My whole life, I’ve worked in structured environments.

If anything, the first school I went to, The School KFI, from kindergarten to 7th grade was the most unstructured. We had an amazing campus and often classes were held under the trees – including the banyan tree in this post. Kids were free to wander around and commune with nature if they wished (meaning you could get up and leave a class with no explanation!) and every day, we had an hour of PT to finish the day. There were also no exams and no concept of real competition – if you ran a race and won, you were told everyone was a winner and there were no prizes. It was awesome. One of the best schools for a child.

But then my parents realized this was not preparing me for the real world and moved me to a much more academically rigorous school, one that embraced competition, meant to prepare me for India’s grueling national exams (in the 10th and 12th grades). Then, I went off to college, where there was more structure, then to work at a manufacturing company, then to graduate school (where we even had assigned seating in the first year!). Since graduating, I’ve been employed every minute. Until now.

At work, in pretty much every job I’ve had, meetings and deliverables ruled how I spent my day. But now, I have nothing…

No structure. No deliverables. No deadlines. To get stuff done, I need to create my own structure. I need to figure out a way to ensure I am moving my writing and my other creative projects forward. It is too easy to spend the day on chores, surfing the web and classes.

Any ideas?