
Ask HN: How do you maintain balance between all the things you want to do? - pfzero
I often find myself trying to do many things and often times I end up just procrastinating. This creates a negative feedback loop and I&#x27;m wondering how do you manage your time to achieve things.<p>As a list of things I&#x27;m trying to constantly do:<p>1. Write a personal journal &#x2F; meditate &#x2F; exercise.
2. Read (as per on a reading list of books)
3. Work
5. Study (learning &#x2F; improving my general CS skills, frontend skills, etc.)
6. Maintain a healthy relationship
7. Socialize<p>I&#x27;m trying to organize myself to wake up @6am and go through journaling &gt; meditating &gt; work &gt; exercise or read. However, I often find out I&#x27;m kind of overwhelmed or I can&#x27;t spend qualitative time in my relationship &#x2F; don&#x27;t have time to do other chores.<p>Are you in a similar situation? What are your coping strategies to work things out?
======
nao360
In the words of Eric Cartman's Karate instructor, "You rak dishiprin!"

What you have to realise (not just understand conceptually) is that anything
worth doing -- anything significant in your life -- requires hard work. Now,
before anyone here drops to the floor in a fit of cliche-driven convulsion,
let me explain 'hard work'. Hard work is about being consistent and doing the
same thing every day. Learning to speak and write another language fluently is
not hard work; hard work is practicing _every day_ for 5 years. Running 5k is
not hard work; hard work is running every day regardless of how you feel, or
what kind of a day you've had, or what the weather is like outside.

> I'm trying to organize myself to wake up @6am and go through journaling >
> meditating > work > exercise or read. However, I often find out I'm kind of
> overwhelmed or I can't spend qualitative time in my relationship / don't
> have time to do other chores.

Slow down, and take a few steps back. You're not ready to manage so many goals
(nobody is in the beginning). Pick one thing, just one, from your list --
whichever you enjoy the most. Can you do it _every day_ for a month? Doesn't
matter if you don't feel well, or you don't have time, or you're not feeling
motivated: can you do this one thing, every day, for a month? This is
discipline. This is the 'hard' in 'hard work'. Doesn't have to be a month; it
could be 3 weeks or 13 weeks, it doesn't matter, it just needs to be long
enough for you to realise that you've always had it in you, and that
consistency is the key to achievement.

And, if you fail? So simple: start over. I've failed so many times that I
think the universe is running out of failure modes for me. Keep at it. Keep
going. Be consistent.

~~~
falcor84
Well said. I'll just add this quote from the running baboon in Bojack
Horseman:

"It gets easier. Every day it gets a little easier. But you gotta do it every
day — that’s the hard part. But it does get easier"

~~~
chasedehan
“It never gets easier, you just get faster” -Greg LeMond

------
fkdo
I use to be hyper motivated and constantly working towards a goal. I worked
full time, went to graduate school, ran a small business (~10k annual
revenue), maintained an exercise routine (3hr/week) and did household chores
like cleaning and cooking(4hr/week). My total scheduled time towards those
goals every week was 110-120 hours and I slept 5-6 hours every night. I
remember scheduling one meal a week to eat while not commuting/working and one
night a month to see friends.

I burnt out. At first the lesson I learned was that I can only do so many
things, and I always get a full night sleep and I never let my schedule get
near that full. Now, five years after I stopped that lifestyle I find that the
things I do spend time on I do even better. I'm performing at a higher level.
I think it's because I'm less stressed because I'm not constantly pushing
myself. I work when it's time to work and play when it's time to play.

You cannot do all of the things that you want to do. You're time is finite.
Your energy and passion are finite. Accept this. Internalize this. My advice
is to pick one or two things you really care about. Devote all your passion
there, but don't devote all of your time. You need some time to relax and you
need some unstructured time. If you don't give yourself unstructured time
you'll take it by procrastination.

------
wpietri
My biggest suggestion here is to a) write down all the things you want to
change about your life, b) pick one, c) spend at least 30 days establishing
new habits around that, while d) definitely not working on anything else on
that list.

If you try to change everything at once, nothing will stick. But if you get in
the habit of working on one thing a month, you can devote your full brainpower
to really figuring out how to do that in a way that is sustainable for
yourself.

P.S. "1\. Write a personal journal / meditate / exercise" is definitely not 1
thing. That's three things. That suggests strongly to me that your desire to
cram things in is part of the problem. To make lasting change, you have to be
patient, compassionate, and honest with yourself. Here that means accepting
that adopting even 1 of those 3 things is hard work that requires practice.
Indeed, you may have to split them further. "Exercise" is a huge area. Try
starting with something smaller, like "do a couch-to-5k program" or "do 10
minutes of stretching daily".

~~~
arvinsim
Funny that you posted. I made the decision today to focus on music this month
and defer some visual related hobbies next month.

As you said, I was just getting nowhere when my focus was divided. Whenever I
want to dive something deep into something new that I learned, I get
distracted away by some new thing in the other hobby that I was doing.

