I am one of the lucky people with an above average income and below average lifestyle, so for a while now, I’ve been thinking of reducing my hours at work so that I can explore new things and spend more time on my hobbies (and friends, as soon as that’s possible again). In the summer, there was a period where I had a hard time motivating myself for work, and during that time, I decided that I’m going to try it out.

So starting in January, I will only work 20 hours a week. (Technically, it will start in December already, but I have a second job that runs out at the end of December, so practically, it’s January.)

I’m very aware that I’m in a privileged position to be able to do this. Not only can I afford to live cheaply (no house, no car, no family, sharing the rent with a roommate), but my work is also flexible enough to allow me to reduce my hours. To have such a combination of perks is rare, so I’m very grateful to have this opportunity.1

Of course I will have to live on a much lower income than before, but I’m a heavy and diligent user of YNAB (You Need A Budget) and have a very good overview over my finances. It should be possible for me to live off of that lower income as long as I don’t upgrade my lifestyle.

However, something that I really need to get into this month (in preparation for having more time, basically) is time management. Recently, I really haven’t been good about managing my time. I feel like I waste too much of it, and I don’t mean watching anime. Rather with stuff like browsing Reddit multiple times a day, or hanging out on Twitter and Instagram, or just random browsing without any intention. I don’t think these things are inherently bad or that you should never do them, but for me personally, I feel like I should do less of that and spend my time more intentionally.

One aspect of it will certainly be: What do I actually want to do with the extra time? How do I want to spend my precious time in life? Certainly not browsing Reddit all day.

The other aspect will definitely be the execution. If I know how I want to spend my time, how can I make sure I actually do those things?

I feel like I’ve read too many books and articles about these things, but I haven’t really applied those learnings to my own life. So during this month of November, I will intentionally sit down and think about those things. Write it all down in my journal, and probably share some stuff here as well.

How is your time management? Are you happy with how you are spending your time? What do you think about working less in order to have more time for the things you actually want to do? Let me know in the comments below!

(By the way, I’m sorry for anyone who understands German, is reading the comments, and has nothing to do with my one group of friends. The comments are full of insiders and weird jokes and stuff. I love it, but it will seem very weird for people who don’t know what’s going on. 😂)

  1. I had some trouble with this part of the post, so I hope it came out okay. I just wanted to emphasize that I’m not taking this for granted. I also hope that my additional time will help me figure out my role in society, so that I can give back to it. I know I’m overthinking this though. In the grand scheme of things, we’re just a bunch of apes living out our very short period of time on a spinning rock in space. 🤷 ↩