Each day you're living a piece of your life and if you were to think of time as a currency that is always flowing out. You have an account and that account has a certain amount of time in it but you don't know how much you have in that account. In today's episode we're talking time as a limited account.
Today we're talking about time as a resource of abundance. We'll cover self-care as an investment, work as something that you can enjoy more consistently and free-time as something you can learn and grow from.
Today's challenge will be to enjoy your life, no matter where you're at.
This is a daily challenge designed help you become more self-aware and be a better developer so you can have a positive impact on the people around you. Check it out and give it a try at https://www.teabreakchallenge.com/.
Scraping data is tough, but there's one company dedicated to making that better. Oxylabs is a web data gathering service provider that is now introducing a significantly improved data gathering solution -- Next-Generation Residential Proxies.
Visit oxylabs.io/developertea to find out more about the services and apply for a free trial of Next-Generation Residential Proxies.
Each day you are living a piece of your life. If you were to think about time as a currency, your currency is always flowing out. You have an account and that account has a certain amount of time in it, but you don't know how much is in that account. And so it makes sense to spend that account in a way that feels purposeful to you. That's likely why you are listening to this podcast in the first place. Because you want to do something meaningful, purposeful, fulfilling, whatever word you use to describe using that time in a way that you don't feel that you've squandered it. In today's episode, we're going to do three things. First, I'm going to share a concept that you can carry forward with you into your career and the rest of your life. I'm going to give you one exercise that you can try. And finally, I'm going to ask you one question. All three things are pointed at helping you find ways to spend your time more purposefully. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. You're listening to Developer Tea. My goal on the show is to help driven developers like you find clarity, perspective, and purpose in their careers. I want to get something out of the way here because I think a lot of people take episodes like this into a reasoning or a justification for trying to optimize every single minute of their lives for some kind of output. This can lead to overwork. It can lead to a lot of anxiety about the fact that we are limited on time. And it can lead us to live lives that we ultimately don't even like very much. There's a difference in living a life that feels purposeful, feels meaningful, and living a life of scarcity. A life of scarcity is driven by the idea that everything is running out, that there's not enough of anything, and we have to fight to be able to have what we need or what we want. In the intro of this episode, depending on the way that you relate to this idea, the intro to this episode might trigger that built-in model, that you may have of scarcity, that scarcity mentality that you might already have. And this is not the intention of this episode. Instead, I want you to think about your time as something that is abundant, not scarce, and not in the sense that you have all the time in the world, but rather that each moment you do have is full of potential and meaning behind you and behind your evolution. At the very least, you may find meaning behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution, behind your evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution evolution that you might use when you're prioritizing whatever it is that you're going to do on a given day or even at a larger level on a quarter or a yearly basis. And this certainly applies across entire decades of your life. And it's very simple. The concept is this. First, do only what only you can do. Think about this for a second. First, do only what only you can do. So it's helpful to sit down and think through this, maybe write out notes, a framework of thinking about all the different roles that you fill in your life. And in each role, there's likely something that only you can do. A lot of things that only you can do are related to to you. And so I want to talk about that a little bit. So let's start with the first one. Taking care of yourself. For example, no one else can exercise for you. No one else can learn new skills for you. No one else can fill the shoes that you fill in all of those key relationships in your life. Now, not everything that only you can do is worth prioritizing, but the things that only you can do that are important are things that you might consider to be a higher priority. Some of the most consistent advice that you will hear from people who have reached high levels of success is that they wish they had taken time to do exactly this, to take care of themselves because no one else can do that for them, to spend time in those relationships because no one else can do that for them. And this isn't just limited to your personal life. This isn't just about, this isn't intended to be a motivational speech to go and get you to connect to those meaningful things in your life. This can also be about the tactical things, the work in your life. For example, unless we totally change the model of this show, no one else can record this podcast for me. Now, here's a bonus thought that you might want to consider when you get this list nailed down of things that only you can do. It might be useful to you to consider if there are too many things on that list. Are there things that don't have to be on that list? In other words, you might have things on this list that are not fundamentally restrained to only you. They may be elected restraints, things that you could delegate. If you were to prioritize this list and cut out the bottom half of it, how would your life change? Admittedly, this is an oversimplified way of thinking. But if you were to cut out the bottom half of it, how would your life change? Admittedly, this is an oversimplified way of thinking. But if you were to cut out