My New Best Idea Ever for a Pre-Planned Spontaneous Trip in Iowa: What I Learned this Week

What I've learned this Week: This is the first installment of a new feature where I reach back into the comments on Marion Patch to divulge the most important thing I've learned from you, the Patch reader.

This week's comment is a cure for what ails me.

Before I get into it, I'll bear my soul a little so you have an idea as to why I desperately needed this advice: I'm not great at maintaining what's called a work-life balance.

I'm the sort of person who obsesses over problem solving. It could be something's as big as a problem with Marion Patch, or component of my computer that's not working exactly the way it should. I've spent dozens of hours disassembling and reassembling my computer and I usually spend so much time with Marion Patch, that I should probably marry it.

Focusing solely on work can make a person a little crazy — your vision narrows, you neglect your interests and hobbies and your girlfriend might get annoyed that you talk about work when it's time to relax.

It's clear I need to take a step back every now and then to enjoy the diverse, sensational world that we live in.

This abridged comment, from user Chris Anderson on our gave me a good idea.

"If you like to do things a bit more spontaneously, and low tech, I recommend buying an Iowa Sportsman's Atlas and throwing it in your car. Each page is a map of a different county with all the public areas listed, including descriptions of acreage, habitat types, recreational opportunities, etc. Each map also includes ALL the roads in each county, including their names, no GPS I have seen can say that. Makes getting lost exceedingly difficult."

This is perfect. I can pick a time on a weekend to explore, then pick a county at random to see the best of what it has to offer. It's both spontaneous enough to excite me and pre-planned enough not to scare me, with the added benefit of not requiring either of my two laptops, iPhone, iPod Touch, Xbox 360 or my desktop computer.

What about you, how do you cope with maintaining a work/life balence?