A note to myself: On the occasion when people ask me for advice, I think I do a reasonably good job at fumbling my way through an answer. However, it doesn’t seem to work when I try to use my advice for my own problems. So in an effort to try something new to help myself, I’m hoping by writing this post I at least have something concrete to look back to in the future.

The abundance of choice

These days, the overabundance of choice feels like a curse. To the point where I feel paralysed, and don’t end up making a decision or taking action when I really need to.

Some examples:

  • Having too many interests/hobbies or things I want to try, but ending up doing nothing
  • Lots of books I want to read, but barely reading at all
  • Endless libraries of songs and videos to consume, but ending up consuming the same content because of comfort

As a result, I feel like I am:

  • Not truly investing time into mastering my craft(s)
  • Feeling guilty I’m not as productive as I should be, given things around me are moving so fast
  • Trying to over optimise and planning everything ahead of time, then getting discouraged when I can’t hit the goalposts I set
  • Not expanding out of my comfort zone and trying new things
  • Comparing myself to other people, feeling somewhat left behind

The scarcity of time

At the time of writing this, I’m 26. I know when I look back in 10 years I’ll laugh, but I think most other people my age feel like we’re somehow always running out of time or it’s slipping away too quickly. If I had to guess, this fear maybe comes from a place of knowing where we would like to be in the next 10-20 years, but not knowing how we get there through the immediate future.

There’s also always a fear of feeling like we never use our time as wisely as we could. I think this goes back to having an abundance of choice. The fear of making the wrong one results in us seemingly wasting our time. Wasting time increases the uncertainty of how on track we are towards our goals.

In the end, ultimately when we don’t make a choice, time simply passes by without us noticing and once we do notice, we enter a cycle where uncertainty keeps building.

Advice to myself

So from writing this all out, it looks less like a time problem and more like a choosing problem. Too much choice creates uncertainty, uncertainty stops me from choosing, and not choosing is what actually burns the time I’m so worried about losing. So the real question isn’t how do I do everything, it’s how do I make choosing less scary?

I usually hate quotes from famous people, but here is one from my man Bill (that he probably never said…)

“Most people overestimate what they can do in one year and underestimate what they can do in ten years.”

What I take from this is that no single choice matters as much as it feels like it does in the moment. On a ten year horizon, picking the “wrong” book or hobby costs me almost nothing. Never picking is the only choice that’s actually expensive, because that’s the one where time passes without me noticing.

Still, choices are easier to make when they’re pointing somewhere. So I think it would help to write down a rough picture of where I want to end up. Not a plan, just a direction. I’m not going to say it here (since it’ll probably change), and honestly it doesn’t even matter if it turns out to be wrong. Its job isn’t to predict the future, it’s to filter today’s hundred options down to the few that vaguely point the right way.

From there, pick one. Not the best one, a good enough one. The trap I described above is trying to over optimise every decision ahead of time, so the antidote is to deliberately stop optimising and just start. One thing at a time, small, and build capacity from there. Doing one thing imperfectly beats planning to do everything perfectly and ending up doing nothing at all.

And finally, the advice I’d give anyone else who felt this way: we aren’t really running out of time. In some ways, we never will until the day we die. We always have the ability to make time for the things we need to do, and we’ll always have the capacity to build new skills and change ourselves. Also, please take time off when needed and rest. A healthy mind, body and relationships are the foundation of success in my eyes (maybe this could be a quote someone else uses in the future).