing time, but identifying actual goals in terms of concrete activities. But even a slacker does something while slacking, whether its watching TV, playing video games, trolling the internet, etc. Believe it or not, you can make any of those one of your goals if it makes you happy. After you program your chosen mode of slacking, you may not find it as fulfilling and may choose to do something else after a while. Goals are not immutable, but are supposed to change. But be careful slacking because you may begin to suffer from a malady that we have come to know around here as "Brute's ennui".

Goals get trickier when they involve other people (relationships), but they can and should still be outlined.

Yeah, sure. Any tips in that part of life?

If you have a sig other, you need to meet with them and plan things together. If you don't and you want to meet somebody new, you need to have goals that (a) expose you to the kind of people you want to meet; and (b) make you more attractive to those people in terms of appearance, skills, knowledge, demeanor, manners, etc.

If you are not serious at all about (b), new relationships are honestly probably not much of a priority. But (b) can often be combined with goals that pertain to health and other goals.

[Stahlmann]

I probably don't enjiy my current studies that makes my situation a little bit worse.

[ThisDinosaur]

If you're not interested in the subject, why are you studying it? What are you trying to accomplish? Why is that particular goal important to you? Does pursuing that goal interfere with another goal that's more important to you? If so, why haven't you pursued that instead?

After you narrow down what's REALLY important to you, the correct course of action may become obvious.

For further reading:
-5 Whys
-Eisenhower Matrix

[Stahlmann]

If you're not interested in the subject, why are you studying it? What are you trying to accomplish? Why is that particular goal important to you? Does pursuing that goal interfere with another goal that's more important to you? If so, why haven't you pursued that instead?

After you narrow down what's REALLY important to you, the correct course of action may become obvious.

For further reading:
-5 Whys
-Eisenhower Matrix

The problem is I am very ,,slackish". I would lose interest in new field after 2 weeks.
I see I have got very negative outlook on life, I am working on it to change it.

[BRUTE]

it might be easier to find a life that works for Stahmann's personality, instead of changing his personality

[FBeyer]

If you're not interested in the subject, why are you studying it? What are you trying to accomplish? Why is that particular goal important to you? Does pursuing that goal interfere with another goal that's more important to you? If so, why haven't you pursued that instead?

After you narrow down what's REALLY important to you, the correct course of action may become obvious.

For further reading:
-5 Whys
-Eisenhower Matrix

The problem is I am very ,,slackish". I would lose interest in new field after 2 weeks.
I see I have got very negative outlook on life, I am working on it to change it.

Have you ever read anything by Barbara Sher or visited the puttylike.com website? Do those personalities sound a bit like you?

[FBeyer]

it might be easier to find a life that works for Stahmann's personality, instead of changing his personality

'currently working on this actually...
I've come to realize how backwards and 'unproductive' my personality really is, despite of several supposed 'achievements' in life. I think most people are like that, but only a few of us ever realize that one can tweak one's surroundings to fit one's needs.
Trying... anyway...

[Ego]

it might be easier to find a life that works for Stahmann's personality, instead of changing his personality

'currently working on this actually...
I've come to realize how backwards and 'unproductive' my personality really is, despite of several supposed 'achievements' in life. I think most people are like that, but only a few of us ever realize that one can tweak one's surroundings to fit one's needs.
Trying... anyway...

Fixed vs Growth mindset. If you treat yourself as if your personality is fixed then it plays into a self-fulfilling prophesy. Be careful which merry-go-round you decide to ride.



http://discovermagazine.com/2015/dec/14 ... pectations

[Dragline]

Yup, you can always go with the Costanza solution -- you never know where it might lead:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mwc8omasnEI

[BRUTE]

If you treat yourself as if your personality is fixed then it plays into a self-fulfilling prophesy.

A man's character is his fate. And as a student of history, I find this hard to refute. For most of us our stories can be written long before we die.

[FBeyer]

it might be easier to find a life that works for Stahmann's personality, instead of changing his personality

'currently working on this actually...
I've come to realize how backwards and 'unproductive' my personality really is, despite of several supposed 'achievements' in life. I think most people are like that, but only a few of us ever realize that one can tweak one's surroundings to fit one's needs.
Trying... anyway...

Fixed vs Growth mindset. If you treat yourself as if your personality is fixed then it plays into a self-fulfilling prophesy...

I read Oakleys book some time ago and realized that I fit extremely well into the Growth mindset, with one severe exception and one severe quirk of personality: I don't give up per se, but I cannot contain my curiosity. I switch topics of study before I develop any Street Smarts(tm) and never move beyond Book Smarts(tm). I also used to equate hard work with results, rather than equate effective study with results.

That means that for the last 8.5 years I've frantically worked myself down to the bone, going nowhere, in an attempt to sate my crippling desire to learn every other new thing that comes my way.

It has been my unofficial motto for some time that:

I can learn anything, given time and peace to do so.

and unfortantely also

Don't give up.

which by now has brought to the verge of burnout yet again...

Once in my life I changed, drastically, the kind of person I was and now -after four months of rather painful introspection- I realize that I will have to do it again. But I also refuse to build a wage slave mindset. I function terribly in a set-in-stone environment and I am actively trying to find out whether I can do something to change my surroundings to fit that need or whether certain industries cater to my needs better than others.
I just wrote the post you quoted with half a brain so I can see why it came off as classic 'oh well I don't have the talent' thinking.