Activity Pyramids: Ideal and Actual

If you have had a chance to talk to me or read my blog or tap my cell phone, you know that I am unemployed. I left my former employer in October and I was both eager for new challenges and eager to decompress a bit. I knew the economy was struggling and was only gonna get worse, but I also knew that I've got, like, a million letters after my name and that I don't have too many restrictions on where I'd work or what I'd be willing to do.

Further, I don't let my work define me. I want a job that I enjoy and that pays me well enough to chip away at my debt (see: letters after my name, mentioned above) and pay for my kitties to continue to be fat and relatively happy.

I had a near-miss on a job opp right after quitting, and I decided to just kick back and enjoy funemployment for a while. I knew that I'd have to get (relatively) serious eventually, and when that time came I sort of put together a plan in terms of how I was going to manage my days.

(And by "sort of", I mean, "should have totally".)

Since a logical follow-up question to "why aren't you working?" is "what do you do with your time?", I thought I would lay out my ideal time/activity distribution, and then compare it to my actual time/activity distribution.

Warning. The comparison is not pretty.

I've always been fascinated by the old "Nutrition Pyramid", because it said to eat lots of breads and stuff and not very many sweets and oils. It was pretty bassackwards at the time, and I'm not sure it's any more representative of an ideal or an actual healthy consumption pattern.But there is great power in pyramids, yes? The shape has been used from the time of the Pharoahs to the Freemasons to, at long last, its grandest use of all: within my blog.

I don't want to place every possible activity within the pyramids, so I'll keep the potential use of my time to six areas:

Look for work. This can be looking online, emailing people I know or almost-know, hitting the pavement looking for gigs, etc.

Go to gym. Like almost everyone, my self-image could be better. I have been amazed at how I can feel both chubby and skinny simultaneously for years now. While I can appreciate, at an intellectual level, the dissonance, I figured since I have some free time I should try to get into slightly better shape.

Self-improvement. Reading history. Learning to play my mandolin and/or TM2000's digital piano. Shooting baskets, even, might go under this category.

Going out. Whether it's with buddies or chicks or by myself. Going out may include, but is not limited to, karaoke and alcohol.

Doing chores. The best thing about owning three plates is that I haveto do dishes. The best thing about owning my Dyson is that I want to vacuum. Also, cat litter doesn't clean itself... yet.

CPU fun. "CPU" means"central processing unit"... just to clear that up. I like blogging. I like social networking sites. I like arguing about the Portland Trail Blazers. I've even been known to look at some pr0n occasionally.

The non-color blind people reading this might notice that I color-coded the different activities... adding a value judgment (given that I'm unemployed and my parents were not kind enough to provide me with a steady and perpetual source of income whilst I sit on my ass).

Putting the activities into the Activity Pyramid, we get something like this:



For those of you with horrible spatial awareness, the "Look for Work" section is the largest... meaning I plan to/ought to spend more of my time doing that than anything else. The Gym and Self-Improvement, both noble endeavors, are next in terms of both acceptability and time allocation, with Going Out and Chores next.

And CPU Fun last. Because it's evil. Fun (as the "CPU fun" name implies). But evil.

So how am I doing?

How do you think I'm doing? It's me. C'mon.

Let's see...



It's almost entirely "wrong". I have somehow managed not to go out as much as one might fear I would (I tend to go out the same amount I did when I was working full time) and I somehow manage to drag myself to the gym.

Chores, though, have been a consistent way of avoiding having to do "real" work... which, given that I'm unemployed, is really only Looking for Work.

I'm starting to get a bit scared about the whole "no income" thing, and that will, I believe, drive me to look harder for work. Which is good.

The computer still calls to me. But I can resist it. I can avoid arguing about the Blazers quite so much (at least after the trade deadline, tomorrow at noon Pacific (and until the playoffs start)). I can try to go for hours at a time without remembering there are pics of naked women on the Interwebz. I can not play quite so much Civ IV. And I can stop blogging quite so much.

But where's the fun in that? I mean... they're naked!