7 ms·

There's Not Enough Time

52 points by ohohoho 8y ago

url00 8y ago
I relate to this. Anyone have any solutions?
- acconrad 8y ago
  Prioritize the important stuff and delegate away the things you know you need to do but don't have time to (or are lower in priority).
- ian0 8y ago
  The last line: Work less hours :) You wont remember the project, hell you'll probably forget the job. But the little snippets of things that happen in between working hours will stick with you. They are in effect your life. Of course, working less in the future often times entails working more now. Not in the retire-early sense, which realistically only a few can hope to achieve. But in finding employment that supports and doesn't compromise your life outside of it.
- scarecrowbob 8y ago
  To echo other folks: optimize for time. I work a 30 hour a week salary gig that I negotiated. I have to work at a small company, but it's better than freelancing. I also work 100% remote from home. People talk about feeling out fo the loop or whatever, but I play music with friends and have a family so it[s never been lonely for me.
- ohohoho 8y ago
  I think we just have to cut corners and not take recommendations too seriously. The easiest way to get more time is just to work for a large company that provides meals and doesn't make you clock-in and be hyper-efficient with your work so you can slide out after six hour days, but that's easier said than done. Realize that people who are really physically fit treat it like a hobby, so if you think something is more worth it (writing, guitar, binge drinking with your friends), then don't stress about not accomplishing everything-- it was an intentional trade-off. And the not really solution-solution is to have enough serotonin so that you're perfectly happy doing things like cooking, running errands, and working out-- which is a big goal of mine.
prawn 8y ago
If someone feels like that already, I cannot recommend having children or being responsible for a garden or home maintenance. You will be swamped. That said, optimising your routine can be rewarding. Morning and evening routines with your children can be great fun. Something like cooking, which can be a chore to some, is a treat to others (myself included). IMO, it's helpful to prioritise important things for the morning while you're sharp, and leave non-essential things for the late evening when feeling tired or falling asleep barely matters (watching a movie or playing PS4). Pay bills/etc or check your stocks during your lunch break. Minimise your grocery shopping trips - keep a stock of staples and then do a weekly shop for meat, milk, etc. Exercise in the morning. That should start to free up your evenings.
vertline3 8y ago
Less electronics, own less things (or store almost everything), Build habits so upkeep is automatic. What I do.
Rjevski 8y ago
I can relate to this, but there are things you can do to at least limit the time-wastes. Here's a breakdown of his list and how I solve some of those problems. * eating: eat while you work or do something else; plus it also allows you to skip your lunch break at work, get more shit done and go home early. * cooking: don't. If you live in a major city there should be a few healthy (not fast-food crap) takeaway options available. Just order while on your way home and dinner will be there shortly after you arrive. * bills and bank related activities: switch to a bank that doesn't suck. I use a fully-online bank called Monzo since more than a year and I honestly can't remember the last time I actually had to spend more than a handful of minutes for "banking" activities. Ditch suppliers/utilities that waste your time for those that get out of your way. * budgeting: again, try to find a bank with an app that does it for you or makes it easier. * cleaning: outsource it. * car upkeep: if in a major city ask yourself if it's worth the trouble to own a car. In my case Uber works out fine. * pet upkeep: don't get pets? I love cats more than anything else and yet even I don't get one because I barely have time for myself, let alone the cat. * general repairs and replacements for things breaking or going obsolete: outsource it, order online, etc. * religious activities: don't? * home upkeep/renovations/gardening: outsource it? But I'm definitely interested in others' perspectives on this and how they solve this problem.
- trukterious 8y ago
  The author's problem is that there's a gap between what he's doing and what he thinks he ought to be doing. On the plus side he's already got some perspective via his humorous writing. In addition he might try and do nothing for a spell: I've found this to be impossible. One can then relax and watch oneself doing the truly essential tasks. Automatically. This is the 'ability to let that which does not matter truly slide' (Tyler Durden in Fight Club).
- flukus 8y ago
  I agree with most, but not the cooking, make enough for 2 or more meals at once, you can amortize the time over them, reddit.com/r/mealprep has a lot of ideas for people making large batches at once. Plus a lot of cooking can be things like roasting chicken which takes a long time but it's hands off so barely counts doesn't matter. For more hands on stuff I listen to audio books so entertainment time and cooking time overlap. I'll add * shopping: This doesn't have to be an hour long ordeal, for me it's a <5 minute stop on the way home 3 or 4 times a week. * exercise: Build it into the daily commute, IME a 30 minute drive will translate to a 30-60 minute bike ride, then you can scrap the car upkeep. * shaving: only shave every few weeks. * hair cuts: No 2 all over takes about 10 minutes and your good for another 3-6 months. Can even do this yourself in theory (in practice I can't). Now if I could just stop procrastinating with all this free time...
catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
The first paragraph is so relatable. I feel ya man.
projektir 8y ago
This is generally why I don't cook much and don't really plan to. It shortens my evenings and the tradeoff just doesn't seem worth it.
- jakehilborn 8y ago
  I've found meal prepping to be a fantastic solution. I can make 5 meals in about an hour with my 4 burner stove. These meals are cheap, help me eat a lot of vegetables, and allow me to easily hit my macronutrient goals for strength training.
  - projektir 8y ago
    Yeah, meal prepping is something I've kind of wanted to look into but from what I've seen it only works for half a week and I still need good recipes for it. Not to mention that it kills my Sunday, which I take issues with.
  - Rjevski 8y ago
    It's definitely better to batch stuff, but even then, an hour of your time is probably worth a lot more than the equivalent of buying those 5 meals already made. Not to mention, I assume the one hour doesn't include time to clean up, which for me is one of the biggest drawbacks of cooking.
    - stinkytaco 8y ago
      They say that money can't buy happiness. That may be true, but it can buy a dishwasher, which is much the same thing. Easily one of the best material purchases I've ever made. I only mention this because I only realized this after I purchased the dishwasher. And so I spend time researching and "optimizing" in hopes of finding the next dishwasher in my life, which is how one falls into the trap this article describes.
- stinkytaco 8y ago
  I can understand the money tradeoff (your time is worth more than your money, ergo you do not cook), but I'm curious how you handle the health tradeoff? Do you eat lots of prepared foods or restaurant foods, or just lots of raw stuff?
girzel 8y ago
I think the main problem with the author of the article is that he's still essentially reacting passively to the world around him. He's acting in response to things that bump up against him -- maybe he's trying to assess whether they're important or worth doing, but he's still fundamentally passive. The difference between him and his friend who does the triathlon is -- there's no one who looks at the clock early in the evening, glances around their apartment, then checks their phone real quick, then says, "I guess I'll train for a triathlon." That's the sort of desire or goal that comes at a different moment in time, perhaps while you're doing something else, or you're caught between things. And you think, "Shit, I should run a triathlon". Once you've had that thought, when you get home from work your first thought is, "when do I train for my triathlon?" And once that's done, you fit the rest of the crap in any which way. The point being, start out with one or more positive, active goals. Prioritize them (as acconrad has said). Everything else just sifts in afterwards. It could be raising your kid, or volunteering for local politics, or playing the piano. Do something first and foremost, something you have decided to do, and you'll find you somehow still have time for all the other crap. (Or you'll find that you don't, and it doesn't matter.)
- projektir 8y ago
  > you fit the rest of the crap in any which way This is really the only relevant thing here, and effectively amounts to "spend less time on these things", "half ass them more", or "don't do these things". Which is fine, and I think the subconscious point of this article is that if you focus on what a "proper" person should do, you'll run out of time real fast, and generally people need to cut corners. And that advice that adds a daily time drain is questionable. I don't really know anyone who does it all.
  - darkerside 8y ago
    Alternative strategy, get really fucking good at doing those things. Then you can get them done in a quarter of the time (compared to someone like the author), and you'll have a decent box of time to fill with doing things you love.
    - 8y ago
Xcelerate 8y ago
My wife gets frustrated with my attempts at ruthless prioritization and my efforts to remove future potential time sinks from my life. I would like to achieve financial independence before having a house, dog, and children (well, I did own a house briefly before moving across the country). This is unlikely to occur, so I'm trying to figure out the next best path for the future: a small, well-built house with a simple yard, a breed of dog that is easy to train and requires little grooming, and as for children... well I just hope I get lucky. I don't want "free time" in order to lounge around and watch TV (I don't even own a TV). I want free time to be able to research topics that interest me and start companies. It's difficult for a middle class or even upper-middle class person to simultaneously maintain a full-time job, family, health, and extremely productive hobbies. And I would say it's next to impossible for someone who came from a below-middle class background.
- darkerside 8y ago
  There's no such thing as free time. You need to take it or pay for that time if you want to spend it on something you want.
- justtopost 8y ago
