Somewhere between everything that needs to get done and everything you think you should be doing, there are the things you actually like. The ones that don’t have a point. The ones you do just because they make the day feel more like yours.
I’ve noticed that these are the first things to go when life gets busy. Not the obligations — those stay. The thing that goes is the hour watching a drama you’ve been following, the afternoon you were going to spend drawing, the loaf of bread you kept meaning to bake.
And the days without them feel flatter. More like maintenance than living.
What it actually looks like
For me it’s small things. A Korean drama on YouTube that I’ve been watching in episodes across the week. Baking something on a Sunday afternoon — not because I planned to, just because I felt like it. Reading a few pages before bed. Opening the iPad and drawing something that doesn’t have to be good.
None of these are productive. None of them are building toward anything. That’s the whole point.
They’re the things I do that are just for me, in a day that is mostly for other things.
Why it matters more than it sounds
When you go too long without doing anything purely because you enjoy it, something starts to feel off. You’re functioning fine. Getting things done. But there’s a low-level flatness to the days that’s hard to name.
I think it’s because the things you enjoy — the things you chose before anyone asked anything of you — are part of how you know yourself. When they disappear from your days, you start to feel a little less like yourself and a little more like a version of yourself that only exists to complete tasks.
That’s not sustainable. It’s also just not a good way to spend your days.
The thing about quiet moments
One of the things I protect most is just sitting somewhere without doing anything in particular. Not meditating. Not journaling. Not optimizing the quiet time into a practice.
Just sitting with a coffee and letting the morning exist without immediately filling it.
It sounds like nothing. It changes everything about the day that follows.
You don’t need to schedule it
The advice you usually get is to schedule time for yourself. Block it in your calendar. Protect it like a meeting.
That works for some people. For me, forcing enjoyment into a time slot makes it feel like another obligation.
What works better is just noticing when there’s a small window and choosing to use it for something I actually want to do instead of something I should do. The show instead of the emails that could wait. The baking instead of the productive afternoon. The drawing instead of the scroll.
It’s less a system and more a decision you make repeatedly. Some days you make it. Some days you don’t. Both are fine.
The only rule
Do at least one thing today that you’re doing purely because you like it. Not because it’s good for you, not because it makes you more productive, not because it fits into a morning routine.
Just because you wanted to.
That’s enough.
The days I feel most like myself are rarely the most productive ones. They’re the ones where I made time for something that had no point except that I enjoyed it.
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