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A serious portrait of time management & post-grad troubles

Let’s give some credit to Spain, shall we

I’m a recent IT grad, working on a wearable UNSUBSCRIBE button that removes post-University troubles from your life, while you figure out where exactly are you going with it.

Wanna kick-start the idea? you can pledge 4 minutes of your time right now. If you do, we’ll reach the goal by Xmas — because attention is a treasure when it comes to negligible things such as relationships, life and the Internet.

So picture yourself on a holiday in Rome. Sit for a Cappuccino with me, I’ll make a pitch and teach you some Italian hand gestures. You can’t refuse my hospitality, I have connections. [Godfather theme playing]

Free time & holidays in the post-grad life

Perks of early corporate life:

• Watching your holiday budget increase from student trips to “yay I can finally fly to South Africa!” satisfaction
• Having free time to write for Medium after work
• Getting good at jokes about having free time & visiting South Africa.

Had to settle for Portugal instead, poor me.

Holidays

As a post-grad, you’ll approach the first holidays with a student mindset. You’ll manage to balance a make-up bag on the tiniest unstable surface in the economy room you’ve rented.

You’ll call a bunch of fruits and nuts a lunch, ‘cause you’re too busy finding the perfect spot for a selfie at the beach to get any hungry (dammit, that woman with the hat, always photobombing my shots).

You’ll join a dutiful community of tourists making the local subway vibrant with fifty shades of sunburn.

Finally, you’ll also meet new people and show them the best version of yourself. Because the spell only works for a week of human contact — then turns into unwanted updates on their online social feed.

A *slightly* cold Atlantic water in summer

You’ll come back home a bit heavier (damn fruits), with new resolutions like every September and January.

You’ll look at your house, workplace and familiar stuff under a new light for about 48 hours.

Then you’ll start complaining again that life is unfair and you desperately need some Azulejos Portuguese tiles in your kitchen.

After experiencing all of the above, I started several creative projects:

• write and illustrate new posts (in progress)
• paint stones
• self-publish an illustrated book like this
• figure out how to accomplish all of these in the current century.

Hence the need for a wearable UNSUBSCRIBE button. One that gives you time to think, create and relax. Just like when you are on holiday. Because…

What makes holidays enjoyable is a different time management. I’ll explain why.

What next? Unicorns, I suppose.

Time

What is time, anyway? I heard a young Einstein asking this question a lot, while watching a brilliant series about his life. Key takeaways:

• Intelligence is attractive. Nourish your mind and you’ll win a new heart basically each time you relocate.
• Geoffrey Rush can’t help doing his pirate face expression when impersonating other characters too.

Time was invented by mankind, and yet we are slaves to it — let’s see what happens with AI (for instance, this worries me a bit).

We pack our agendas with too many activities, for which we lack motivation and resources.

We frantically tick items on our todo list, in the hope to save time for ourselves.

And when we actually succeed, we’re so bewildered we don’t even know how to spend that time.

As heard on the radio: “We all want a teenage fantasy. Want it when we can’t have it, when we got it we don’t seem to want it”

But you’re not a teenager anymore. You’re a young adult who sometimes wants to swim away like a mermaid — with a loud fck this sht, I’m out.

Don’t worry, your wearable UNSUBSCRIBE button is coming to the rescue! Till then, make a better use of your agenda pages: wrap sweet potato fries (yes, they are delicious and YES I’m making an illustration for it).

Manage free time as if you were on holiday.

Trim down activities, decide on the spot what to do next.

Stop planning and enjoy the moment, based on your mood and energy. A lil’ procrastination never hurt anyone.

Thanks for backing this project by offering a few minutes of your attention! Imagine all the post-grads you’re making happy this Xmas.

Also, please consider waking up some lazy reindeer with your claps. These dudes must get in shape by December.