Have You Been Hustling This New Year?
By: Renzo Domingo
It’s been a few weeks since we’ve written our resolutions with that new year’s glow we’re all too familiar with. A late December evening, reflecting on the year that was, and beginning to bubble with excitement at how much better 2023 is going to be. You’ve rested and have built up more sleep than in the harsh months you’ve spent working; and with a rested and easy mind you’ve set yourself to listing all you want to do in the next twelve months.
But somehow, not everything gets done. You didn’t sleep better. Of the 12 books you wanted to read, you’ve only read 2. Your calendar is an empty apartment of missed dates, and your favorite instrument is in the corner collecting dust.
What’s happening? Did I just not want this as much as I thought? Am I that busy with my time, or did I not manage it well enough? Was this year just another fluke?
And once a gap in time is long enough for us to answer these questions, we catch what we wanted to do this whole time and notice that we haven’t done it. So we respond by making plans. Optimizing our schedules. Crafting the best morning routines.
And so, the cycle continues.
We are still here. Wanting to read more, sleep better, make more memories, spend more time with loved ones. There is nothing wrong with setting these resolutions. Resolutions are signals for your future self to follow as the year passes. But the issue arises when we fool ourselves into thinking we can fit all the work that goes into becoming our ideal selves in the span of 48 weeks. And when the ideal self is everything we want to be, the more impossible it becomes to reach it in our limited time.
Because 4000 weeks is all the time we have.
Limited time, unlimited resolutions
“Before, time was just the medium in which life unfolded, the stuff that life was made of. Afterward, once “time” and “life” had been separated in most people’s minds, time became a thing that you used…”
That’s Oliver Burkeman; a disillusioned, self-proclaimed productivity geek who, in his search for the ultimate workflow, fell to the discomforting limits of his existence and put it in his charmingly titled book, Four Thousand Weeks – Time Management for Mortals. He came to the realization that time is finite, and to live a fulfilling life means embracing, not maximizing, the limited time we have. He makes his point by talking about how our work has changed our perception of time—from something that we used to live in, “as a fish does in water”, to something we count by the minutes to be as efficient as possible:
“You start to feel pressure, whether from external forces or from yourself, to use [time] well, and to berate yourself when you feel you’ve wasted it. When you’re faced with too many demands, it’s easy to assume that the only answer must be to make better use of time, by becoming more efficient, driving yourself harder, or working for longer—as if you were a machine…”
The picture he paints is clear. Time is valuable for how any unit of it can be used for some productive goal. If we are not productive with our time, we are doing something wrong. If we are not working on our resolutions—things we must achieve to become better people—we are doing something wrong. If we are not productive, we are not worthy of feeling satisfied.
There is a great irony to this that shows up in our resolutions. We’re not good with work, so we do more work. We haven’t exercised much, so we do more exercise. We don’t do much self-care, so the answer, almost obviously, is to do more self-care. But the fact that we haven’t done as much work, exercise, or self-care in the first place doesn’t mean we’ll magically have the time and energy to do more of that in the new year. There simply isn’t enough of it in 48 weeks. And no amount of books and time-management hacks can make that number feel bigger than it is. An effect Burkeman calls The Efficiency Trap:
“Rendering yourself more efficient—either by implementing various productivity techniques or by driving yourself harder—won’t generally result in the feeling of having ‘enough time’… Far from getting things done, you’ll be creating new things to do.”
Since there is always more work you could do—and since to be better always means doing more—the time you save is still spent at work, because we have not found contentment in the work we do in a single day. And this continues for weeks.
Unlimited resolutions, zero self-contentment
Because being creative with our workflow only opens more time for answering more emails or futureproofing our projects, the time we save goes back to polishing the work we do. As a result, we are never fully satisfied with the way we do our work. And since we are left with a scrap of free time to work on our resolutions, we are never fully satisfied with the way we live our year.
So how can we feel content in these next 44 weeks? This is Burkeman’s advice:
“…the choice you can make is to stop believing you’ll ever solve the challenge of busy-ness by cramming more in, because that just makes matters worse. And once you stop investing in the idea that you might one day achieve peace of mind that way, it becomes easier to find peace of mind in the present, in the midst of overwhelming demands, because you’re no longer making your peace of mind dependent on dealing with all the demands.”
Indeed, the more tasks and obligations you add, the more you’ll move your goalpost for self-fulfillment: that once everything is done, you will feel fulfilled. Accepting your limits of never fully meeting every obligation, and working with the current rate you already do things—instead of pressuring yourself to add more and get all of it done—is the first step to detaching your idea of self-fulfillment on something that you unknowingly ensure will never arrive.
We feel fulfilled in contentment, not completion.
When we identify many things we want to improve on and set out to work on them; and when we tell ourselves that we must do all of these, whether for ourselves, our career, or our family; we’re putting our worthiness further away from us than we deserve. To “stop cramming more in” doesn’t mean to stop setting resolutions, but to recognize the few that give you the most life. Time with your parents. Making that artwork. Helping that community. Reviving that dust-ridden passion.
To do your most life-giving activities ultimately means doing less. And we can’t do less without first dismantling the idea that we can do everything we set out to do with the sorely limited time we have.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to learn a new language or become a better version of ourselves, but when we tie our resolutions down to the few that bring the most life in our day, then we won’t mind the weeks that slip away. And the best part is, the year will be enough for those.
We are not limitless, but we are enough.
As a hard worker, it’s unlikely that you will meet the day when you’ll be done with everything and have all the free time you want. Because our work lives are imperfect, we have to find contentment with our time, with ourselves, and what we can do in that time.
For your resolutions, instead of saying “I have to”, say “If it gives me life, I get to”. This will help center the weeks of your year on what brings the most joy to you, not the world or anyone else.
Since work seizes our time so quickly, set aside a time each day to do that thing you’ve always really wanted to do. Guard that time as best as you can, because if you don’t use some of that time for you now, you likely won’t until next year.
In closing, the answer to your self-fulfillment is not more, unless it’s more of what you love. Consider the high standard you’ve set and forgive yourself for not doing everything in the limited time we have. Time is short, but to make the most of your time does not mean doing more in your life, but on doing what gives you the most life.
Reference: Burkeman, O. (2022). Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. Random House UK.
