Do Stuff

One of the nice things about being temporarily unemployed is having hours of free time. My wife is at work. My friends are at work (whether "work" or working at home, taking care of their houses and kids). Hours of free time, to do what I want to do.

Before I had this free time, I looked forward to evenings, weekends, holidays, and vacations. Those were my chance to have free time. "When I get the time," I'd say, "I can finally..." I don't even remember all the things I wanted to do. Bike rides, working around the house, really taking care of the garden, re-developing some musical skill, starting a blog, organizing, tinkering, personal programming projects, reading... Most people probably have lists like that. Vague lists in their heads of things they'd really like to do, if only the time was available.

And for me, it is! Not that being out of work is entirely--or even mostly--a good thing, but it gives me that free time that I wanted for so long.

Sometimes, wanting is better than having. Before I had this free time, I could imagine all the things I'd like to do. Imagining doing things is much easier than actually doing them. There's no preparation, no clean-up, and any tedious parts are done in a mental fast-forwarding flash.

Now I have days mostly free. I still have some constraints. Finding, reading, and evaluating job postings takes some time and mental effort. Applying for jobs, following up on applications, and things like that have eaten huge chunks of some days. Besides that, I generally want to stay within reach of the telephone in case someone calls to offer a job. But my days are mostly free.

What have I actually done with my free time? To be honest, not much. It's been more than nothing. I've read some, written some code, cleaned gutters, and done some painting (of the non-artistic variety). Why the disconnect between my imaginary free time, during which I did all kinds of things, and my actual free time, which has been lacking that spark of intentionality?

I have some ideas, and at least one of them is probably right. None of those reasons is anything particularly difficult to overcome. And regardless of how I overcome the obstacle to intentionally using my free time for something worthwhile, the goal is the same: use my free time for something worthwhile. Don't waste it, just because it's not rare and precious right now.

In short, this is the challenge: Do Stuff.