Only The Curious

Opportunities tend to come in waves, following the season for rec sports, the schoolyear, etc. Which is why I learned to only make one commitment at a time. It’s easy to get to the beginning of a season or semester and pile on five new things.

The problem with adding a bunch of activities at once is that you don’t really know things like how long it’ll take you to drive to each one, how much energy it’ll take, or if you’re even going to like it and stick with it.

In college I would join a whole bunch of things at once. But suddenly extra meetings would come up, or something would get re-scheduled, and it would throw off my precariously balanced schedule. By adding only one thing at a time, we can be more conscientious about what kind of commitment we’re actually making to the other people involved, we can be more flexible and responsive to the group’s needs, and we will be more realistic about how much time and variability in the schedule is involved with a particular activity.

When you join something, and the first time you go, keep track of how long it takes you to get there. Is there variable traffic? Is it easy to park? How much extra time would you need if it was snowing or there was a big event that would slow your route?

Notice your energy level, particularly if your commitment is physically demanding. For example, I play in a Wednesday night frisbee league in another city. Then I agreed to start working doing massage on Thursdays. It turns out that playing frisbee on Wednesday nights wears me out, especially because it’s a long drive back and I get home late. Turning around and doing massage on Thursdays wasn’t going to work; I was exhausted and sore, and not able to give my clients my best. So I had to pick between them, or find a way to get more rest.

It’s important to be conscientious of our energy, and factor that into our commitments. Even if you have the ability to get to everything on time, do you have enough time to be prepared for each commitment, both physically and mentally? If not, you’ll get overwhelmed even with a well-organized schedule full of things you’re excited about.

Balancing our time and energy is a big part of not being overcommited. You have to be both conscientious and realistic about how much you can successfully do in one day. This is also part of why it’s so important to only do things that we want to and that are serving our goals: those things will energize us, and spending any significant time doing things we don’t want to will drain us. Realistically, if you’re doing things you love, you’ll be able to do more in general. But keep that in balance too, and only make commitments to things you can realistically reliably get to, be on time for, and be fully present for.

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