the bottom half of it, how would your life change? Admittedly, this is an oversimplified way of thinking. The contributions that I provide in my day-to-day job, someone else could probably do that job. But that doesn't mean I can simply cut it out. Because by doing that job, I am doing something else by proxy that only I can do. But this model of thinking does reinforce some very important thought patterns. For example, no one else can enjoy your life without you. And this is kind of the point of thinking in the scarcity model and squandering our time only to work. Sometimes the resource of time that's flowing out of that undetermined account that you have, sometimes the best thing you can do might be considered totally unproductive. We're going to take a quick sponsor break, and then I'm going to come back and give you one exercise and one question, and we'll help you think about your time a little bit differently. Today's episode is sponsored by Oxylabs. Oxylabs provides a real-time crawler, a web scraper, residential, and data center proxies. Oxylabs is now introducing next-generation residential proxies, a significantly improved data gathering solution. With the next-generation proxies, you get 30 million global IP addresses, actually over 30 million global IP addresses. These are resource efficient, and everything is handled on Oxylabs' side. For example, user agents and IP rotation. All of this helps you to keep your scraping live. However you are gathering your data through scraping, Oxylabs can help. Oxylabs provides deep understanding and knowledge on how to acquire web data as a service. They have dedicated account managers for every client, and they're already trusted by over 500 companies. For initiatives like sales intelligence, and for other services, they're already trusted by over 500 companies. For more information, visit oxylabs.io. That's oxylabs.io. To find out more about the services, and apply for a free trial of the next-generation residential proxies. Thanks again, Oxylabs, for sponsoring today's episode of Developer Tea. So I have an exercise and a question to ask you to help you think about your time, this account that we've been talking about, a little bit differently. First, I want you to think about your day. The day that's coming up today, if you're listening to this in the morning, or consider tomorrow, pull out your calendar if you can, and figure out the different transitions that you're going to have. For example, very simple transitions might be waking up and getting out of bed. For me, one of my transitions is going downstairs and making some coffee. Transitions between meetings, and then going to bed. For me, one of my transitions is going downstairs and making some coffee. Or from lunchtime back into work. All of these moments that are kind of between events in a given day. And everyone has different transitions. Another important transition for me is the moments between when I get off of work and when I pick up my children from school. And these transitions are critical because so many times we mindlessly allow our thinking and our kind of trailing thought process to go. And so I want you to think about your day. And if you're thinking about your day, you might want to think about your day. And if you're thinking about your day, you might want to think about your day. And so not only are we distracted by whatever it is that we were doing, but we also can't bring with us the right mindset for the thing that we're about to do. Very often, this is why things tend to go faster than you expect them to. Because by the time you are present, by the time your mind has caught up to the fact that you're on to the next thing, it's time to prepare to go. And so I want you to think about your day. And if you're going to go to the next thing, here's what I'd like for you to do as an exercise. And you can practice this now. Consider this episode, this podcast, a transition from the first part of your day into the next part of your day. Take a moment to totally calm your mind. This is not the easiest thing to do. It's hard to stop thinking about whatever it is that you're thinking about, but try to let the thoughts go. And, be mindful for a moment. If you've ever practiced meditation, this is kind of like a mini version of that. So what does it mean to be mindful? Well, one way that you can do this is to focus on releasing the muscular tension in your body. You can start with your feet, or you can start with your shoulders, or your face. And once you become mindful of the tension that's there, you might be surprised that you're holding that tension to begin with. Other mindful techniques are focusing on the breath, or perhaps a visualization. We've done visualizations on this show before, but it doesn't have to be a prolonged thing. Really, you're just trying to kind of clear your mind. So you can ask yourself this question. And this is the question that I'm going to leave you with in today's episode. The question is simple. What do I want to bring into the next part of my day? What do I want to bring into the next part of my day? This can be feelings. This can be emotions. This can be energy and excitement. It can be intention. Very rarely are you going to say that you want to drag along something that you've left behind, something that you didn't finish, that's lingering in your mind. Very rarely will you answer this question by saying, I'd like to continue thinking about something else. Most of the time, if we think about this question, we really do want to be present in the moment. This is how we arrive at an abundance mindset rather than a scarcity mindset. What can we do to make the most of the next moments in our lives? Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Developer Tea. Thank you again to Oxylabs for sponsoring today's episode. Head over to oxylabs.io slash developer tea. That's oxylabs.io slash developer tea. Thank you again to Oxylabs for sponsoring today's episode. Head over to oxylabs.io slash developer tea. That's all one word, oxylabs.io slash developer tea to find out more and apply for a free trial. Today's episode was produced by Sarah Jackson. My name is Jonathan Cottrell. And until next time, enjoy your tea.