Following on from my never ending simplification plan. Been thinking a lot about balance lately ( or rather, ebb and flow, because I see it more like a river than a set of scales).
Last week I spent £800 odd on a new surfboard and bodyboard ( don’t get me started!) for myself and Little One. During this week, I’ve had loads of conversations with Mrs FP about how we utilise our time with the things we have.
She also wants me to buy a motorbike, which is something I’ve been keen to get into again.
I’m very lucky to have such support but at the same continually get perplexed about how I/we spend our time and where my effort should go.
I know I love trail running, and I’d love to do more XC and maybe even bike packing in the future. We are all agreed that as a family, we will commit to surf more. So, realistically, one road bike, which I have, a XC bike which I have and sell most of the TT related stuff and probably pull away from tri for good.
This all makes sense. However, after my last redundancy, I don’t want to be looking for work again if I can at all help it, and I’m on a steep learning curve in a role that is big for me. I really need to dedicate myself in that to make myself as indispensable as possible.
I want to pay my mortgage off before I’m 60 ( approx £60k by year end).
it feels like I need less of a simplification and more of a ‘re-invention’ which I sometimes find hard to deal with.
I’m not really sure what the point of this post is but ‘times are a changing’ seems to be the best description. Maybe I’m drunk?
I read that article today; well, until I got bored! Maybe I should just tell the family I’m in the biggest risk group (45-49) and they should just let me do whatever, and get it out of (or into) my system.
The OP is fortunate. The only things I ever get encouraged to buy is stuff for the house. This week I filtered out those signals and grasped the nettle and bought a big sit-on kayak.
Life is a precarious balancing act with fitness, family, friends, DIY, work, holidays, tidying up, other hobbies, life admin. I try to do too many things, and I need to get rid of the chaff.
Everyone’s different… when I think about Picasso - how he managed to fit in his work ( drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, miscellaneous stuff like stage set designs, pamphlets, banners, films etc ) around all his socialising, cavorting, long leisurely lunches and not getting up til 3 in the afternoon!… his output is staggering. Can only presume he was pedal to the metal with everything. Don’t know if that’s balance lol - By comparison he makes makes Vermeer look like a lazy sod …
It’s pretty hard. You have kids with their ever changing needs, activities and then school stuff. Older parents to think about, taking care of yourself and your own relationship.
On top of that, a house and garden that needs maintenance, a job that is demanding and the moving goal post of the CoL and household budget. It does seem amazing that we make time for any kind of regular training and racing or other hobbies but IMO, they are important.
Life can’t be all about just ‘existing’. By far for us, the biggest challenge is the lack of consistency in our lives because of LO. You don’t really get any opportunity to say ‘life will be like this for x amount of time’ beyond a school term, as things seem to be changing and adjusting more often now.
There isn’t a magic number but I do think the key is doing less. A few key things in a day at most.
Which is why commute training works better than setting aside time for a key workout. A key workout takes up a ‘slot’ in your mind for getting shit done, that you need for family, health, and work.
Read “The One Thing” , brilliant book if not a bit obvious but it does say if you plan one good task a day and do it well, its better than trying to spin multiple plates badly. Its aimed at business but it pretty much applicable to everything. Another good one “The life changing magic of not giving a F*ck” where basically you organise your life around only having a limited number of fucks to give so priorise and dont give fucks about things that really dont matter in the grand scheme.
I haven’t read the book but that’s pretty much my lifelong mantra. The energy it must take to worry about something you can’t influence must be exhausting. Fuck that
I also don’t subscribe to the view that we have control of our lives. I certainly don’t and can’t see that I ever will. Illness, accident, redundancy, Brexit, war to name just a few things. All of these things are destabilising but none of them are controllable. By me at least.
Yep I do the same, and the majority of my training is based around work whether that’s commutes or running/swimming on my lunch. Occassional long run/ride at the weekend but they are hard to fit in amongst family things. I’d really like a 4 day work week.
I definitely need to simplify, that’s my eternal effort and something I’m not good at. Good book recommendations @Hammerer I’ll take a look at them
@Bob you’re right that we can’t control a lot of things, I find it a hard pill to swallow. I think when I have less on I can find it easier to go with the flow, but with more things (my fault) then I find it difficult.
I wouldn’t say it’s a fault and you’re definitely in the majority - I’m not. I guess thinking about it logically if people think they’re in control then they’ll struggle more when they start to feel loss of control.
Pretty similar, got long term goals like retiring and obviously routines like work.
After that it’s mostly make it up on an hourly or other short term schedule! Generally suits me fine until I leave things until the last minute and stress myself about them!
One of the ideas I liked in 4000 weeks was that you should make a list of the 20 most important things you want to do in life.
Then cross out the bottom 15 and make sure you avoid them at all costs, because they’ll just distract you from doing the top 5 properly
Attributed to Warren Buffet apparently
Another suggestion was only ever to have a maximum of 3 items on your to do list. You can have as many items as you want on a reserve list, but you only get to drag them across to the to do list when you have made space by completing one of the others.
Don’t how much I buy into the second one personally , but felt the first one made a bit of sense
