Structured Freedom: Using a Flexible Schedule to Unlock More Productivity

Originally written Nov 13, 2020. Last Updated Jan 8, 2025.

Balance Between Structure and Freedom

To-do lists and schedules are great tools with obvious utility. They help us keep our lives from becoming too chaotic and make it easier to “steer the ship” toward long-term goals. As someone who used to struggle with organization, I benefit a lot from utilizing strucured strategies such as the Getting Things Done (GTD) system and from convenient tools like schedules and Todoist. In spite of this, I often find myself unable to keep up with the some of the schedules and daily goals I set for myself.

This isn’t so much because of an ability to actually do the work as it is an unwillingness to do it. Following exact plans for how to divvy up my time each day is just so unappealing. I find that I’m able to accomplish a much more when I let myself indulge in exploration and productive play. This raises a question, “how can one make exploration and play more common and systematic in daily life?”

What’s wrong with this task list?

Over the past few weeks, I’ve had around 10 hours of recurring tasks that I aim to spend time on each day. These tasks are divided up between paid work, research positons, classes I’m involved in, exercise, and personal learning objectives. I add these tasks to a recurring checklist in Todoist that looks like this:

This seemed reasonable when I first made it. It’s a college schedule for seven-day workweeks consisting of daily goals based on the input time rather than the output of results.

The problem is that this task list reflects minimum requirements for me to be able keep up with everything. Clocking in 11 hours a day 7 days a week is difficult to keep up with. I’m either too determined or too stubborn to renege on commitments. Unfortunately, this means that unexpected errands and miscalculations on how long things will take can derail my schedule, inevitably resulting in missed sleep and general… unhappiness.

Even if I stayed diligent about putting in time on my goals, I’d regularly fail to reach these benchmarks after a while. The quantity of work would be there, but the balance would be off. For example, I might spend 6 hours on one course and no time on my research. Sometimes, I’d do 12+ hours of research in one area and then go to dinner or watch Netflix with my girlfriend. And there’s nothing wrong with that; that day sounds like an absolute win. However, when reviewing my task list at the end of such a day, I’d see that I’m failing to reach many of my daily goals—according to my checklist.

Guilt builds up from constantly missing days and, before you know it, one missed day turns into a few missed days. A few missed days turns into a few missed weeks, and the whole system falls apart.

So, what’s the fix? How can we make a checklist that urges healthy habit formation without becoming too stressful to adhere to? Is this simply a discipline problem? How can todo-lists be more flexible? I’m honestly surprised I didn’t think of this solution sooner.

All I had to do was lower my minimum daily requirements. Simple as that. We know this from world class athletes and musicians: Consistency gives more value over time than binge-purge cycles. A good way to curb procrastination is to give a small, consistent effort each day. There’s no shame in embracing and enjoying the low-hanging fruit.

A better, revised task list

”Flex” time is a catch-all task that accounts for both urgency and my short-term preferences. Flex is a placeholder for time spent working on any of your top priorities. If something unexpected comes up and I need to spend a lot more time getting a deployment ready for work, it spills into flex. If I’m reaching a flow state while learning about an engaging topic, I can go down that rabbit hole too. The cool thing about flex is that it’s strongly recommended but ultimately optional.

If you want to complete the minimum requirements of the non-flex tasks and then spend the rest of the day watching anime, going to the beach, or spending time with people that nourish you, flex time can give you the freedom to do so without feeling like your actions and aspirations are misaligned.

If your to-do objectives make you sad, stop setting them. It’s easier to “walk the talk” if you just make “the talk” shorter; you won’t have to walk as far.

🔮 Docs | 👾 Discord | 🐦 Twitter | 🔥 Web App
⛓️ ️Explorer | 🌴 Link Tree | 👨‍💻 Code | 🎥 YouTube