[4 min read] For the longest time, I’ve been told that mastering time-management would ensure my well-being and give me a path to success. But my life in NYC has taught me quite a different story.
Growing up under a rigorous education system in China, I observed early on that kids at the top of their class have their schedule very strictly figured out to tailor to their learning plans. Any gap is filled with various learning opportunities that would help advance the child’s development. Nothing feels more intense than the hustle lifestyle of a 12 yo girl juggling between regular school work, after school tutoring for math olympiads, and a few hobby classes where maybe, preferably, she might one day get some nationals or international gold medals. Time-management becomes crucial.
I grew up a bit like that. I always thought that I had relatively good time-management skills, even as an adult.
However, since graduating from college, moving to NYC, and entering the job market, I’ve found myself constantly drained.
For the entire first year I was here, I have been constantly burned out between work, having a social life, navigating the dating scene, and trying(failing)
to stick to new hobbies or communities. I feel tired and dejected as I try to find who I am, what I like, and who I like to be with.
As much as social media shows the more glamorous part of life, reality is often uglier.
Would I really want to share stories of the nights I go home feeling every part of me wants to give in, and eat instant noodle alone sitting among not fully unpacked paper boxes? Would I want to share the anxious moments I wait in the clinic for my injury scans? Often I come home stuck on a doom scroll past midnight on social media, enjoying the sweet numbness from brain rot (I’m not surprised this became the word of year when Oxford dictionary announced it as word of the year). I thought I had time-management skills, but they have been stolen away from my lack of energy to execute, feel accomplished, and feel that I’m doing better, however it appears from the outside. But I got side-tracked here.
This is actually not a new topic. As early as 2007 without the social media scene as today, HBR released an article about energy management in the business or corporate world setting. One of the interesting ideas they discussed si that while time is considered a finite resource, while energy can be re-generated through a healthy routine, context switch, taking breaks, and exercising. Energy also comes in different renewable forms – the body, emotions, mind, and spirit. We all have a friend who seems to always have infinite energy; they are bubbly and genuinely happy, and they don’t seem to just be staying busy as a way of coping as some of us do. I’ve definitely been victim of that :’). These people are the experts of energy management. Energy management is not easy, and some of us spend our whole lives trying to master it.
I’ve been reflecting recently on why I was able to continuously have high levels of concentration and flow state in middle school and high school. I was able to sit and read for hours at a time without distraction, focus on study materials and psets, and play games for hours. Since starting college, I’ve gained much more exposure to social media, and at the same time, online productivity tools started to sprout out in response to an increasing amount of information we passively take in each day. Multi-tasking was big in some of my computer science classes, where I often see classmates in rows ahead on their laptops rapidly switching between windows and tabs, answering text messages, checking emails, taking notes, and doing reading or projects for another class, all at the same time. My attention span started to deteriorate. Multi-tasking is often associated with context switching. To some degree, it might be a healthy thing to stimulate the mind through context switching, but it might not be the best for energy preservation. Each context switch is associated with some level of energy loss, and if we context switch too often and too much, we feel drained and tired without accomplishing as much in the same span of time as if we were to focus on fewer number of tasks.
If multi-tasking has these effects on us, then social media is like the brain junk version of it. With each reel we watch, our eyes glued to the screen, we effortlessly accept whatever recommendation the algorithm feeds us. There’s a bit of dopamine reward per reel or post we browse, more than half of which are probably ads anyways (we should be careful about how it affects your spending habits here too). Our energy level dwindles and we leave the site feeling empty. Sometimes we feel fomo too, if we see our friend spending some great time at the beach, celebrating with others, while we sit alone in the room. More than anything, social media should be serving as sources of information that help us understand the world better, understand our friends and loved ones better. Even though that doesn’t necessarily align with the quarterly goals of certain tech companies, we can control how we engage with social media to benefit ourselves and better regulate our energy.
I personally find it mind-stimulating and energy-generating to sit down and learn about something new, practice a skill, or work on a personal project over a longer period of time. This could be anything for anyone. You could pick it from your new year bingo card or resolution list, you could find a friend to be accountability partner with, you could go sit in a cafe, library, or coworking space to absorb the highly attentive energy.
When I say New York City special, I think it is as much a New York problem as a large city problem in general: rule of abundance. There’s an overwhelming amount of everything you can think of in NYC – good restaurants and bars, events, social circles, dates, career opportunities – you name it. If we think of commitment as a commodity, then it is expensive in this context. Some people may thrive in this less committal and more transactional environment, while others don’t. Emotion, if it’s an asset, on the other hand, if not allocated in alignment with one’s true needs, could cause extensive energy drainage and burnout. Emotion here is also a relatively broad term: it could be the effort we expend to maintain friendships and professional relationships, to connect with the local community, to give our affection to a loved one, to take care of family, etc. Given the abundance of interpersonal relationships in the large city, we have to carefully choose who we want to invest our emotion and energy in, and to not let it be decided for you, and this is especially critical for people pleasers. It is an adulting process to learn how to make these choices, to cherish my well-being and listen to my needs, to be strong when faced with struggles in personal relationships, and to embrace my emotions and channel them to the right places instead of shutting them down.
At the end of everything, if you reached the bottom of this post without jumping directly to the conclusion, congrats on your attention span! I hope you find the energy to do what you like and be with the ones you enjoy your day with :3
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