Being Social With a Clear Purpose
How to protect and grow personal time, attention, and creative energy
Decluttering is not just about physical things but also about everything and anything that threatens to steal or hijack our precious time, attention, and creative energy while on this planet. While money is abundant (more can be made and printed); time, attention, and creative energy are all scarce and need to be economized.
Let’s take a look at them individually:
We all have equal access to the same 24 hours per day and since most people need eight hours sleep that means that we have 16 hours per day to do the things we need and want to live good lives. Some of these things fall outside of our control in the short-term but in the long-term we are all free to choose.
A day well designed
I’ve found that my 5 am to 9 pm days work really well for the kind of work and lifestyle I like. I can get a workout or surf in before the world wakes up, then focus on deep work before 2 pm with freed up afternoons and evenings for social events. This also works great when I have my sons as it matches their school schedule.
Attention works differently. There are some people that can take in a lot without losing a step and people like me who was born with ADHD and have to really prioritize well and focus on fewer things. But the goal for most people is to reach the practice of deep work where both focus and productivity is channeled effectively.
Focusing on deep work, usually 3-4 hours per day, is different from what we have been accustomed to, working the official office hours between nine and five every day. But remote work has opened up the opportunity for most of us to experiment when during the day we do deep work and when we do shallow (i.e. admin stuff, emails et cetera).
Get rid of being busy
Unfortunately we live in a culture that promotes externally perceived busyness over getting the right things done well. The key here is to begin to free up our schedules and not fill them with more things to do for the sake of being busy. Like Parkinson so wisely expressed: “work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.”
Creative energy is the most challenging to manage well; it depends on different variables like focus, passion, mission, knowledge, goals but also time and space. While deep work is derived from individual focus, I believe that creative energy is fueled by social interaction and play in the right cultures, spaces, and with the right people.
On the one hand we need to focus and execute individually (deep work) so that we can do our jobs well and grow as professionals, and on the other hand we need to make sure that we mix and share ideas and thoughts with other people to fuel the quality and energy of our future work and collaborations.
Fueling your creative energy
That said, these people can be anywhere as long as we can meet them face-to-face regularly. This is very different from the people we might casually socialize with everyday on social networks, at the office or in our network of friends. But we also need to just run into interesting people that can trigger new creative energy.
That’s another reason why we should declutter our space, time, and attention so that we can discover new opportunities by making the time to socialize with others. A filled calendar and busyness could becomes very dangerous as it doesn’t allow for the much needed spontaneous and serendipitous meetings that our creative energy needs.
It’s easy to forget that super creatives like Picasso and Hemingway spent lots of time socializing with other highly creative people before their solitary deep work sessions. They sought out people that inspired them and became friends to play, learn, and grown together to then create their own personal dent in the universe.
Tune out to tune deeper
To get to this space that I’m describing of a decluttered and simplified life with a clear purpose and mission I think we need to sometimes decouple us from the perceived will of society (to consume and work) to design and adjust how we interact with our most precious resources. They are ours to use or loose.
But there is one more reason: as machines and automation will take over many if not all repetitive jobs we need to transition to new ways of honing and harvesting our time, attention, and creative energy. I believe that this emerging recession offers an excellent opportunity to transition to new ways of living and working.
In the end of the day, fewer better things is a mindset and essential framework of how to get the most out of life, avoiding the laid traps and benefit from the emerging opportunities. It’s about being satisfied with what is enough in the present to expand and grow intentionally towards the future in alignment with oneself, society, and planet.
While the pandemic drove many to socialize safely online, I see social media as a complement rather than the real thing. The Internet has taught us that we can be friends with everyone but Robin Dunbar’s research is probably closer to the truth. He suggests that we can have stable relationships with max 150 people, preferable fewer.
So my advice is to be friendly and kind to everyone but to intentionally seek out people that respect your time and attention, and that can fuel your creative energy.
About me
I’m a writer, advisor, and speaker on Sustainability Innovation and Green Minimalism. Previously I developed tech products in Silicon Valley and gave talks on Digital Transformation. Today I live a fulfilled and well-balanced life in Southern California.
Good luck with your new job, Ralph! :)
Thank you for your thoughts. I‘m starting a new job in August and will use this opportunity to rethink how I use/invest my time and energy to work better and live better each day. Cultural, social and physical activities have not had enough priority so far.