Auto-generated description: A chaotic tangle of thin white lines crisscrosses against a black background, resembling a web or abstract pattern.

As quoted in The Marginalian, writer Annie Dillard famously stated “How we spend our days is how we spend our lives.” The longer quotation, arguing in favour of adding structure and a schedule to your day goes like this:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.

Although he cites Tim Urban as an influence rather than Annie Dillard, this post by Nathan Brown makes a similar point. We have a finite amount of time on this earth, and finite number of hours available to us each week. A surprising number of these are discretionary—as in, whether it feels like it or not, we can choose how to use them.

I’m not a huge hustler. I’m not necessarily advocating that you spend your 52 hours/week building a startup or working an extra job. But I’m also an advocate for not being super lazy and sitting around and watching TikTok/YouTube all day.

I guess my point is to be intentional with how you spend your time, and to realize you actually have a surprising amount of it, once you account for all the essentials. What percentage of your discretionary time do you want to spend on…

  • hanging out with friends
  • bettering yourself
  • outdoor activities
  • volunteering
  • creative expression (art, writing, etc.)
  • entertainment

You choose—seriously. Not trying to guilt-trip you into anything. But I will be damned if I go through my life spending 10 of my discretionary hours/week watching Instagram Reels and then my gravestone says:

“Nathan was a kind, loving soul. His greatest achievement was watching 7,000,000 Instagram Reels.”

Source: Nathan Brown

Image: Resource Database