Having Free Time

I Googled across an interesting article about productivity and priorities.  It presents the case studies of a few people who impose upon themselves a fixed schedule. They decide that they will work during a fixed set of hours—let's say, for example, something like 8:30 A.M. to 5:30 P.M., Monday through Friday—and then they don't waver from that.  These are people whose lines of work would otherwise influence them to work long hours; for example, my current profession, graduate student, is one such profession; I have to set my own schedule, and I have to produce results from said schedule.

In my experience, there is a lot of pressure to work long hours.  It stands to reason that the more I work on something, the better I will be at it.  I can think of many people in other fields for whom this is the case; Michael Jordan, famously, dribbled a basketball around with him everywhere after he was cut from his freshman basketball team tryouts.  When I was a high-school wrestler, I was told the story of Dan Gable, who after winning the national championship in his weight class, instead of celebrating, was seen that very night jogging, preparing for the next big tournament. The book Outliers, by Malcolm Gladwell, talks about the 10,000-hour rule; people who are masters in their fields typically have put in at least 10,000 hours of work to become masters.  I have been taught, either directly or indirectly, that one must work tirelessly to rise to the top of one's field.

The article I have linked makes an interesting point.  By forcing themselves to be constrained, the people in the article put themselves under pressure to do the most important and most efficient tasks possible.  It was interesting to read how once people implemented a fixed schedule they actually improved their overall production even though they were now working less hours.

I am going to implement this idea and see how it works.  It is definitely something I need.

Addendum:
The story of The Fisherman and the Businessman seems appropriate for this topic.