It was Day 20 of 2024.
I had dinner at six, then spent an hour on YouTube binging from Fireship making A.I. influencers to a 1bil. US embassy fortress in London and an ice-cream-making robot in Japan.
*inhale*
Calm down, Thomas.
*exhale*
I was working on the first part of The Sleep-Fun Dilemma, but writer’s block hit me where the sun does not shine. Closing the YouTube site, I wondered how to get over this feeling of being stuck.
Then I remembered something👇
To keep the morale high and boredom low, creators can switch between content to work on.
—Ev Chapman (paraphrased)
So here I am, switching to write this story when the other wasn’t done yet. It worked. Thanks, Ev.
Let’s get started.
🎈What is intentional fun?
I first knew about this in a conversation with a friend David. Back in 2022, I was building Creator’s Manual (CM), a curation of the lessons I learned when making Notion templates, tweeting, and writing online. Though it now feels like an “I don’t know what to do with this” thing.
Well, I do have an idea. It’s on my to-do list somewhere near the stove where the backburner is. #seewhatIdidthere. Maybe I should put it on a website rather than selling it as a product. Oh, turning it into an email course would be great!
Okay. That’s enough topic-switching (not now, Ev!).
I was building CM. David was one of the creators I reached out to for some quick Q&A. Here is a question I asked.
How do you work a full-time job as a doctor, while still having enough time & energy to run your YouTube channel? What about the time for socialising & personal entertainment *cough* anime *cough*?
Here's a snippet of what he said:
There’s a concept I talked about a little while back which I just call “goodness density index”. It’s actually fine to do things like procrastinate; we need rest. But I wanted even that procrastination time to be on things I most enjoy.
Hence, I’ll do my best to actually use it to deliberately watch anime or play games, instead of mindlessly scrolling things. I’m not perfect at this, but it just takes the same amount of time, except you feel it’s way better spent.
Two years later, I’m starting to get what David meant.
😪How it applies to my dilemma
Last month, I wrote The Sleep-Fun Dilemma Part I: Understanding. Looking at it, late-night talks are unintentional fun.
Why?
Because most late-night talks I had happened on a whim. It was not planned but began when someone came home feeling tired and sat on the couch. Everyone just went along with it, started chatting, and *poof* there went the time.
The result? We would stay up late and wake up feeling terrible the next day while forgetting what fun we had.
These sessions were impromptu. Sure, impromptu fun can be nice, like road trips shown on TV where someone says, “Let’s go to Vegas!” and everyone goes “Yasssssssss!”.
There’s nothing wrong with it.
💡But it has to be intentional
The problem with unintentional fun — impromptu or not — is that it happens due to the flow of events. You don’t consciously make the choice. You don’t scream “Yassssssssss!” to your friend’s “Let’s go to Vegas!”.
You just end up in Vegas. Unintentionally.
Replace Vegas with TikTok, YouTube, and the like, and you know how “unfun” unintentional fun can be. Remember the last time you truly enjoyed doom-scrolling TikTok for hours? You likely don’t.
You just kind of end up there, chasing dopamine hits one reel after another. Quick to rise, yet quick to subside.
That's what David meant.
Because life has a finite end, you want to spend your precious time having the right fun that brings the greatest joy.
And intentional fun makes it possible.
🦦What to do then?
I would be an irresponsible ass if I just dump a "So, let’s have intentional fun" and pop a bottle of champagne to celebrate the secret to happiness. Rather, I would say,
Try to have intentional fun.
Because life doesn't always go the way you want it to. Even if you intentionally wish to have the right fun, things may go wrong that betray your intention (expectation). It might end up not being as fun as you thought.
"I'm not perfect at this," as David said and life dictates.
Still, it will be a good — and fun — path to take.
—Thomas🦙
🏆 Weekly Gold
Each week, I share something I found interesting with you. It could be a song, a book, a quote, or a video that blew my mind. Here’s the gold this week 👇
Inserting a bit of shameless self-promotion here…
Last week, I launched a #buildinpublic project to finish my degree in public✨
What does it mean to you?
Along the way, I will talk about what I did, the tools & resources that helped me, and the many, many lessons I learned. They would include the ugly mistakes made which you know to avoid when doing something similar.
This is a journey of intentional fun. Because I want to make getting a university degree a fun thing to do.
And I want you to join me. To see how I eff around and find out. To grow and learn together. To make things fun and simple.
Let’s go to Vegas.
🔗 Other Credits
Cover photo by Joakim Honkasalo on Unsplash.
The Reitoff Principle by Ali Abdaal.
When they actively decide that a day is going to be a write-off, it gives them the mental space to enjoy themselves guilt-free.