I initially thought I’d build a framework of my understanding of this world with the most basic understanding of my knowledge as my first post. However, I’d prefer we start with a more complex and pragmatic way to go about things considering the new year usually punctuates a lot of self-reflection and goal setting.
The topic on my mind today was dimensionality; namely in the universe and in one’s life and the goals and directions things move.
One of the first things you notice in life is the 3D-ness of the world around you, and soon you find yourself navigating things naturally. Then we have the idea of devolving things into abstractions that are more “2D” in nature – can be written or delineated into a sequence and processed orderly. Then as you think more, there seems to be something in between, and something beyond. Fractals appear; with each node having a recursive composition of complexity ad infinitum, quite literally creating “fractions” of these dimensions.
As the saying goes: all models are wrong, some are useful.
The lives of great men are typically highlighted by how far they traversed a singular path (or in this case we’ll refer to it as a 2D path). Yet, many of us intuitively understand that a life well lived covers all facets of life that are important to us – many of which interrelate to the other dimensions. When pursuing one activity, it’s well-known that multi-tasking comes at the expense of decreased efficiency and context-switching is the “mind killer” as Elon Musk put it.
With so many hours in a day, your mindset needs to be that of Napoleon Bonapartes:
“When I wish to interrupt one train of thought, I shut that drawer and open another. Do I wish to sleep? I simply close all the drawers, and there I am — asleep.”
And most importantly, the models only achieve a closeness to completeness when they refer to themselves. This current deliberation is exactly that; an analysis of how to approach the dimensionality of life.
So if I want to put this succinctly:
A well lived life is the interweaving of multiple facets of life, each one holding up one another, yet each thread must be threaded independently.
When pursuing one task, your mind must be wholly on that task, and not derailed by thoughts of another.
Abstractions of dimensions are never complete. But the following would be a good example, and can be ordered in priority.
Trite divisions that are often repeated, as an example, is “Mind, Body, Soul”. However, we’re using this as a framework for localized task execution under broad-stroke endeavours need to be a bit more fragmented so that your mind can easily bridge the gap between things you should do and the things you will do specifically. I.e. Soul may include spending time with family; for me family is important enough and is clear what I need to do there (spend time with them, spend time with X). In my case, the following may be something that I’m considering.
- Family
- Time with parents
- Time with wife
- Time with kids
- Time with friends
- Spirit
- Work
- Project 1
- Project 2
- etc.
- Finances
- Fitness
- Diet
- Exercise
- Sleep
- Learning
- Book
- Podcast
- Course
- etc
- Meta
- Scheduling
- Time Management
- Weekly Planning
- Monthly Audits
- Review and Adjust Systems
- Employee Management
- Self Development
- Meditation
- Becoming
- Deliberate
- Confident
- Aware
- etc.
- Explore
- Self Care
The goal is to find the right amount of depth so as to not sprawl into chaos. Each broad category is akin to a ball that you’re juggling.
The problem then comes into the types of work that you’re doing. Certain things require experience, deep procedural work, others can be going in parallel. The parallel tasks are the ones that are well defined and don’t necessarily have a clear deadline; and if they do they’re better to delegate.
An example system would then be:
Define goals under each broad category → Create sub tasks with a hard time limit → Allocate the tasks to a list of things to do → Prioritize and timeblock as necessary → Review regularly, recalibrate all aspects based on performance
In my case, it’ll be helpful to first timeblock, and let the schedule populate your tasklist.
None of this is ground breaking, but it ensures you’re never neglecting a component of your life that leads to its richness. The problem now becomes motivation and what to pursue, many of which come downstream from the work itself, hence the circular process.
Too many people focus on reasons (including me), but the fact is, many of these motivations are simply innate. As motivations wax and wane, it’s your “body” telling you to refocus on another silo of your life. And the cycle continues, weaving the next thread, building the tapestry of your life.
