Book Summary: 'Should I Eat This Pudding Now? Or Should I Resist?' → If You Change the Meaning, Every Choice Becomes a Happy One

'Should I Eat This Pudding Now? Or Should I Resist? Time Laws That Last a Lifetime' by Naofumi Kakiuchi

In a nutshell

If you change the meaning, every choice becomes a happy one

Overview

I heard it was a book about how to use time, so I read it.

It is by the same author as 'Please Convey the Appeal of a Banana in 100 Characters'.

From the perspective of the author's profession, "editing," the book's defining stance is
"rediscovering the value of time."
The main method for this rediscovery is to "change the meaning."

The main method for this rediscovery is to "change the meaning."

My own answer to the question in the book's title is,
"Either is fine. However, choose proactively."
I think that would be it.

Whether you eat it to find happiness in this moment, or resist it to push forward with your diet, as long as you can create a meaning that satisfies yourself, both choices can be the right one.

Choices made without much thought or swayed by the opinions of others have weak meaning, which I believe leads to regret.

Also, the book recommends keeping a "time log" to visualize how you spend your time

.

I am a heavy enthusiast of "time logs," so I nodded until my neck almost fell off.

I will also introduce an idea in (1) below that reconstructs the data I have been keeping in my "time household account book" using the concepts from this book.

In this article, I will share three concrete actions based on lessons from this book
three concrete actions.

1. Categorize time into four types and visualize your happy time

The book classifies how we spend our time into four categories.

• Time for happiness

• Time for investment

• Time for roles

• Time for waste

It would be ideal to increase time for happiness and investment, and decrease time for waste.

How to perceive time for roles is
a bit tricky.

Social activities such as work, housework, and childcare, as well as life-sustaining activities like eating and sleeping, fall under time for roles.

When time for roles increases too much, you end up in a so-called 'busy' state, making it difficult to create time for happiness and investment.

However, it is difficult to reduce time for work or housework, and reducing time for eating or sleeping increases the risk of damaging your health.

Regarding time for roles, I thought we should
watch whether its proportion has changed significantly compared to last week or last month
.

In my case, I record my daily activity data in a 'time household account book'.

So, I tried setting the proportions for the four categories for each item in my 'time household account book'.

'Learning' is primarily time for investment, but since it is directly linked to my current job, it is also time for roles, and because learning itself is fun, it is also time for happiness.

'Reading' has a higher proportion of time for happiness than 'learning', and since I sometimes read for entertainment, it could also be called time for waste.

Based on the actual time usage recorded and the
setting of the 4 categories,
the percentage of time spent in a day can be calculated.

Since I have been studying for a certification exam over the past few days,
I can see that my investment time is higher.
(About 18% on average)

Conversely, my happiness time is a bit low.
(About 16% on average)

If I were faced with the choice of whether to eat the pudding today (6/7),
I think I would decide to "eat it because my happiness time has been low these past few days."

In the weekly and monthly reviews of my "Time Household Account Book,"
I will check to see if my role-based time has fluctuated significantly
.

In my 4-category system, Work and Home are
expected to account for most of my role-based time.

② View difficult things as a prologue to enjoyment

As a mindset for increasing execution power,
treating difficult things as a prologue to enjoyable things
was introduced.

For example, doing a tough run as a
prologue to enjoying a pleasant bath.

For work tasks or reading summaries,
when I have to do them but
they feel daunting and I can't get started,
I felt like I wanted to try this method.

Imagine the joyful state when the task is completed,
and as a prologue to that,
tackle the difficult task.

Even in movies and stories,
the more thrilling the development in the middle,
the more exciting the climax becomes.

I felt it was similar to that.

Treating the goal as primary and the task as secondary
was mentioned as a key point in this way of thinking.

Instead of "when the task (primary) is finished, I get a reward (secondary),"
it is to view it as "the task (secondary) exists so that I can enjoy the reward (primary)."

When applying this to the four categories of time mentioned earlier,
one can think of it as
'the time for happiness (primary) exists for the sake of the time for roles (secondary).'

In life, the time for happiness is what is truly important,
and the time for roles is merely a prologue to that.

When thinking about how to spend my time,
I felt I wanted to be conscious of whether
the time for happiness is at the center.

3. Schedule time for happiness, investment, and margin

'Life is created by the plans you make'

Chapter 5 of this book
is fully explained by the title above.

By deciding on your schedule,
you determine what kind of life and time you will spend.

In particular,securing time for happiness and investment
in advanceis important.

Schedules for the time for roles
often come from external sources,
and tend to be difficult to control.

If left alone, your calendar
will end up filled with the time for roles.

If you want to increase the time for happiness and investment,
you must put them on your calendar
before the time for roles.

In my case,I decided to set a morning routine schedule
and register it in Google Calendar the day before
.

The two hours from 4:30, when my morning preparations and chores are finished,
until 6:30, when my daughters might wake up,
become my morning routine block.

14 hours a week, 28 blocks of 30 minutes.

I decided to schedule this time
by allocating it to content creation, writing, learning, reading, and videos.

Also,creating time for marginis something
I felt I wanted to incorporate.

It's about securing a buffer.

In my case,
6:30 to 7:00 is my buffer time.

Besides that, I will also secure
about 30 minutes to an hour of buffer time in the middle of the week (since my week starts on Friday, this is Monday),
and use it to review the first half of the week and adjust for the second half.

I have only been doing this for a few days, but I am realizing that
“if I don't schedule it, I won't do it.”

Even if it is just a “promise to myself,”
having it on my calendar
seems to have a certain binding force.

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