“Busy” is a four-letter word
📪 The Optimal Agent Newsletter #052
Take Action:
Make time freedom the organizing principle of your life.
Why It Matters:
The default organizing principle of American culture is money — earning it, spending it, saving it, and avoiding its confiscation through taxation. As such, it’s easy to sacrifice your hours to financial activities, subordinating free time and personal development to the Sirens of career, promotions, consumerism, wealth, and status. By recognizing this pattern (and then purposefully subverting it), you’ll find a natural path to increased Agency.
How To Do It:
Begin with money (then need less). How much do you actually need to pay your bills, engage in a reasonable amount of discretionary spending, and save for an adequate future? Once you know, consider that every cent you earn beyond these bounds is unneeded (yet you traded your finite time to get it). Can you play with this tradeoff to produce more free time?
Learn systems thinking. We spend many of our hours inefficiently, but instead of thinking of better ways to accomplish our aims, we simply plow ahead, working harder instead of smarter. To increase time freedom, learn to “build the machine” — what arrangements, organizational steps, tools, and automations could you put in place to remove or streamline your daily activities? Where are you investing time far beyond the minimum effective dose?
Diversify your identity. Once you’ve found time freedom, use it to diversify your identity. Consider trying on identities that have eluded you in the past — who did you always want to be? Focus on new skills and activities in areas where you’re not traditionally competent; perhaps working with your hands instead of your mind, practicing a new sport, or engaging in challenging scientific study for its own sake. When you walk this path, you’ll find yourself moving beyond the default identity of “self-as-job,” meeting your need for achievement and status through personal development rather than careerism.
Explore More:
Listen: O.A. Podcast Episode #52: The Organizing Principle: Choose More Time Over More Money — where Patrick and I talk through my purposeful rejection of all-consuming jobs, the dangers of aspiring to a life you don’t want, and the concrete steps you can take to prioritize time over money (Audio)
Watch: The YouTube version of O.A. Podcast Ep. 52… and even if you’re the audio-only type, please jump over to YouTube and subscribe to the channel. It helps the algorithmic overlords know they should show O.A. to more people, it’s no cost, and it’s one of the best things you can do to support the show.
P.S. The entire Optimal Agency philosophy (.pdf) is available for download at no charge. All of the Rules, All of the Behaviors, deep write-ups, and a ton of understanding as to what we’re doing and why.