~~~
wpietri
Totally. If you aren't familiar with them, try setting up a Kanban system. I
have a big backlog of project ideas, but strong limits on how many I can have
going at once. It's been great.

------
todd3834
I found something that works really well for me. I don’t wait until I “find”
time to do the things I want to do. I create a calendar and a routine and I
“make” time for them. This also allowed me to have a conversation with my wife
about these things and we made compromises on a reasonable balance. This way
I’m able to make time for my family as well. It can be a little hectic to
always be living on a schedule that I made for myself but each week feels so
productive that it seems to suit my personality well. The downside, and it’s
possibly a really big downside, is my life seems to be flashing by so fast.
This kind of worries me but I’m just not the kind of person who can make well
with idle time.

------
adim86
From being in a similar situation here is what I learned recently. You have
Finite time and you have finite energy, usually people want to do more things
than they have available resources for. You have to internalize and accept
this. You cannot accomplish all the tasks you want to do sustainably.

Fully internalizing this allows you to find what it is you really care about.
For example you want to write a personal journal not for journaling sake but
there is a goal you are trying to achieve that you think journaling is the way
to reach it, same with meditation, work and everything on your list. They are
tasks that lead to a goal. Accepting you have limited time allows you to
prioritize your goals. When you do this you will be able to focus on what is
truly important to you. Not everything on your list will move the needle to
your real goals, slash them. Working hard and pushing yourself does not
gaurantee success... remeber to live the life you want not the one you think
you have to live to get the life you want.

------
ohyes
I just do some things. These are my priorities:

Maintain a healthy relationship

Socialize and enjoy life

Maintain a healthy body

Experiment and try new things.

I spend a disproportionate number hours working, I don’t see a reason to
prioritize it beyond that it naturally is prioritized (regular baseline hours
and obvious objectives).

We all have our baseline for how much we can accomplish and it is important to
not force yourself into a mode of life that you cannot sustain or which makes
you miserable.

Sleep in, go for walks, don’t fret about leaving things unfinished if they’re
not sparking anything in you.

I guess this is to say, don’t do things for their sake, do them for your own
sake. Enough things will fall off that your time will allocate itself
naturally.

------
chris5745
If you procrastinate because you feel overwhelmed, it may help to start with
meditation and the bare essentials of the other items. That way you can work
on aligning the part of your mind which seeks to accomplish these things
(manager) with the part that actually does the work (laborer). You may find
that the manager needs to lower its expectations while the laborer needs fewer
tasks in order to do a good job at the tasks it is given.

Anecdotally, I’ve found that intrinsic motivation is more effective than
extrinsic motivation. If you’re trying to keep up with someone else, question
or examine that.

------
david-gpu
Ask yourself why on the one hand you are "trying to do" those things, and yet
at the same time you find excuses to procrastinate. Are these things you truly
want to do, or things you believe you "should" be doing? In other words, are
these passions or duties?

If they are self-imposed duties, ask yourself how important are they, truly.
What would happen if you didn't do each of them? How bad would it be? If it's
really bad, that's your motivation for doing them, and next time you want to
procrastinate you can remind yourself of that reason.

------
dalleh
I am in a almost identical situation (except the journal part :D ). Although I
haven't applied any solution, yet, I think the problem (at least for me) is
the fact that I try to do everything of every item. I think the following
would help: 1\. Wake up early every day of the. You might compensate for a
small nap mid-day. 2\. Have work days to do your reading, learning, exercise
and have the weekends for your relationship and socializing. 3\. Calculate how
much hours you have on your work days and exploit them as much as possible.
4\. From time to time, do something to rest your mind: trip, travel, etc. 5\.
Focus on something specific in every item.

Bottom line, organize yourself, have a schedule and commit to it.

------
surfsvammel
My tip. Plan less. I used to be in the same situation and I would meticulously
plan out each day and fit all the things I wanted to do in neat little boxes
in the calendar.

THe problem was that going through that neatly planned schedule took the fun
out of all of it. I wasn’t enjoying the things that I had planned, even though
they where things that I wanted to do. I was just going through the motions,
checking things off.

Today. I try to keep a clear schedule, I don’t try to think of all the things
I want to do. I don’t plan too much. Instead I just do the things that I want
to do whenever they occur to me.

Keeping a clear schedule makes it more likely that I will actually have the
time to do those things.

