Spring came to New York City this weekend. The clouds parted way for the beaming sun and the streets were enlivened. It was special to see as a first timer.

I moved to Manhattan in January. It had to endure a bitter winter— miserably cold at times. I locked myself inside my room and decided to work like crazy.

Better days have arrived. It’s time for me to take a break from obsessing over work to go have some fun. Let me tell you why I’m changing with the seasons…

In This Post

• Life Happens in Burts: How to use natural instinct to be more productive.

• Fickle Obsessions: The case for exploring new things.

• Work/Life Seasons: How to balanceearly 20s work and life.

Life Happens in Bursts

When do you feel most productive? Is it in the morning? After a workout? Whenever inspiration strikes?

How long does it last? At what point does your focus deter? Do you rely on a lot of caffeine/stimulants to sustain your energy?

And how productive are you, truly? Are you deeply invested in impactful work or are you just checking off boxes most days?

Modern life feels like a marathon of work. It's hard being productive with your attention stretched thin over the course of an 8 hour workday. It requires a lot of endurance to sustain focused effort as the days, weeks, years go by.

That's largely due to the way we work being unnatural— humans prefer to sprint, then rest. Our innate biological instincts as hunters has not gave way for desk jobs:

Niche internet micro-celebrity LindyMan is a cultural critic who is at frequently at odds with convention, and definitely controversial at times. He wrote a piece better-explaining this phenomenon: Life Happens in Bursts

I'd encourage you to read it. I like a lot of his ideas about work and he's been a big inspiration for Ball Knowledge. Here’s my synopsis: our attention is constantly fragmented by busy lives full of distraction; we are rarely fully at work or fully at rest— largely stuck in the anxious middle.

Fickle Obsessions

Ambition, passion, and obsession are peak human traits/experiences. Entering flow, losing track of time, and transcending our limitations is often the fulfillment we all crave as creators. We can access this state more frequently when we create an obsessive energy within ourselves that can be channeled into our work.

Yet many of us are self-inhibited from experiencing that fire. It's easy to let mundane routine weigh you down: full of loathsome obligation or empty with lacking desire. Which is unfortunate— you only get one shot at life.

Paralysis in the face of seemingly limitless optionality prevents most from taking real action toward their goals. A goal or problem to obsess over isn't going to introduce itself. You have to go out and find it.

Reconnecting with that hobby or forcing yourself to try out something new is a good first step. But you have to go beyond just dipping your toes in and not allow yourself to retreat upon contact with the water. You have to feel what it's like to drown in order to learn to swim.

Once you have acquired some competence and start to get good, it feels like a fire's been lit inside of you. You're committed, you're practicing, you're obsessed. It feels like you want to do this forever but in reality, that flame is often fickle.

Humans love to explore and love novelty; obsessive commitment to one thing requires strong discipline and comes at a cost in other areas in life.

Contrary to popular social media discourse these days, I'm going to argue that that's okay. It's okay to lean into fleeting obsessions while you're still young. Obsess over one thing for a little, set it down, give yourself some time to figure out what's next, repeat.

Think of it like writing chapters of your life. One chapter you're obsessed with urban photography, the next you're devouring books on physics, after that it's playing poker with your friends. You're charting your own course, stringing together side quests for the thrill of it.

The most interesting people I know are multi-dimensional— you can't pin them down to any one thing. While I respect those who obsessively forge an unwavering singular path, I'm not sure that's for me right now. It sure as hell can be lonely.

Work/Life Seasons

The two concepts above come together in a framework that I think is especially helpful when you're young and haven't got a clue: Work/Life Seasons.

By alternating your obsessive pursuits by the season, you bring a new burst of energy and zest into your life, aligning your work/life balance in a way it feels natural and allows for exploration of your multi-facetted character. The changing of the seasons signal that it's time to embark on a new journey.

A quick example from my personal life:

Late last summer I become obsessed with an idea for a game/app for my fantasy football league. From July to October I no-lifed software development 7 days a week outside of my day job to make it happen, and I (somewhat) succeeded.

By November I was burnt out and had isolated myself from the people I enjoyed spending time with, so I hung up my cleats. I did no work in the slightest through January. Instead I hibernated and was entirely focused on my new routine going to the gym, reading, writing, reflecting, and most importantly— chilling.

Come February I eased back into more work and started posting to this blog regularly, and it quickly landed me an opportunity to write another newsletter. I spend quite a bit of time writing long form content each week and I enjoy it. Who knows, in May I might be ready for a break from it all so I can spend all my free time hanging out with my friends. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm alternating between one period of intense focus on extra-curricular work, one period of intense focus on extra-curricular rest. And it just so happens to be (roughly) attuned with the changing of the seasons:

• Half the year obsessively working, half the year obsessively chilling; commitment to one or the other but never both at the same time.

• 'Locking-in' means sacrificing weekends, evenings, some aspects of social life in order to make real (not half-assed) progress towards life goals. However I've often found that amount of effort to be unsustainable (with a 9-5) and unhealthy.

• Maximize energy in a sprint in one direction for a set time, then rest/procrasinate to reevaluate preferences, and pivot to whatever's next. Don’t be afraid to discard any previous work as it is but a small chapters contributing towards an overall positive life direction.

By focusing entirely on developing one domain of your life at a time, you see better results in the long-run as opposed to spreading yourself too thin.

Say for example you set aside some time on the weekends to learn software: the cost of having to reacclimate with a codebase and or recontextualize difficult concepts every week is expensive and slows you down; you'd be better off spending every day immersed in the practice. The same is true of exercise: working out 3x a week is maintenance, working out every day is growth.

The common notion of ‘work/life balance’ is really the anxious middle. A little bit of this and a little bit of that drawn out over the course of a year is more likely to lead to stagnation in all of your pursuits. Whereas the sum of episodic, obsessive commitment to each of the parts will develop you further.

(side note) The law of compounding is still something to consider: there may be certain habits/practices you want to keep as constants. For myself those are reading, writing, and exercise. But that 4th thing — whether it's a new project/hobby I'm obsessed with or free-time I instead choose to spend sipping afternoon cortados in East Village — is seasonal.

Jack Raines wrote a good piece echoing these sentiments, my thoughts are admittedly derivative. But I still wanted to get them out there.

Work/life seasons are a natural way to live. Life isn't meant to be a sludge marathon through piling work. However it'd be ill-advised to forgo our capitalist mandate remain unmindful of free time or unwilling to dedicate significant time towards improving your abilities.

Despite the systemic pressure to forgo everything fun in life and work your ass off in your 20s, optimizing for machine-like productivity is simply unfulfilling. Don't work like a robot, work like a human. The fruits of your labor will grow sweeter by the season.

Write your own story, explore at your own pace, and who knows… a seed from your past may prove useful in the future. And remember— it’s okay to allow yourself to rest.