  Some insight: if you don't engauge in common activities, your borometer of what is interesting or useful to the average person drifts, and fast. That is just something I learned from being somewhat similar in my persuits. Your income based assumptions also, are very different from my experince. The middle class has a grind, that the lower and upper classes are less bound to. I find upper-middle class friends to have the least free time, and the most harried lifestyle. I find a good gauge of having free time to research or recreate is reading frequency. Ymmv.
- stinkytaco 8y ago
  I found this approach was leading to depression. My attempt to have "extremely productive hobbies" just made me feel bad about them when they were neglected. It also led me to taking on too many things that interested me (garden, car, reading, tech, and so on). I found that when I quit prioritizing and just did stuff I enjoyed doing without worrying what the long term outcome would be, I was happier. If you've ever read Shop Class as Soulcraft [1] or Mastery (by George Leonard, not the Robert Greene book) [2] you will have some idea of what I mean. I began to pursue things for the sake of pursuing them, not because there was an end goal in site. I realize that this is a purely personal anecdote and I realize this is not how people get rich, run a triathlon or change the world, but maybe I just can't do those things. [1]: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment/dp/0452267560 https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...
black6 8y ago
There’s plenty of time — you just have to focus on the things that really matter. I have a 30 minute commute, so I’m away from home for 9+ hours every day. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and we have two children who aren’t old enough yet for school (not that mamma is ready for them to go). I do most of the cooking (we rarely eat out), she does most of the child rearing. We pretty much split the cleaning. I fix the house as it breaks, and do some home improvement when I can fit it in (just finished a set of bunk beds for the kids). We do something fun at least one day most weekends (beach visit, fishing, zoo, etc). I have a couple of beers most nights and just enjoy my family as I cook or get the kids ready for bed in the evenings. Before I go to work in the mornings I get in a short exercise routine (stretching and some push/sit/pull-ups for maintenance). Still manage to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I perform regular maintenance on our vehicles. I don’t watch any TV or mindlessly browse the Internet during the week (OK, I’ll check up on some webcomics once or twice). Honestly I don’t do much of that on the weekends, either. I don’t read fiction much. I don’t check my IRA or 401(k) regularly. I don’t worry about my health — we eat fantastically healthy in my house and I’m not sedentary. I work to live; I don’t live to work. My family is the most important thing in my life and I enjoy every minute I’m with them. It would be nice, though, if we were on the galactic standard 25 hour day. I could use that extra hour every now and then.
flashman 8y ago
"As you're Ubering down the road of life, if you're ahead of schedule and there are no other productive activities you can fit in before your next appointment, don't forget to stop and smell the roses." There are a lot of very sad comments in this thread about optimising life and being productive and efficient. Don't have kids. Don't cook. Don't watch television or play video games, or at least save them until everything else is done. Buy other people's labour to free up more time for working to pay them. This is an unapologetic value judgement: living your life that way is a waste of time. There's not enough time, and that's okay. Let a few things go. You don't need to be optimally productive.
- taurath 8y ago
  I can’t help but feel like it’s because we feel like we need to carve out some time to actually do something that is fulfilling, satisfying, or worth living for. The idea of the grind through middle age isn’t uncommon - and as people see their parents who went through it have regrets and/or fail to have anything happening for them after retirement it starts to really grow on you just how much of a waste it can feel.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- projektir 8y ago
  > There are a lot of very sad comments in this thread about optimising life and being productive and efficient. Don't have kids. Don't cook. Don't watch television or play video games, or at least save them until everything else is done. Buy other people's labour to free up more time for working to pay them. Maybe you're over aggregating? :) I don't want to have kids in part because I like my video games and they and other activities I enjoy will have to go poof due to kids^t. Basically, you can only pick a few things before your time runs out. I think you're vying for a time where people wouldn't feel so short of time, but I don't think it's bad, in the moment, if people do successfully optimize their time for their situation, and I don't care if it makes some idealizer of the human condition unhappy. I do not owe it to anyone to fit some mold of the perfect human being who finds all the time to exercise, eat healthy, socialize, cook, AND have kids. It's all draining enough for me as it is. ^t there are other much more advanced and depressing reasons why I actually don't want to have kids, though
marsrover 8y ago
And this guy doesn’t even have a kid.
bluedino 8y ago
Wake up at 6am, not 9am and you get another three hours in your day.
- marsrover 8y ago
  I think there have been enough HN articles for us to know it doesn’t work like that. Wake up at 6am and he’s not going to bed at 1am anymore.
dweekly 8y ago
"five and a half hours of precious free time" - as a parent of two young children I read this and started keeling over with laughter.