------
azhu
IMO there does not exist a perfect balance to be maintained. What defines
balance is context, and you are eternally gaining new context. Hindsight often
is a perceptive trap insofar that when looking back, you perceive it to have
been possible to have known then what you know now and thus resolve that the
path to perfection is in having a perfect plan. This is false. There was not a
way for you to have known what was then the future before it came to pass.

So, what I personally do is just get started with whatever approach with the
full knowledge that I will forever be refining and adding to that approach.
Routinely check in with your context, what you are doing, and how those are
informing each other and interacting to produce the results you are getting.
For example, if you find that you are losing too much time journaling, do less
of it. Figure out why, though. Maybe it is because work is busier than usual.
Retain this information because it will allow you to make plans that are
closer to perfect.

Basically what I'm saying is just get started. Moving in a direction is what
is important, not necessarily getting to any place in particular. Understand
what you are doing, and make sure you keep updating that understanding and
remain fundamentally humble to the fact that you'll never strike a perfect
balance.

------
jefurii
First step: come to terms with the fact that you cannot do everything that you
want to do.

~~~
godDLL
Second: spend more time feeling and less time in your head. The head is
populated by constructs of your own creation, and usually they are quite
poorly made up. On the other hand feeling is understanding.

------
bordercases
Most things suck or are not directly relevant to your immediate situation.
Thus you can eliminate and prioritize.

A lot of those goals seem generally good but won't necessarily benefit you
like they benefit others. So you shouldn't feel obligated to have them, and
let them go. Journals/meditation/exercise/reading material etc all solve
specific problems, they shouldn't be treated like they're absolute must-haves
without context.

If you truly are ambitious and not afflicted by mimyesis (most of those goals
are vague and high-level/generic/conventional, likely not informed by what
your real opportunities are, or if they are you aren't describing them, which
suggests that they're not coming from you), then the most important thing is
to have the capacity of achieving those goals over your lifetime.

This mainly implies good health -- bite the bullet and prioritize exercise
first, buy a gym subscription and trainer to push you to accomplishment and
give you the presence of mind and body to feel more energetic and willful
towards your goals through life.

"Socializing" would be a good second priority because problems and interests
rarely occur in a vaccuum, they occur relative to other people and their
traditions of practice. If you don't have a sense of your interests or don't
feel like you have any real problems, get some by treating that as your first
problem and start exploring your interests based off of your own hunches until
the larger picture forms. This also constrains the vaguer goals like "Read"
(lol) and even "Study" (when you link up to other developers).

IMO the way to more productivity is by starting with small amounts of
productivity and do the most natural least effort way of doing it first, then
improve. Starting habits is hard, and sustaining them is hard, but doing them
tends to be easy, which means that you want to figure out the least
intimidating way to do them first so that you'll actually start it, then build
up to sustain it.

I can't reiterate enough: if it isn't critical, put it off until later, and
just do the most useful thing until it stops being useful. You're under no
obligation to accomplish these tasks and there isn't anyone watching over you
to accomplish them. Just do these things for you and because you want them or
need to now, and you'll be OK.

------
lm28469
If you work full time You might not be able to manage all these things in a
satisfactory way.

First make sure you have sane foundations: enough sleep + exercise + proper
diet.

Then experiment and see what sticks. I find it easier to meditate right after
I wake up and take a shower, I also manage to do 10-15 min of stretches/yoga.

Reading is the perfect pre bed activity, dim the lights, make some tea, read
until you're too tired to continue.

I also found that some activities are just not a fit for me. Maybe you like
the idea of, let's say, journaling, but in practice you don't like it = you
procrastinate to avoid doing it. Focus on what you truly enjoy doing and build
habits from here.

> I'm kind of overwhelmed or I can't spend qualitative time in my relationship
> / don't have time to do other chores.

It's also a matter of expectations, you can't do 10 things and excel in all of
them. You can't watch all the new Netflix shows, meditate one hour a day,
learn to be a professional guitar player, &c. while working full time and
having a kid. Pick your battle(s).

------
jmpman
I used to think that making it to the gym daily was impossible with my
schedule. Then I joined a workout challenge/bet with some friends. I quickly
found that I could always find 30min in a day for exercise, it was just
prioritization. I despise working out, and yet I could get it done. So, now,
when I have another task I need to accomplish that will only take 30 minutes,
and I’ve found myself putting it off because “there’s not enough time”, I now
know it’s just an excuse. But as others have said, prioritize what you want to
accomplish. Do one consistently, then add a second, etc. You’ll eventually
find a breaking point. We all do. Today, mine is somewhere after cooking
breakfast, and before unloading the dishwasher.

------
superasn
The thing bugging you is what David burns calls a "shouldy approach to life".
It's a common trap which can cause misery and unhappiness. I think his book
_feeling good_ can help you or Maybe googling the term may also give you so
relevant results

------
alismayilov
I found a new method which is called “Don’t break a chain!”. For me, this is
really helpful method. I have selected few things (for example, practice
German, read a book and do sports) and I do it everyday, then I put (x - check
mark) to my application. After some time when I see that I already did certain
things for some days this motivates me more and I kept doing again and again.
I have another rule that I can have one day “free x” per week which means I’m
allowed to skip one day per week, but I can still put check mark to my chain.
If I don’t have this rule in one day if for some reason I can not do the
activity my chain will break and it will be very hard to start again building
a new chain.

------
paulcole
I mean either pick something and do it or don’t? If you really wanted to do
any of those things you’d be doing them instead of not doing them.

It’s fine to accomplish nothing. It’s all pointless anyway. If doing nothing
is what you’re prioritizing, just accept it.

