How I enjoy my life without compromising my work.

I don’t like to brag about myself.

But I am a very disciplined person, more than most people I’ve met in real life.

And somehow, I still manage to make time for fun every single day.

Of course, fun looks different for different people.

For me, it’s things like:

• enjoying my hobbies (reading books, going on treks)

• spending playtime with my kid and watching his favorite shows with him

• gardening and cooking with my wife

The fun I choose doesn’t harm me in any way.

But the point is, I genuinely enjoy these activities, and they don’t affect my work or my health.

And today, I want to show you how I balance work and fun without sacrificing either.

Before that, I want to be clear about one thing.

I wasn’t always like this.

Before COVID, I used to spend most of my free time scrolling, watching anime, reading manhwa (Korean comics), and doing a bunch of other things that felt harmless but weren’t really helping me move forward.

Back then, I reached for those because it was convenient.

It was an easy way to relieve some stress after coming home from work. But if I had continued living like that, my life wouldn’t look any different even today.

That’s when I made a simple rule for myself.

I would only watch anime or read manhwa if I finished 30 minutes of my coding lecture and completed my workout for the day.

So technically, I didn’t quit those activities.

I just turned it into a reward for completing the main quests of the day.

And it became way more enjoyable knowing I had already done something worthwhile.

Even today, I follow the same rule.

I choose three main quests for the day:

• going for a morning run

• working or writing for 2-3 hours

• taking a few client calls in the evening

I’m allowed to do any fun activity only after these are done.

A normal day looks something like this.

I wake up at 4:30 AM, go for a run, come back, shower, sit down to work, and have breakfast around 9 AM.

By then, the most important tasks of my day are already finished, except for the evening calls, which can only be handled at their scheduled time.

And from my past, I’ve learned one important thing.

There’s no worse feeling than going to bed knowing you avoided the work you knew you had to do.

What’s ironic is that doing the work almost always takes less time and causes less stress than thinking about it. We assume it will be hard, exhausting, or time-consuming, so we keep postponing it. But once we actually start, it’s rarely as bad as our mind made it out to be.

In fact, finishing the work removes the guilt instantly, and that relief is far more rewarding than any shortcut dopamine.

That’s why I finish my most important tasks early in the day. Instead of living with constant anxiety about unfinished work, I get to enjoy the rest of the day freely, without guilt.

I know your life might look very different from mine.

But the idea is simple.

Choose three non-negotiable tasks for each day. Finish them as early as you reasonably can. Then enjoy your day.

If you’re just starting out and three tasks feel like too much, start with just one.

For example:

• working on your business

• preparing for your exams

• hitting the gym

Until that one task is done, you don’t do anything that feels enjoyable.

Once that habit settles, add one more.

There will always be days when something urgent comes up or when you don’t feel like doing anything at all.

To avoid skipping the day completely, create a mini version of your original task.

For example, on days when I don’t go to the gym or do my calisthenics session at home, I do 100 push-ups, crunches, and squats. It takes less than five minutes, and it’s still better than doing nothing.

This is how it might look in your life:

• If your main task is working on your business, your mini version could be spending 10 minutes outlining ideas or replying to one important email.

• If you’re studying, your mini version could be revising one page, watching a single lecture clip, or solving just one problem.

• If writing is your goal, your mini version could be writing one paragraph or outlining the next piece.

These still count. You showed up, even on a bad day. This is how you stay consistent long term.

I’m very against hustle culture.

I believe life should have a balance of work and fun.

Unless you’re aiming for the absolute top position in a specific field, which I’m not. And I believe most of us aren’t either.

I just want to do work I enjoy, spend time on my hobbies, and be more present with my family. As you grow older, these things naturally become more important.

That said, I’m also completely against acting lazy like a sloth. Having fun all day, doing unimportant things, and avoiding the work you know you need to do.

Running away is a form of cowardice.

I’d rather solve problems early than leave them for later, when they turn into something bigger and heavier.

So don’t kill fun completely. Just earn it.

Because fun is not the enemy. Unearned fun is.

That’s all for today.

Thanks for reading. I’ll see you in the next issue. Until then, take care and keep moving forward.