These Two Habits Made My Workaholic Friend Happier
He now has time for family and friends
I want to get straight to the point with what I actually taught him instead of baiting you to it. I taught my friend how to journal and schedule. I told him to journal every night before going to bed. It was something foreign to him. However, I felt it was necessary to be pushy about it, for his good.
The Situation
He was in that trap of diving his head deep into all sorts of projects. The impression you get of him from living in him is that he is always busy. The people around him often say that they feel as if he is never really mentally present in conversations and human interactions, even though he is physically there. His mind is attached to work even when his body is physically interacting with other people not from work. At least, that is the impression he gave off. This was far from intended. This was a dire situation that has to be resolved.
Facing The Problem
One night, I sat him down and we talked. I told him that he spent too much time hands-on “working,” and too little, if any, time hands-off reflecting. He did not have a birds’ eye view of his life. He felt that he is spending time with his family and friends but the feedback from these people suggest otherwise. He could not fully grasp how his daily life reflects his intended priorities. So we needed a solution.
The Two Habits
I added two things to his routine. These were the last two things he does every night before brushing his teeth and going to bed. These two things are journaling and time-blocking.
Journaling
I urged him to keep a journal. This was because it was necessary for him to write down what is in his head. By capturing the thoughts that were consuming space in his mind every second, he would be able to free his mind and be present in any situation. Having thoughts but not capturing them is like having unused applications running in the background of your computer consuming your RAM. Your computer would run significantly slower doing the things that matter at the moment.
Apart from that, journaling allowed him to reflect on the different feelings he experiences throughout the day. Translating feelings into words allowed him to have a better view of his mental wellbeing. It made him see what he was putting most of his attention and efforts in and whether those are put where he wants them to be.
Time-blocking
The next thing I urged him to do was time-blocking. Time blocking is a scheduling technique used by the likes of Elon Musk and many other successful figures. Basically, you “block out” time for everything you will be doing throughout the day to have a realistic sense of how much time do you actually have for each task you want to get done. In terms of planning, this method is way better than having just a traditional to-do list because this takes into account how much time do you actually have on top of how many things you want to get done.
After journaling every night, he would spend some time looking into what needs to be done the following day and start scheduling for tomorrow with time-blocking. He would make sure he spends enough time on each urgent task, make sure the amount of work he allocates is reasonable, while also ensuring he has enough time to spend with his family and friends. This was something he constantly struggled with before being introduced to time-blocking.
Results
My friend has tried journaling and time-blocking consistently for over 30 days now and he finds his life a lot less stressful. He gets to manage his time and emotional wellbeing better. He also gets to spend more time with his family and friends. He is happy. The people around him are happy as well. His everyday living experience has been greatly elevated thanks to the introduction of these two habits — journaling and scheduling with time-blocking.
I encourage everybody to do the same. These two habits are life-changing as their effects spread across all aspects of our lives.
