While speaking to my mother earlier in the day, she told me how she was thrilled that I was able to enjoy the same breakfast every day. Well, virtually every day. As far back as I can remember in this lockdown, I’ve eaten the same food for breakfast each morning. Cereal.
Speaking to another friend in the evening, I was telling him how the past four months have been this massive experiment in my life, all pointed toward answering the question: if I was given all the time in the world, how would I use it?
We’ve often heard about these industry leaders who declutter their brains by delegating or removing unimportant decisions in their life. Prominent examples include Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg – with their wardrobes. Net-net, the goal appears to be some form of freeing up brain space.
I’ve been thinking about that a fair amount – how much of my life can I set into autopilot? What decisions can I eliminate from my life to retain the same, or increase the amount of joy I receive, while being more efficient? My initial response was that I didn’t want to set anything in autopilot because I personally enjoy the process of decision-making a fair amount.
However, given my difficult relationship with my mornings, I’ve figured out that the more I can bring myself to enjoy it – the more I can work on changing that relationship. One way I wanted to do that was to go back to where I was when I was in school – my morning breakfasts were a quick bowl of cereal before running off to the bus. I enjoyed that bowl of cereal a lot, because my mum would sit opposite me and ask me about what the day had in store. When I was studying, morning breakfasts were a bit of breathing time before the day’s onslaught.
The only reason I’ve gone into autopilot mode with cereal is to recreate that feeling. I’m reaping the rewards of it.
Tejas Rao 