Don't waste your Life

well it's it's painful to understand how

much

of what you're doing isn't productive so

I'll give you an example so I've done

this a couple of times with classrooms

full of students usually when I'm

lecturing about Career Development say

Okay

um how much time do you waste so then I

get the class to vote how many of you

waste uh 10 hours a day it's like 10 of

the kids will put up their hands and

it's interesting because I don't Define

what constitutes waste I just asked the

question so they're diagnosing

themselves right I'm not saying you're

wasting 10 hours a day I'm just asking

it's like given your own attitude how

much time are you wasting 10 hours a day

it's like 10 of the people put up their

hands

well when you get to like six hours a

day eighty percent of the people put up

their hands so then we do the arithmetic

It's like because I like doing

arithmetic with people people hate

arithmetic but I like doing it it's like

okay six hours a day it's 42 hours a

week so let's call that a work week 40

hours a week so so that's that's a work

week let's say what's your time worth

you're a university student well it's

certainly worth minimum wage because

obviously but it's worth way more than

that because if you spend a productive

hour when you're 20 then you gain the

benefits of that hour for the rest of

your life so there's the compounding

effect of time spent When We Were Young

so I say well let's assume your time's

worth 50 bucks an hour which I think is

an underestimate but whatever let's call

it 50. we call it 25 but we'll call it

50. that's two thousand dollars a week

you're wasting it's a hundred thousand

dollars a year

it's like how much better would your

life be if you weren't wasting a hundred

thousand dollars a year

it's like what is that over 40 years

four million dollars it's like you're

rich you don't even know it quit wasting

time

by your own definition it's like people

shake their heads like oh I never

thought about it that way it's like yeah

think about it that way don't waste your

damn life

so

a schedule that's a good thing man your

brain will thank you for it it will

stabilize your nervous system with a bit

of a plan that's a good thing you need a

career you need something productive to

do with your time you need to regulate

your use of drugs and alcohol most

particularly alcohol because that does

in a lot of people

um

you need a family like the family you

have your parents and all that be nice

if you all got along you could work on

that that's a good thing to work on and

then you know you probably need children

at some point that's life

that's what life is and if you're

missing you know you may have a good

reason to not

be operating on one of those dimensions

it's not mandatory but I can tell you

that if you're not operating reasonably

well on four I think I mentioned six if

you're not operating reasonably well on

at least three of them

there's no way you're going to be

psychologically thriving

and that's more pragmatic in some sense

than psychological right human beings

have a nature there's things we need and

if we have them well that's good and if

we don't have them well then we feel the

lack

you need a broad scale vision

you have to know what it is that you're

doing with your life let's say generally

speaking but more particularly in the

next three to five years what do you

want you know what would you want from

your friendships what would you want

from your intimate relationship how

would you like to structure your family

what do you want for your career well

how are you going to use your time

outside of your job and how are you

going to regulate your mental physical

mental and physical health and maybe

also your drug and alcohol use because

that's that's a good place to Auger down

you know because alcoholism for example

wipes out you know five to ten percent

of people so you want to keep that under

control and then

and then so maybe you know you you you

develop a vision of what your life what

you would like your life to be and that

Associates

the so the goal once the goal is

established and then you break down the

goal into micro processes that you can

implement the microprocesses become

rewarding in proportion in relation to

their uh causal association with the

goal and that tangles in your your

incentive reward system you know we

talked about the dopaminergic incentive

reward system and that's the thing that

keeps you moving forward and the way it

works is that it works better if it

produces positive emotion when it can

see you moving towards a valued goal

okay well what's the implication of that

better have a valued goal because

otherwise you can't get any positive

motivation working out and so the more

valuable the goal in principle the more

the micro processes associated with that

goal start to take on a positive charge

and so what that means is well you get

up in the morning and you're excited

about the day you're ready to go and so

as far as I can tell what you do is you

specify your long-term ideal

you specify your goal you do that you do

that in some sense as a unique

individual you want you want to specify

goals that make you say oh if that could

happen as a consequence of my efforts it

would clearly be worthwhile because the

question always is why do something

because doing nothing is easy you just

sit there and you don't do anything

that's real easy the question is why

would you ever do anything and the

answer that has to be because you've

determined by some means that it's

worthwhile and then the next question

might be well where should you look for

worthwhile things and one would be well

you could consult your own temperament

and the other would be well you kind of

look at how look at what it is that

people accrue that's valuable across the

lifespan look look what so you do a

structural analysis of the

sub-components of human existence and

already did that you need a family you

need friends like you don't need to have

all these things but you better have

most of them family friends career

educational goals plans for you know

time outside of work attention to your

mental and physical health Etc you know

those are that's what life is about and

if you don't have

any of those things well then all you've

got left is misery and suffering so

that's that's a bad

that's a bad deal for you

so

so once you but once you set up that

that goal structure let's say and that's

really in many in many ways that's what

you should be doing at universities is

that's exactly what you should be doing

is trying to figure out

who it is that you're trying to be

right and you aim at that and then you

use everything you learned as a means of

building that person that you want to be

and

and I really mean want to be I don't

mean should be even those things those

things are going to overlap and it's

important to distinguish between those

because that's partly and this is back

down to the micro routine analysis so I

started saying well you're going to try

to make yourself more industrious okay

number one specify your damn goals

because how are you going to hit

something if you don't know what it is

that isn't going to happen and often

people won't specify their goals too

because they don't like to specify

conditions for failure so if you keep

yourself all vague and foggy which is

real easy because that's just a matter

of not doing as well then you don't know

when you fail

and people might say well I really don't

want to know when I fail because that's

painful so I'll keep myself blind about

when I fail that's fine except you'll

fail all the time then you just won't

know it until you've failed so badly

that you're done and that can easily

happen by the time you're 40.

so so I would recommend that you don't

let that happen so that's willful

blindness right you could have known but

you chose not to okay so once you get

your goal structure set up you think

okay if I could have this life it looks

like that might be worth living despite

the fact that it's going to be you know

anxiety provoking and threatening and

there's going to be some suffering and

loss involved in all of that obviously

the goal is to to have a vision for your

life such that all things considered

that justifies your effort okay so then

what do you do

well then then you turn down to the

micro routine it's like okay well this

is what I'm aiming for how does that

instantiate itself day to day week to

week month to month and that's where

something like a schedule can be

unbelievably useful Google Calendar it's

like make a damn schedule and stick to

it okay so what's the rule with the

schedule it's not a bloody prison

that's the first thing that people do

wrong they say well I don't like to have

follow a schedule it's like well what

kind of schedule are you setting up well

I sh I have to do this then I have to do

this then I have to do this you know and

then I just go play video games because

who wants to do all these things that I

have to do it's like wrong set the damn

schedule up

so that you have the day you want that's

the trick it's like okay I've got

tomorrow if I was going to set it up so

it was the best possible day I could

have

practically speaking what would it look

like

well then you schedule that and when you

do something new you use almost your

whole brain that's a good way of

thinking about it particularly the right

side of it the right Hemisphere and as

you practice something the amount of

your brain you use gets smaller and

smaller until and moves leftward until

you basically build a effective little

machine at the back that takes care of

it automatically routinizing things

decreases the cognitive and

physiological load it's a big deal and

if you routinize good habits then they

become part of your character