franciscop 8y ago
The next time I move jobs this is going to be a fairly high priority for me while negotiating. Either 7 h/day work or 4 days/week. I love doing things on my free time like programming, robots, and learning Japanese and cooking, but I don't have free time anymore.
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I don't know how I've done it, but somehow I've reached a zen-like state where I just don't worry about this shit. I haven't ruthlessly optimised my day, I just deal with shit when I deal with it and everything works out fine. I usually have time to watch some TV with my flatmate, or head to the pub for a couple of pints with a mate. How does it take 2 hours to cook dinner? It takes me at most 15 minutes of engaged time to cook dinner. Apparently it takes 2 hours for the author to go to the gym too. I think the author just needs to chill out and stop worrying about shit.
Pxtl 8y ago
Now imagine it with kids. Honestly, I have no idea how I was ever stresser about time before I was a parent.
- projektir 8y ago
  From what I've seen most parents effectively cease to exist once they get kids (i.e., drop hobbies) and their life revolves around their kids, so I am not really convinced that the time problems doesn't exist and parents don't just flag it as "OK" in their heads due to hyper-focus on their kids.
blunte 8y ago
Much of what is on our list isn't really important. And I have personally identified Time as my #1 enemy in my quality of life. There are a few resources that provide a different perspective. One I would suggest is The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. As thinking, analytical people, we should (grudingly?) realize that there truly is nothing other than this moment. And this moment usually doesn't care about your time on a foam roller... unless it does, in which case you get on the foam roller. I think there's a problem for highly creative or mentally busy folks. We see so many possibilities, and perhaps we excel as many things we try. That brings a feeling of unrealized possibility that nags on us. We could be a good this, or that, or whatever. In some cases it might matter to the world if we accomplished it (assuming that ultimately even matters). But quite often, perhaps, the unrealized potential may not be worth much. So the worry about the time we should be spending to realize that potential can be dropped. Not to belittle the "average guy", but we all probably know the guy that has had the same job for 10 years and who is SO happy to go home most night of the week - and especially to be there Sunday - to watch whatever game on his big TV. He's got the deadly but oh-so-tasty snack that he's blissfully unaware shorten his life with each mini-sausage. He's got a wife who appears to actually like sports and who provides the snacks for him and his buddies (not being sexist; just painting a typical American Dream picture). His big Ford F250 4x4 parked outside is only 1.5 years old. Life is good. If he's really rich and bad-ass, he's got a new Harley in the garage for his every-other-weekend-warrior needs. Meanwhile, the HN crowd is browsing high achiever Github projects, considering their own many ideas, and feeling like underachievers. And eventually we die, or we set off on the ocean like Jim Gray (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#Disappearance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#...) and never return.
- ohohoho 8y ago
  Very well said.
- projektir 8y ago
  > Not to belittle the "average guy", but we all probably know the guy that has had the same job for 10 years and who is SO happy to go home most night of the week - and especially to be there Sunday - to watch whatever game on his big TV. He's got the deadly but oh-so-tasty snack that he's blissfully unaware shorten his life with each mini-sausage. He's got a wife who appears to actually like sports and who provides the snacks for him and his buddies (not being sexist; just painting a typical American Dream picture). His big Ford F250 4x4 parked outside is only 1.5 years old. Life is good. If he's really rich and bad-ass, he's got a new Harley in the garage for his every-other-weekend-warrior needs. I think this is actually an ideal. But I don't think this ideal is as easy to reach as "average guy" would imply. A lot of these "average guys" hate their job, their relationship, or both, and the happiness evaporates, the Sunday game the only thing really keeping them afloat. What you describe is contentment and stability and I honestly think most people don't have that. Even the really well off engineers still have to worry about their job and the sharpening of their skills. It's very hard to just sit back and not worry about it all, because you have to continue to do work to keep it up, and therein lies the rub.
givinguflac 8y ago
One thing that’s really helped us save time is grocery delivery with peapod. It saves so much time and if you value your time in any reasonable way, you’ll almost certainly come out ahead.
DoreenMichele 8y ago
How do you even clean a toaster? Do you have to take that shit apart with a screwdriver or something? That’s a good thirty minute investment. Fourty-five, if you count the fifteen minutes it’d take me to find a screwdriver. Toasters typically have a trap door on the bottom for emptying the crumbs and for ease of access for cleaning the inside. Once you know how to do things, lots of things aren't that time consuming. Eating right is also vastly less time consuming than being sick all the time.

