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Yeah honestly if it came down to this kind of to-the-second-planned lifestyle, just kill me now and get it over with. You can keep the money. This is just me p

Yeah honestly if it came down to this kind of to-the-second-planned lifestyle, just kill me now and get it over with. You can keep the money. This is just me personally though. I'm sure Gates is used to it, and probably enjoys it. But it's certainly nothing that I would want to aspire to. I'm reminded of the sentiment: "You have your place, and it's not more exalted, relevant, profitable, or contributing to the general advancement of humankind than that of a pretty good salesman possibly selling a decent product. Or that of a pretty decent java developer, or a decent graphics designer." But I still admire parts of his approach to life and I think he's done some pretty cool stuff. The world is a beautiful place filled with many beautiful people, who are not heroes and can never be heroes...but can be wonderful human beings (which comes with all the faults of being human). Ok let me stop talking before I go off on 20 other tangents. I haven't had my morning coffee yet.

hackermailman 10y ago
Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-mason-currey-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-... Your productivity skyrockets and it becomes automatic after a few weeks. I started by just getting up early and scheduling my mornings to finish technical books like CS:APP and it worked so well I now schedule my work week as much as possible http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-recent-daily-plans/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-rece...
- unicornporn 10y ago
  > Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days Successful at what exactly? Enjoying life, earning money or something else?
  - maggiedean 10y ago
    I assume success at whatever it is they are seeking to accomplish! Even "enjoying life" can benefit from some time management I should think. :)
  - ak39 10y ago
    Really there's only one definition of success: Getting shit you want done.
    - coldtea 10y ago
      Well, lots of succesful artists get "shit they want done", in that they leave a great body of work/legacy, and yet their days are nothing like micro-managed...
      - squirrelgod 10y ago
        I feel like a lot of successful artists though spend their whole days on art, so in terms of a schedule every slot of their time table is filled with doing exactly that.
      - TeMPOraL 10y ago
        Not sure what kind of artist you're talking about - the stereotypical starving one, or the modern successful media personalities? In the latter case, I'm sure their time is micromanaged to the minute by a whole staff of professionals. In the former, well... if I had courage to just blow off errands and people and commitments to spend all time on my own projects, I guess I could be as productive too.
        coldtea 10y ago
        >Not sure what kind of artist you're talking about - the stereotypical starving one, or the modern successful media personalities? I don't consider the "modern successful media personalities" artists. So, yeah, the stereotypical starving ones (or not so starving, some of them went millionaires in their lifetimes and still led a blurry / non "optimized" life).
        cholantesh 10y ago
        >I don't consider the "modern successful media personalities" artists. Why not? What they make still qualifies as art.
  - Shivetya 10y ago
    if you get done what you need to do you should be default have more time to enjoy life simply because you know your life is in order. frankly how can it be worse than wondering if something will get done or you forgot? build your life around a routine with built in you time (you/family/pets/etc) and stick to it. it will become natural and you will have more peace in your life.
- deleted 10y ago
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- deadowl 10y ago
  Most successful people are able to hire someone to manage a schedule planning out their days.
- developer2 10y ago
  I think having a schedule is perfectly fine, so long as one reserves the right to throw out the schedule whenever something spontaneous comes up. It becomes a matter of discipline to allow for spontaneous events that are enjoyable or beneficial, rather than anything that is an excuse to procrastinate on real tasks.
- Matachines 10y ago
  FWIW cal doesn't say you should schedule ever minute perfectly, just that you should have a flexible plan of what you wanna do every hour (can include just chilling)
gist 10y ago
This is just "shucks he's just like the rest of us PR". [1] [1] I remember seeing, I think it was in the early 80's about Sam Walton "drives pickup truck, drinks cup of coffee at the local shop every morning).
- cpr 10y ago
  My sister, the newly minted Chemical Bank rep, would visit Sam (no, he never wanted any credit lines) in the late 70's and early 80's, and, sure ' nuff, he'd take her down to the diner in town in his old pickup and offer a RC and moon pie. He was the real stuff.
- deleted 10y ago
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- jjeaff 10y ago
  Except Sam was the real deal. Even after he had hundreds of stores, he flew himself around in a single engine Cessna to check up and work with his managers. When they had annual corporate meetings with all the executives and managers, everyone received a box of walmart deli fried chicken for lunch. The culture was always to save on frivolity and pass the savings on. Even today, corporate headquarters are rather spartan. Mostly inside old converted store buildings.
prawn 10y ago
I think there's a middle ground where you can make your work especially efficient so that you have more time/money to enjoy the rest of your life. As you acknowledged, many would enjoy aspects of the productivity challenge.
buzzybee 10y ago
Whenever you hear about a very tight schedule, it's because someone has ended up with more appointments in their day than is reasonable; our capacities as humans are good for socializing for hours on end every day, and not so much at physical or mental exertion. Athletes and top researchers most likely aren't engaging in this level of precision. Basically, unless you're really ambitious about taking a "leadership" role, you aren't going to need to schedule your life at more than perhaps hourly intervals. It's still a good idea to have a little bit of scheduling to build up your day as an intentional lifestyle instead of a series of reactions(I tend to do the "calendar as to-do list" thing), but you can do so in moderation.
- cylinder 10y ago
  Exactly, I could not plan my day like this if I wanted to. There's simply not that many structured demands for my time. I'm not important enough.
  - TeMPOraL 10y ago
    I discovered that if I don't impose some structure on those "unstructured demands for my time", they tend to crowd out the whole day and give me lots of anxiety. Adult life is so full of bullshit erands, and other people are very time consuming... Or maybe I'm just burned out.
    - Joof 10y ago
      Reduce bullshit errands as much as possible. Next reduce people to who you care about.
draw_down 10y ago
I feel the same way. I dislike "making" myself do things and being super scheduled sounds hellish. Having lots of demands on my time and attention also stresses me out and I need lots of decompression/restorative alone time afterwards. Also quarter pounders are better than Big Macs.
united893 10y ago
That desire and enjoyment of staying busy is the very reason he's a billionaire. If his natural tendency was to relax and avoid these hard problems, he wouldn't have been so successful. It's one of the reasons many of us here won't become millionaires either.