~~~
gorbachev
Well said. You need downtime too.

------
godDLL
It seems to me that you are trying too hard to build a detailed conquest map
of an unknown (to yourself) territory. How about you stop torturing that
partner of yours with your own perceived inadequacy, how about you drop all
them things that you can't seemingly carry on, how about you start with a
habit journal and go from there? Pick one habit: exercise for half an hour
every other day. Feel around what being that person is like. Visualise new
outcome, pick an additional habit, journal. Feel.

And don't spend all of that time in your own head, go outside and do things.
Pick up a skill and use it. Get paid. Feel.

Heed. I was you. I am you. No more. Cheers.

------
RaceWon
Pick the one thing you are obsessive about, and then blend in the things that
aid your great obsession. Some days you'll do more than others, you need a
long term view; some things take years and years to achieve.

------
pezo1919
Happened the same to me. I felt really overwhelmed. The only solution I have
is doing less. Furthermore I pick things which do require no/low
maintainence/time/energy. Now I feel much more satisfied.

The real question to me is how and when to say no. Accepting I won't have the
time for everything and chosing certain activities which makes my future
freedom broad.

My priorities are: health(physical activity & food), connections: close family
+ a few close friends - and dedicated "random" time to feel more freedom and
have some opportunity + work(+personal project)

------
mattlondon
Consider scheduling changes. E.g. I used to find it really hard to exercise
after a day at work, then I changed to exercise in the mornings instead and
suddenly I had much less trouble motivating myself.

Also consider trimming down the amount you are trying to do until you are in a
routine - can't find time for journalling _and_ meditation _and_ exercise?
Start with just one of those and move from there when you are in the habit.

Can you combine some activities? E.g. replace commute with biking to work? Or
read while commuting?

Good luck

------
fsloth
I just pick one thing outside of work I want to achieve at a time. I don't
actually care about the results - everything that's in my brain is ash in 60
years time anyway - but I enjoy the feeling of self improvement. But I don't
need to do that much to get that feeling.

------
sshturma
I’m running my startup, it requires a shit tone of self-organization. Also, I
have too many interest to be able to persuade all of them. What helps me the
most is a check-in question: “What thing that you will accomplish or move
further forward today will make you the most satisfied and happy?” I try to do
that thing. Removing blockers for others is usually my first priority in the
beginning of the day.

------
abootstrapper
Little by little things get done. When you wake up in the morning you don’t
start “remodeling a house” you install door knobs. You don’t “build a new web
app” you work on a feature. It doesn’t matter how much work you get done, just
that you’re making progress. Chip away at your goals and forgive yourself when
you don’t complete everything you wanted and try again tomorrow.

------
davidjnelson
Figuring out what you really want can be motivating. This book is great for
prioritizing that, highly recommended [https://www.spring.org.uk/spark-how-to-
get-motivated](https://www.spring.org.uk/spark-how-to-get-motivated)

------
kd5bjo
I’ve found that tending to my emotional state will make the important stuff
get done, because I naturally focus on it. Procrastination, for me, is usually
either a mismatch between what my conscious and subconscious believe to be
important or fear of doing something unfamiliar.

------
failrate
Clearly, I don't. Otherwise, I would be out doing something other than
replying on Hacker news ;)

------
bwb
I do pretty often check-ins to make sure I am doing the things I want and have
the priorities I want to have. It is hard and a struggle always, but with some
nudges to stay on point it seems to work :)

And, be kind to myself when I fall out of whack and need to make some
adjustments.

------
FabianBeiner
Maybe give "Designing Your Life"
([https://designingyour.life/](https://designingyour.life/)) a try, as it can
help you to get a clearer picture of what you want.

------
gorbachev
I don't.

Longer answer is that I just pick whatever I feel like working on whenever I
have free time. I probably have personal projects to keep me busy for years at
this point.

------
karmakaze
Use Warren Buffet's Two List Strategy.

[https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus](https://jamesclear.com/buffett-focus)

------
softwarelimits
most important: stop reading HN! ;)

