Balancing quiet focus time and go time

A reader recently asked me this to write about balance:

“I’d like to read your takes on how to balance the tendency of slow living or the one-thing-at-a-time approach to life and staying current in the fast-paced world.

Moreover, how to balance honoring decisions to slow down and also not fall into irrelevance, especially when you’re pursuing professional goals or passion projects you’d like to flourish.”

I had a similar conversation with a friend who runs his own business. He told me, “Man, I’m so inconsistent.”

He kept feeling that he should do more.

His wife finally asked him to stop for a moment and look at his results so far this year. When he checked, he realized he was outperforming last year on all of his goals and targets.

So why did he still feel behind?

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9 things to take pride in (that have nothing to do with money)

Most of what people do all day falls into one of two boxes.

Box one is money: Your income, savings, the next promotion, or the bigger client.

Box two is pleasure and status: How you look, who likes you, where you ate, what you posted, or who saw it.

There’s nothing wrong with those things. Money matters. And pleasure makes life enjoyable. But if those are the only two scoreboards you use, your sense of self-worth will always depend on something outside of you.

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How to avoid the wear and tear of working hard

When it comes to work, I’m not always that productive.

I have times when time seems to stop and I’m fully fully focused, completing one thing after the other.

During these times, it’s also easy for me to write. The words just magically flow out of my fingers on the keyboard and show up on the screen. Everything is effortless.

But I also experience times when everything is flipped.

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Alan Watts: Everything in life is a game

It’s easy to turn something you enjoy into a scoreboard.

A lot of people start writing because they love to read and share their ideas. And then they start focusing on views. They start thinking, “What should I do to earn more money?”

That’s how many writers end up as podcasters or YouTubers. And after a while, they find themselves burnt out because they didn’t sign up for becoming a glorified views-chaser.

Many of us fall for this trap.

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