My ideal day components
Those good components, so many ideal days.
What does my ideal day look like? This is a controversial question because spending the same day over and over would probably make it less ideal. Hence I want to discuss its components and their minimal or maximum ratio in terms of hours of the day. The main point is that if any criteria is violated, the day might not be ideal.
Here is an overview:
Good Sleep >= 7 hours
Learning >= 2 hours
Comfortable meal >= 30 minutes
Working on impactful stuff (net positive) >= 30 minutes
Meaningful connections >= 30 minutes
Fun events >= 30 minutes
Exercise >= 30 minutes
Things I don’t like <= 30 minutes
As an example, my ideal weekday might be 7 hours of good sleep, 2 hours of learning, 8 hours of working towards something big and helpful and the rest 6 hours scatter in the remaining topics. For an ideal weekend day, the bulk part might be 3 hours of meaningful connections, 3 hours of fun events and 2 hours of exercise instead. Some components can happen at the same time, for example, exercise can be fun events. In this case, exercise 30 minutes can be a double win.
Treating an ideal day by using different components might sound less exciting but it works as a practical way for day planning. If we follow these components to make most of days ideal, why not? So let me dive deeper into each components and suggest what they might look like actually.
Good Sleep
>= 7 hours.
Good sleep improves physical and mental health. For me, an ideal sleep would be consistent, noise free, completely dark, appropriate temperature and long duration.
Learning
>= 30 minutes.
This happens in many forms: reading, learning a new skill, honing existing skills, gaining a new experience, gaining a new insight and etc. If I am always doing the same thing over and over without learning anything new, then that day will be too long for me.
Comfortable meal
>= 30 minutes.
Sometimes we might eat inappropriately: eating too much, having too much sodium, fat or carb and etc. For myself, as long as my body feels good after every meal, then I feel satisfied.
Working on impactful stuff (net positive)
>= 30 minutes
This is an ambiguous one. I define impactful stuff as something that can change others’ life. The higher degree of change or more people, the bigger impact. How to measure the degree of change? I would say the amount of quality time changed. This still sounds abstract. Let me give an example: After we invented printer, every publisher maybe saved 6 hours per day to print books. Those hours can be used for meaningful stuff. Also, people started to have more access to books, hence likely better time spent. It is hard to give a quality number, but scale wise, we can count towards seconds, minutes or hours per day. This change can be positive or negative. I will treat most of the people the same and hope to get a net positive score.
Action-wise, this could be writing, working towards something positive, educating, volunteering, side projects and etc.
Meaningful Connections
>= 30 minutes
For me, a meaningful connections is usually fun or helpful. This can be meeting new people, chatting with old friends, spend quality time with my partners and etc. Without meaningful connections, I could imagine my life be quite lonely and boring.
Fun events
>= 30 minutes
Of course, we should have fun! For me, this could be exploring the city, rock climbing, chatting with friends, learning something new and etc.
Exercise
>= 30 minutes
My body and mind both become healthier after exercise. This could be hiking, doing a new sport, stretching or climbing.
Things I don’t like
<= 30 minutes
Things like paper work, commute, visiting doctors and etc. In a perfect day, I should spend no time on them. I think some amount of commute is necessary so I wouldn’t set the criteria too strict.
Ending Thoughts
Those components are not strict. Sometimes certain events can make a day pretty good without meeting all criteria. For example, for a gorgeous hiking, I am willing to sacrifice 2 hours of sleep or nutritious meal. With those components in mind, hopefully I can have a better answer about what an ideal day looks like — it can happen in many ways and many days.