I’m finishing work this week in Chicago, where I’ve been for the past few months. It’s been a mixed bag, honestly, but I’ve worked with some lovely people and gone from loathing this town to being rather fond of it.
This week I don’t really have any fixed plans, though I came at the suggestion of colleagues who believed we’d get together or meet or something. So I kept trying to make those plans. Last night I extended the idea of daytime work plans to nighttime fun plans and nearly kept myself from having any fun at all.
Today, my last day in the city, one person called me & we went walking in the park. First we kidnapped another colleague. We walked a bunch, played a bit (splishing and splashing in the park also gave us time to talk about our project experience), and wound up collecting yet another person for lunch. Oh, and then we totally reorganized our plans for the evening.
After that, I went to a museum, got a cupcake & ate a taco underground. I made this great plastic dinosaur at the museum!
this little machine made me this brontosaurusy thing at the field museum
This unplanned day has turned out both more fun and more productive than any of my planned efforts this week. Conveniently, someone also emailed me this Zen Habits post about just that: life without goals and objectives.
It’s often pleasant to have conversations about the future and what a good one might look like, but I think he’s right about at least the shortest of terms.