I had to do a lot of self-convincing to reprogram myself not to think of this as “slacking.”

You’re not alone. I’ve met several Harvard students over the past year or so that have come to similar conclusions and have loved the results.

I had to do a lot of self-convincing to reprogram myself not to think of this as “slacking.”

[...] his new semester resolution is great too. Start by quitting something. You are probably doing too much. [...]

[...] goals should not prevent you from following promising opportunities.  This is the gist of the second Cal Newport post.  Cal proposes leaving your schedule open to allow for spontaneous exploration.  Be open to [...]

[...] Tuesday’s post I repeated a familar refrain: underschedule! By now, you probably know my argument by [...]

There’s a balance you need to strike between solid, structured work and unstructured exploration,

I agree. Most students are imbalanced in this regards towards the structured work end of the spectrum, which is why I preach the art of simplicity. A more interesting point, however, is how one structures unstructured time. In other words, Ben’s actions, though unstructured, are not “playtime.” He is able to use this flexible time to expose himself to lots of interesting things. I’m wondering if the real lesson missing here is how to best make use of unstructured time?

I smell a post brewing…

[...] OK–I know I just talked about Study Hacks in my last post, but I couldn’t resist letting you know about, “Start Your Semester Off Right By Quitting Something.” [...]

Anyway. I don’t think one activity is ever really a massive problem even if it’s very time consuming – it’s more about splitting the attention/concentration than the time. I did a lot of classical music (probably also around 30-ish hours a week) in high/middle school and aside from my schoolwork and non-obligatory things like baking things for school fundraisers or showing up for the odd non-competitive sport like yoga that was all I did. I was never truly stressed even though I was taking all-IB classes and graduated valedictorian (not a zen one, unfortunately – never discovered innovation, which probably wasn’t that relevant to what I wanted to do anyway), because there were ways to fit things around when you only put one thing first. Then I started law school but kept trying to play my instrument at a pre-professional level and it all went bad because I had to go the extra mile for two things (‘things’ including the add-ons like orchestras and work experience and journal).

On the other hand, I dropped lots of things last semester and just spent an embarrassing amount of time online. It was kind of fun, but I actually did more random cool things when I was stressed, due to inertia. If I was in the library anyway I was more likely to go to the talk there by the famous author, or pick a cool book off the shelf, or walk out to the quad to watch A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the lawn, whereas if I had to walk from my off-campus house and tear myself away from TV I wouldn’t have bothered.

-Mig