Fighting complexity

I like simple things. Minimalistic design. Basic food. Subtle clothing. I love order, regularity and routine. I eat same breakfast every day. I hate unexpected. I want my life aligned. Despite this, during last months, my life got out of control. The school is more demanding. And I begged for it. In the first semester, we were basically told what to do, step by step. Now we are more or less on our own. And that is better. I love it and I hate it at the same time. It is a big burden. And the worst part is that the only one we answer to are ourselves. It is our future we are building.

And since I always try to be “glass half full” type of a guy, I must say I am glad for all of this. My friend once told me that if you are the cleverest person in the room, you are in the wrong room. From then, I was always searching for rooms in which I could find people who are better than me so I can learn from them. And now, in our class, facing all these challenges, I found people who are brilliant. Some do this and some do that. There are people who are better than me at something, and I hope I am at least pretty good at something else. And as I wrote. Nowadays, architecture is collaboration. And that is awesome.

On Thursday, second semester had so-called “international day”. We joined our danish friends in the second semester. And each of use brought one detail for a scrutiny. And I was super lucky, since I got a great and experienced guy. He already worked in the industry for some years and he knew everything. At least I got that feeling. He helped me with my eave detail (the one I am most proud of) and we made small improvements together. So you can expect I will show you completed detail soon. By the way, I hope my teacher will be satisfied with this since he was very sceptical at first when he heard my intentions. Well, we will see.

However, the point I am trying to make (and I am drifting away from) is that my life is overwhelmed. Let’s do some math. Since that is what architects do. Statistics.

My week has the same number of hours as everybody’s, 168.

School 4×8 hours = 32 hours

Travelling to school and work 4×3 hours = 12 hours

Work 12 hours

Sleep 56 hours

Danish course 4 hours

So far 52 is left

Writing this blog. I would say uncountable. But give or take I would say 3×3 hours. Yes, I am that slow. And the quality doesn’t match. Bummer. So 9 hours in total.

We are down to 43 hours

Since the deadlines from school are being put more densely. And the detail we have been doing two weeks in the first semester, 10 days in the beginning of this semester, we are now given only a week. So I am usually finishing it on Sunday, closer to deadline than I would like. That is another 3 hours.

We are down to 40.

Then my guess is circa 10 hours for various things required to keep our household running. Shopping for groceries, preparing snack and lunch, cooking, washing the dishes and clothes and so on.

We are down to 30.

And that’s it. No more excuses. Seems like I still have some reserves. To care about my girlfriend. To skype with my family. To read. To do sports.

So to make a conclusion from all of this. I will try to get little bit more on track. Since the summer is slowly creeping to Denmark, I am going to put on my summer outfit. I have around 10 white t-shirts in my wardrobe. And as a part of embracing minimalism I am going to wear white t-shirt and jeans everyday. So if you meet me, remember that it is different t-shirt than I had the day before. Or is it? You never know. 

Another conclusion would be, that I always lived like this. If I have more than 2 days free I get impatient and irritated. Doing nothing is not for me. Even though, the line between being productive and overworked is thin. 

And here I am, finishing this post while riding a train to school, so I can visit the building site today. And I am going to get home after work, that is after 9 in the evening. 

To being productive! Cheers

Ondrej