What is a Waste of Time?
I think a lot about time. I remember in college having a conversation with a friend about how I was kind caged in it or something like to that effect and that remains true; I am often thinking about how much time something will take or how much time I have. For example, a calculation I make often is how much time I can feasibly feel okay napping because I'm tired. Due to a mixture of factors, napping feels like a "waste of time." There are a lot of things I could be doing with my time and while I need rest, my various anxieties make me feel like lying down for anything other than sleep or from sheer exhaustion is an affront to that--a waste of time.
Part of this is obviously my anxiety; I'm worried I won't be able to get the things done! That's rarely the case--I can't actually think of an instance where I've really needed an extension on something for school or work--but that doesn't really matter. Anxiety doesn't make sense, that's a big part of the whole thing! I think another factor is that I was raised with the "if you're early, you're on time; if you're on time, you're late" mentality. So, anytime I have to go to an appointment, I'll leave with ample time because oh my god, what if I'm late? What if they're mad at me? What if I get in trouble??? Again, these are largely ridiculous (though I did once find out after the fact that being late to a D&D game really annoyed a friend but that's another story).
I think another large part is, as I've discussed, my commutes are long. I haven't fully timed out the one on the train, but it's over an hour, easy. I get up at 5 am those days because otherwise, I might have to drive and FUCK THAT. And I regain that time; I'm on a train and I can read or play a handheld or get more sleep (probably my most consistent choice right now). It's the hour-ish commute I do on the other days that drives me insane because I'm driving. All I can do is sit in my car and try to keep my focus on the drive and myself awake. Between that and working, I don't have as much time to myself as I was previously used to (if you're a dumb ass like me, you have sooooooo much time when you're finished with your qualifying exams). And so, I fixate on how I can best use my time to enjoy myself and get work/personal errands done. Also, it means I literally judge almost every game I want to play by the metric of how long it is.
But I still often feel I'm wasting time. Barquq recently posted about fighting against scrolling and the feeling of pacing about like a tiger looking for some food, which as he notes, is something someone on the forum called it. This is also something I'm working on and I'm hyper aware of it now, since it's something I've only just started working on. I'm still struggling because Overchoice is real and Everything Happens So Much.
I've been thinking about this for the past day or two and it really hurt today when I have a wealth of time alone and nothing structured to do. I literally sat at my desk earlier today, thinking "I need to go and get groceries" for at least ten fucking minutes. Would I actually feel better if I had moved in those ten minutes rather than dithering? I have no idea. But, I'm still working on both fighting this restlessness that social media has fed on and the fact that sometimes it's okay to "do nothing", whatever that means. Like, one could easily say that just hanging out in Mint's stream while he played different games was a waste of time--THEY'D BE FUCKING WRONG--but ya know, they could say it. I dunno, I guess I'm just trying to feel a little less harried as I continue to adjust. And that's hard with school because I get several months a year off and during those, I'm on my own, schedule-wise and any person with ADHD will tell you how dangerous that can be. I'm going to try and track my time a little more superciliously this week and see what comes up.