Perhaps the most challenging unanswerable question I toy with often is how to best allocate my fragile, limited time I have on this earth. This is certainly not a particularly unique obstacle – everyone plays with and begins tackling this question at least at some point in their life.
They say you come to college to figure out what you want to do. I’d argue the opposite, you come to college with a perspective about the world that is 10x’d during the next four years. If you aim high, perhaps you 100-1000x your ambitions and world view.
The wider your lens, the more difficult it is to focus.
I think I spent a great deal of the last few years focusing on widening my lens, but soon, as I write often, I will really have to focus.
Another analogy I find helpful for thinking about time allocation and career advancement is with the letter T. The top of your T is your width. A wide T means you have a wide diversity of experiences. A deep T means you have gone deep in a few areas.
You can widen your T by trying out new things, projects, etc. You can deepen your T in certain areas by harnessing different types of knowledge and mastering talents or subjects.
At this point in my life, I have a wide T. In fact, I have purposefully been “widening” my T over the past few years by trying out a number of different things, failing often, and restarting.
How often should we be thinking about this is another important question?
At what age should we begin thinking about careers and is it bad to start too early?
How do you encourage curiosity without pulling teeth?