Is there such a thing as too much free time?
Transition from working in a global giant Google to taking a few months off is not as easy as it sounds.
Last transition I made – from an insanely hectic agency life to a (believe it or not) much more relaxing (ok, ok, only in some ways) work schedule in Google just flew by me with only a week off in between jobs, which in hindsight was a bit crazy. But it left little room for thinking and enabled me to focus more on getting into my new life as quickly as possible.
So, after 12 years of working practically non-stop and having only one 3-week vacation during that time (all the other ones were 2 weeks or shorter), I found out that switching off is hard work. For the first two weeks I kept waking up thinking “OK, enjoy lazying around for a couple of more days, and then it’s back-to-work time”.
I also found out I forgot how to fill my time with stuff other than work. I forgot what it is to have personal projects and tasks – tasks that have nothing to do with media plans, strategy proposals, sponsorship packages, budget commitments, OKRs or revenue targets. Like with most things in life (and for an impatient person like me, this never comes easy), it takes a while for the switch in your head to make that “clicking” sound.
For me it came around a month into my prolonged vacation. I woke up one morning feeling kind of, well, aimless… After talking to Amit about it I started creating a list of weekly tasks for myself that would give me a sense of purpose until I start Ulpan and working again, like X no. of Hebrew lessons per day (with a little help of the language learning kit), working on my blog, etc.
The point is, even though these tasks may sound boring or trivial, accomplishing them does make me happy and fulfilled 
