It’s always good to have some projects to do.
Whether that’s within and outside of the normal structures and obligations of work, domestic chores, social obligations, and so on. Generally speaking, busy people often assume that endless leisure time would be a blessing. It would allow them to lay back, breathe in deeply, and enjoy the blissful experience of doing nothing much at all for a change. In practice, though, there’s only so much “nothing” anyone can do before it begins to get painful. You need projects!
It’s a well-known phenomenon that recent-retirees often struggle a lot more than they expected they would. Specifically because without work in their lives, they have too much time at their disposal. And there are not enough projects to dedicate that time to. If you feel like you could use some productive goals in your life to help keep you on the straight and narrow, here are a few examples of projects that it’s worth dedicating your attention to.
Buying your own home (and systematically remodeling it).
Many people spend a lot of their time from an early age dreaming about the joys of home ownership. And, subsequently, planning their savings accordingly. Other people – often younger city-dwellers, who are accustomed to renting – don’t necessarily think about home ownership much at all. At least not until they reach a later point in their lives.
Saving to buy a home is a great way of increasing your future autonomy in the world. It expands your options in a variety of ways. It’s also a really fun thing to do. You can plan the systematic remodeling and personalization of your future home, perhaps with the aid of luxurious stone features from Neka, Inc. As buying a home tends to be a longer-term goal, it’s something that can keep you busy and engaged for a while.
Auditing and optimizing your habits and daily routine.
On an everyday basis, we tend to assume that we are consciously in control of how we spend our time. However, research keeps presenting evidence that most of what we do most of the time is unconscious and habit-driven. There are some pretty heavy implications to this. First and foremost, it suggests that working diligently to audit and optimize our habits can radically transform our lives, over the long term.
Books such as Atomic Habits and The Power of Habit lay out some great frameworks and techniques for auditing and optimizing your daily habits and routines. This is an ongoing process, and it can be deeply fulfilling.
Starting your own creative endeavor.
Some people are more creatively driven than others. But to some extent, we all have a “creative side” within us just waiting to be unleashed. Adopting a creative endeavor – whether that means trying to start a small business on the side, or else working on producing a series of paintings, or a novel – can help you to achieve a great deal of balance in your life, not to mention heightened emotional satisfaction, and peace of mind.
Creative and artistic pastimes and projects can also be a great way of working out stress and frustration. They can keep you from reaching the point where you end up exploding on your friends, relatives, or colleagues at work.