hackermailman 10y ago

Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-mason-currey-review https://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/08/daily-rituals-... Your productivity skyrockets and it becomes automatic after a few weeks. I started by just getting up early and scheduling my mornings to finish technical books like CS:APP and it worked so well I now schedule my work week as much as possible http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-recent-daily-plans/ http://calnewport.com/blog/2015/09/29/deep-habits-three-rece...

unicornporn 10y ago
> Most successful people have a schedule planning out their days Successful at what exactly? Enjoying life, earning money or something else?
- maggiedean 10y ago
  I assume success at whatever it is they are seeking to accomplish! Even "enjoying life" can benefit from some time management I should think. :)
- ak39 10y ago
  Really there's only one definition of success: Getting shit you want done.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    Well, lots of succesful artists get "shit they want done", in that they leave a great body of work/legacy, and yet their days are nothing like micro-managed...
    - squirrelgod 10y ago
      I feel like a lot of successful artists though spend their whole days on art, so in terms of a schedule every slot of their time table is filled with doing exactly that.
    - TeMPOraL 10y ago
      Not sure what kind of artist you're talking about - the stereotypical starving one, or the modern successful media personalities? In the latter case, I'm sure their time is micromanaged to the minute by a whole staff of professionals. In the former, well... if I had courage to just blow off errands and people and commitments to spend all time on my own projects, I guess I could be as productive too.
      - coldtea 10y ago
        >Not sure what kind of artist you're talking about - the stereotypical starving one, or the modern successful media personalities? I don't consider the "modern successful media personalities" artists. So, yeah, the stereotypical starving ones (or not so starving, some of them went millionaires in their lifetimes and still led a blurry / non "optimized" life).
        cholantesh 10y ago
        >I don't consider the "modern successful media personalities" artists. Why not? What they make still qualifies as art.
- Shivetya 10y ago
  if you get done what you need to do you should be default have more time to enjoy life simply because you know your life is in order. frankly how can it be worse than wondering if something will get done or you forgot? build your life around a routine with built in you time (you/family/pets/etc) and stick to it. it will become natural and you will have more peace in your life.
deleted 10y ago
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deadowl 10y ago
Most successful people are able to hire someone to manage a schedule planning out their days.
developer2 10y ago
I think having a schedule is perfectly fine, so long as one reserves the right to throw out the schedule whenever something spontaneous comes up. It becomes a matter of discipline to allow for spontaneous events that are enjoyable or beneficial, rather than anything that is an excuse to procrastinate on real tasks.
Matachines 10y ago
FWIW cal doesn't say you should schedule ever minute perfectly, just that you should have a flexible plan of what you wanna do every hour (can include just chilling)

gist 10y ago

This is just "shucks he's just like the rest of us PR". [1] [1] I remember seeing, I think it was in the early 80's about Sam Walton "drives pickup truck, drinks cup of coffee at the local shop every morning).

cpr 10y ago
My sister, the newly minted Chemical Bank rep, would visit Sam (no, he never wanted any credit lines) in the late 70's and early 80's, and, sure ' nuff, he'd take her down to the diner in town in his old pickup and offer a RC and moon pie. He was the real stuff.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
deleted 10y ago
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jjeaff 10y ago
Except Sam was the real deal. Even after he had hundreds of stores, he flew himself around in a single engine Cessna to check up and work with his managers. When they had annual corporate meetings with all the executives and managers, everyone received a box of walmart deli fried chicken for lunch. The culture was always to save on frivolity and pass the savings on. Even today, corporate headquarters are rather spartan. Mostly inside old converted store buildings.

prawn 10y ago

I think there's a middle ground where you can make your work especially efficient so that you have more time/money to enjoy the rest of your life. As you acknowledged, many would enjoy aspects of the productivity challenge.

buzzybee 10y ago

Whenever you hear about a very tight schedule, it's because someone has ended up with more appointments in their day than is reasonable; our capacities as humans are good for socializing for hours on end every day, and not so much at physical or mental exertion. Athletes and top researchers most likely aren't engaging in this level of precision. Basically, unless you're really ambitious about taking a "leadership" role, you aren't going to need to schedule your life at more than perhaps hourly intervals. It's still a good idea to have a little bit of scheduling to build up your day as an intentional lifestyle instead of a series of reactions(I tend to do the "calendar as to-do list" thing), but you can do so in moderation.

cylinder 10y ago
Exactly, I could not plan my day like this if I wanted to. There's simply not that many structured demands for my time. I'm not important enough.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  I discovered that if I don't impose some structure on those "unstructured demands for my time", they tend to crowd out the whole day and give me lots of anxiety. Adult life is so full of bullshit erands, and other people are very time consuming... Or maybe I'm just burned out.
  - Joof 10y ago
    Reduce bullshit errands as much as possible. Next reduce people to who you care about.

draw_down 10y ago

I feel the same way. I dislike "making" myself do things and being super scheduled sounds hellish. Having lots of demands on my time and attention also stresses me out and I need lots of decompression/restorative alone time afterwards. Also quarter pounders are better than Big Macs.

united893 10y ago

That desire and enjoyment of staying busy is the very reason he's a billionaire. If his natural tendency was to relax and avoid these hard problems, he wouldn't have been so successful. It's one of the reasons many of us here won't become millionaires either.