Originally published on my Substack.

In the city where I live, a mid-sized town in southern Spain, electric scooters are all the rage. Especially among teenagers. Driver’s license or not, you will see them scooting around the city in their trusty Xiaomi Electric Scooter 5. Sometimes on the sidewalk, sometimes on the road. Never following traffic rules. In the name of efficiency, perfectly healthy kids are avoiding a 10-minute walk. A body that has evolved to hunt for its daily meal, and run to survive, has now retired to a life of comfort and convenience.

That convenience has grown at a rate that our ancestors could never have imagined. A week’s trip by horse-drawn carriage has become a couple of hours by car. Working the fields and cooking from scratch have been compressed into an order of HelloFresh. And the days you would’ve spent searching for information in a library have turned into minutes with Google, and mere seconds with Claude.

But what are the consequences of a life where technological advancements do the heavy lifting that our bodies once did for us? What happens to us when friction disappears?

This article is not an anti-modernism rant. I’m not here to tell you to give up that plush 30 cm mattress bed, your remote-controlled AC unit, your Uber-eats order at the tap of a button, and go back to hunting and gathering. The average modern life is far better than that of medieval royalty (army of servants and all), and I’m not here to deny it. Technological advancements are not only a gift of comfort, but also of time and freedom. They give us power over our lives.

But with power comes responsibility.

Our smartphones are the ultimate enablers of comfort and convenience. Find the best way to get to your parents’ place, avoiding traffic jams. Pull up photos from your backpacking trip in Phuket 3 years ago. Add milk to your grocery list. Look up the year that Elton John was born. I think most of us underestimate how much more time-consuming those tasks would be without a smartphone.

Last year, tired of the constant pull, I heavily considered giving up my own device. I spent several days researching alternatives, and watching videos by the brave souls who walked the path before me. It didn’t take long before I got a hint of the treacherous reality. And, don’t get me wrong, I do love the idea of going about my day carrying a notebook, map, camera, AirPods, etc. But, in the end, I realized that a hybrid version is what works best for me. That modern technology frees up my time so that I get to use it the way I want.

For example, I like to bake. More specifically, I like to bake sourdough. No one is forcing me to bake bread every week, and I could easily buy it at my next-door bakery (which sells great bread, by the way). But I enjoy making it myself. And I have time to do so thanks to my smartphone. Thanks to technology doing for me the things I don’t want to do, so that I have more time to do the things I enjoy. It’s like a partnership, where you get to decide what tasks to keep and which to delegate.

But what happens when you delegate too much? And then hand that freed up time over to algorithms and advertisements?

In the book “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, Stephen R. Covey structures time management in a way that I’ve found unexpectedly illuminating.

In chapter 3, he presents what he calls the “time management matrix”, which classifies any given task or activity into urgent/not urgent and important/not important.

Going to physical therapy for back pain would be classified as urgent and important (quadrant 1). Going to a concert with your friends in order to put off doing a workout would be urgent and not important (quadrant 3). Scrolling on social media instead of doing said workout would be not urgent and not important (quadrant 4). And working out regularly, regardless of whatever else is going on in your life, would be classified as not urgent but important (quadrant 2).

When we delegate tasks to technology, we have more time available to spend across the four quadrants. If we spend it doing quadrant 3 and 4 activities, we will have less of it for quadrant 2. And with less time invested in quadrant 2, we end up with more in quadrant 1.

Quadrant 1 tasks are the urgent health, financial, and relationship problems that we hope we’ll never have to face. But they are also the all-nighter you pulled to meet a deadline, the argument you had with your partner because you bottled up your feelings for months, and that dish you dropped 5 minutes before your guests arrived because you were rushing through tasks left for the last minute.

Quadrant 1 tasks create stress. Facing them regularly leads to chronic stress. And chronic stress leads to anxiety and depression.

So what can we do to avoid being miserable?

To start, simply having a framework to classify how we spend our time is already a powerful tool for change. This is what Covey calls a “paradigm shift”, when a piece of information changes the way you view your reality and, consequently, how you behave. The above matrix has provoked a paradigm shift in my own life, after I realized that spending time in quadrants 3 and 4 doesn’t just increase the odds of finding myself in quadrant 1 later on. It guarantees it.

But having that framework may not be enough if we don’t have a clear idea of what constitutes a quadrant 2 activity. In order to choose a path, we must first know where we’re going; that is, what we value. Covey calls it a “personal mission statement”, but it’s a timeless concept embodied by the likes of Benjamin Franklin and his list of thirteen virtues. It’s a “personal manifesto”. Your North Star. What do you want to be remembered for when you’re gone? Answer this question, and the rest will fall into place.

When I answered the question, I came to a surprising realization.

I’ve always been really diligent about protecting my alone time. I’m an introvert with too many hobbies for what feels like not enough time in the day. So when I deleted Instagram from my phone, I happily began to fill my newfound time with cooking, sewing projects and home decor DIYs.

But after defining my manifesto, I realized that I was pushing aside the value that mattered most to me: having a positive impact on the lives of those I love. A quadrant 2 activity, such as nurturing my love for learning, was becoming a quadrant 4 activity when I neglected other parts of my life. I realized that to live according to my values, my priorities had to change.

In the end, we all have different needs, personalities and responsibilities. So my manifesto won’t look the same as yours. But in a world of increasing freedom and choice, being intentional about how we spend time — our most precious resource — is crucial to a meaningful life.

So where does that leave us?

Instead of worrying about the negative impact of e-scooters and AI, we need to remember that these are wonderful tools that free up our time, giving us the power to choose how to spend it. But with power comes responsibility. And choices have consequences. So define your North Star, and choose wisely.

Originally published on my Substack, with minor edits adapted for Medium.

At 16, I had the revelation that, if I could, I’d work a different job every month. From train conductor to flight attendant to astronaut to chef assistant. I wanted to try it all. I’ve always been fascinated by other people’s lives, and what better way to understand them than to live them for myself?

It’s probably no surprise, then, that I’ve spent most of my life cycling through hobbies. As a kid, I tried poetry, fashion design, singing, and acting (during my brief Disney star aspirations). Later came figure skating, martial arts, filmmaking, photography, and eventually building and publishing my first mobile app.

Over the years, I’ve settled into cooking and baking, sewing and pottery, gardening, journaling, and reading. There’s also Mandarin (my pandemic hobby, still going strong!), calisthenics (now mostly for maintenance), and the occasional rock climbing session.

Now that I’ve just turned 30, I’d like to think that I finally know myself — that my current hobbies are the ones I’ll continue to nurture for years to come. And while the list keeps growing, I’ve noticed myself gravitating toward activities that involve the use of my two hands, rather than just my brain, to create something tangible. Understandably, after years of looking at one screen for work, then another for entertainment.

Which brings me to my Substack! I’ve been longing for a way to connect with the world (one that doesn’t involve re-downloading Instagram). I also wanted to improve my writing — both to understand myself better and to communicate my thoughts more clearly to others. And this space seemed like the perfect solution.

So what can you expect? Mainly thoughts and reflections sparked by books, conversations, and my own lived experience.

If that resonates with you, welcome!

You can follow my work here, or subscribe to my Substack to receive my essays directly in your inbox!