Hey Colin,

I tend to turn everything I approach in life into a project and take the fun out of it. I am learning how to be a kid and find joy in the process. I want to ask you how you developed that fluidity to keep yourself accountable and motivated without losing the childlike curiosity for life?

Thank you for being you.

Xiaoyu

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Hey Xiaoyu-

Part of what works for me is regularly reassessing which aspects of life benefit from structure and which are best left either unstructured or with significantly less structure.

There are positive aspects to planning things out and heavily regimenting the direction they go, but there are entirely different gains to be had in taking a walk without an intended destination or time-limit, drawing something you don’t intend to use for any project, and allowing yourself to play when making music or hanging out with friends or fiddling around with software—as opposed to prioritizing measurable outcomes.

That said, I also find I enjoy certain activities on a more fulfilling, creative and intellectual level, when I’m better at them.

Fiddling around with a guitar can be fun, but actually knowing how to play, and getting better and better at playing, can be even more fun. That flavor of fun, though, is enabled by consistent, at times quite boring and monotonous learning and practicing and picking up theory and generally being unskilled at something you want to be good at; which is often far from fun.

The same is true of writing, of visual arts, of playing a sport. Even relatively less formal activities like taking a walk and gazing, awestruck at the world without any measurable ambition can be amplified in value and enjoyment if you practice your conscious observational skills, or learn a bit about biology. Such knowledge and know-how can increase the satisfaction you experience while looking at plants and animals and the systems and relationships that exist in the world through which you’re walking.

These opposite sides of the work-play spectrum, then, can actually support each other. The proper ratio of each will vary substantially from activity to activity, and from person to person, and some of us will get more value out of maintaining the mindset of a child for longer, while others may find a reliable, visceral satisfaction in the process of learning, or in the end-point of that learning: in knowing and understanding.

There’s nothing wrong with any version of this dynamic, and there’s nothing wrong with feeling different ways about different things; applying different ratios to different aspects of life.

One more angle on this: I find that having a structural framework within which to play helps me meet deadlines and produce work that is practical and useful, but also enjoyable and creative at the process-level, because of that larger scaffolding that keeps me loosely and unrestrictedly on-course.

I have broad-strokes plans about where I’d like to end up, what I’d like to learn, and which deadlines I need to hit, but within those limitations I let myself explore widely, play often, and experiment freely.

It’s worth considering how you might provide yourself space to play, and on the meta-level tap into the benefits of that play.

This might mean taking notes along the way, maybe eventually using those notes for something more traditionally productive, or perhaps carving out unrestrained space within a larger training regimen so that the play, itself, can become part of the learning process—as it often is, regardless, but we don’t always perceive it that way.

On a smaller-picture, more tactical note: it can help to carve out space on your calendar, even if it’s just twenty-minutes a day, for unrestricted doodling, music-playing, playing tag with friends, or anything else that might help you exercise your fun-having muscles.

Such muscles tend to atrophy over time if we’re not careful, but we can work them out and bring them back up to full-strength, with a bit of effort.