# My Ideal Life

By Randall Degges · January 18, 2012 · https://rdegges.com/2012/my-ideal-life/

> My ideal day, hour by hour: 10 hours of sleep, writing, reading, exercise, open source, and only 2 hours of focused work. Here's my reasoning.

![Tyrael Sketch][]


As a strong believer in personal development, I realize that I will never be
perfect.  Despite this, a big part of the fun in life is working towards making
yourself a better person.  If you don't do that, what else is there?

In order to make yourself a better person, knowing which traits you'd like to
eventually have is essential.  Maybe you're a smoker, but you'd like to
eventually quit.  Maybe you're skinny, and want to add 10lbs of muscle to your
frame.  Regardless of your personal development strategy, knowing what to work
towards is mandatory.

Over the past year, I've come to realize the importance of having
[positive habits][], and how building a series of habits into your daily
schedule is one of the best ways to make long term, sustainable change.

As my life goals are still undefined, my current focus is on building a
repertoire of habits and skills so that over time, I'll gradually become the
person I'd like to be, with as little friction as possible.

For the past few days I've been trying to enumerate the skills I want to have,
and the life I want to live.  After a lot of thought and personal debate, I've
narrowed my ideal life down to the following 24 hour snapshot.  My thought is
that if I'm able to spend each day doing the things below, I'll be both happy
and wildly productive throughout my life.

**ALSO**: I'm absolutely positive that I'm going to continuously change my mind
about this over time.  The points below represent my thinking at this current
moment only.  Future self, if you're reading this: what are you up to?  Have
your goals changed?  Your ideal life?

In a given 24 hour day, I'd like to spend:

-   **10 hours sleeping.**  This includes buffer time, stuff like brushing
    teeth and sliding into bed.  This way, I'll get a minimum of 8 hours of
    sleep (with 2 hours of buffer in there, just incase).
-   **1 hour writing.**  Writing is a tool I'm quickly becoming more and more
    fond of.  Writing has helped me learn things in much greater depth, as well
    as improve my communication skills.  I highly value communication skills,
    so this is high on my list of importance.
-   **1 hour reading.**  I do a lot of reading, and I plan to continue this.
    Reading books, in particular, has taught me innumerable lessons, and the
    value I receive for my time investment is overwhelming.
-   **1 hour exercising.**  Having a strong body is important--not only for
    longevity, but for mental health and mood.  Hitting the gym everyday and
    lifting weights would be a great way to stay in top condition year round.
-   **3 hours eating.**  This means uninterrupted meal and relaxation time
    either by myself, or with my family and friends.  Rushing through meals is
    unsatisfying, and eating slow seems like a healthy, relaxing routine.
-   **1 hour hacking on an open source project.**  This means writing code that
    goes straight back to the community.  Not only do open source projects
    build programming skill, but they're extremely fun, and provide a great way
    to meet other smart, talented people.
-   **2 hours working.**  This would ideally be hacking on my own company in
    some form: giving direction, writing code, whatever.  Just working on a
    meaningful project that provides real value in the world, and enough money
    so that I don't have to worry about it.
-   **5 hours doing anything else.**  This includes watching TV, hanging out
    with my wife, attending events, showering, volunteering, whatever.

Why so little work?  Well, it's my thought that by improving myself in all
areas (including things that aren't quantifiable--like focus, willpower,
etc.), I'll be able to accomplish a lot more by working both smarter, and with
more focus.

Working smarter means only doing things that absolutely require my personal
attention.  By putting myself in a position where I can outsource all but the
most essential functions to others, I'll be able to drastically cut down my
daily TODO list, leaving me with much less (but more important) work to be
done.

By working with more focus, I mean that over time, I'd like to build up my
focus to a point where I'm able to completely immerse myself in a task for
hours on end, without breaking concentration.  Having that sort of intense
focusing power would allow me to accomplish a great amount of work in a very
small amount of time.

I believe that if I'm eventually able to work both smarter and with more focus,
than 2 hours should be more than enough time to make a difference at work.

For the extra 5 hours of random time each day, I'd like to use that to do
meaningful things.  Maybe work on other projects, volunteer my time for a
worthy cause, etc.  It would also be nice to have free time so that, even on
bad days, I can just lay down for a large chunk of the day and not feel guilty.
After all, this is supposed to be a sustainable schedule--something that I can
live with over a long period of time, not just a short term thing.  This could
also be a great way to throw myself at whatever I'm feeling most passionate
about that particular day.  This would free me up to spend an extra few hours
working if I'm really in the mood, or maybe an extra couple hours reading--who
knows.


[Tyrael Sketch]: tyrael-sketch.jpg "Tyrael Sketch"
  [positive habits]: /2012/what-im-doing-in-2012/ "What I'm Doing in 2012"