52 points by ohohoho 8y ago

url00 8y ago

I relate to this. Anyone have any solutions?

acconrad 8y ago
Prioritize the important stuff and delegate away the things you know you need to do but don't have time to (or are lower in priority).
ian0 8y ago
The last line: Work less hours :) You wont remember the project, hell you'll probably forget the job. But the little snippets of things that happen in between working hours will stick with you. They are in effect your life. Of course, working less in the future often times entails working more now. Not in the retire-early sense, which realistically only a few can hope to achieve. But in finding employment that supports and doesn't compromise your life outside of it.
scarecrowbob 8y ago
To echo other folks: optimize for time. I work a 30 hour a week salary gig that I negotiated. I have to work at a small company, but it's better than freelancing. I also work 100% remote from home. People talk about feeling out fo the loop or whatever, but I play music with friends and have a family so it[s never been lonely for me.
ohohoho 8y ago
I think we just have to cut corners and not take recommendations too seriously. The easiest way to get more time is just to work for a large company that provides meals and doesn't make you clock-in and be hyper-efficient with your work so you can slide out after six hour days, but that's easier said than done. Realize that people who are really physically fit treat it like a hobby, so if you think something is more worth it (writing, guitar, binge drinking with your friends), then don't stress about not accomplishing everything-- it was an intentional trade-off. And the not really solution-solution is to have enough serotonin so that you're perfectly happy doing things like cooking, running errands, and working out-- which is a big goal of mine.

prawn 8y ago

If someone feels like that already, I cannot recommend having children or being responsible for a garden or home maintenance. You will be swamped. That said, optimising your routine can be rewarding. Morning and evening routines with your children can be great fun. Something like cooking, which can be a chore to some, is a treat to others (myself included). IMO, it's helpful to prioritise important things for the morning while you're sharp, and leave non-essential things for the late evening when feeling tired or falling asleep barely matters (watching a movie or playing PS4). Pay bills/etc or check your stocks during your lunch break. Minimise your grocery shopping trips - keep a stock of staples and then do a weekly shop for meat, milk, etc. Exercise in the morning. That should start to free up your evenings.

vertline3 8y ago

Less electronics, own less things (or store almost everything), Build habits so upkeep is automatic. What I do.

Rjevski 8y ago

I can relate to this, but there are things you can do to at least limit the time-wastes. Here's a breakdown of his list and how I solve some of those problems. * eating: eat while you work or do something else; plus it also allows you to skip your lunch break at work, get more shit done and go home early. * cooking: don't. If you live in a major city there should be a few healthy (not fast-food crap) takeaway options available. Just order while on your way home and dinner will be there shortly after you arrive. * bills and bank related activities: switch to a bank that doesn't suck. I use a fully-online bank called Monzo since more than a year and I honestly can't remember the last time I actually had to spend more than a handful of minutes for "banking" activities. Ditch suppliers/utilities that waste your time for those that get out of your way. * budgeting: again, try to find a bank with an app that does it for you or makes it easier. * cleaning: outsource it. * car upkeep: if in a major city ask yourself if it's worth the trouble to own a car. In my case Uber works out fine. * pet upkeep: don't get pets? I love cats more than anything else and yet even I don't get one because I barely have time for myself, let alone the cat. * general repairs and replacements for things breaking or going obsolete: outsource it, order online, etc. * religious activities: don't? * home upkeep/renovations/gardening: outsource it? But I'm definitely interested in others' perspectives on this and how they solve this problem.

trukterious 8y ago
The author's problem is that there's a gap between what he's doing and what he thinks he ought to be doing. On the plus side he's already got some perspective via his humorous writing. In addition he might try and do nothing for a spell: I've found this to be impossible. One can then relax and watch oneself doing the truly essential tasks. Automatically. This is the 'ability to let that which does not matter truly slide' (Tyler Durden in Fight Club).
flukus 8y ago
I agree with most, but not the cooking, make enough for 2 or more meals at once, you can amortize the time over them, reddit.com/r/mealprep has a lot of ideas for people making large batches at once. Plus a lot of cooking can be things like roasting chicken which takes a long time but it's hands off so barely counts doesn't matter. For more hands on stuff I listen to audio books so entertainment time and cooking time overlap. I'll add * shopping: This doesn't have to be an hour long ordeal, for me it's a <5 minute stop on the way home 3 or 4 times a week. * exercise: Build it into the daily commute, IME a 30 minute drive will translate to a 30-60 minute bike ride, then you can scrap the car upkeep. * shaving: only shave every few weeks. * hair cuts: No 2 all over takes about 10 minutes and your good for another 3-6 months. Can even do this yourself in theory (in practice I can't). Now if I could just stop procrastinating with all this free time...

catchmeifyoucan 8y ago

The first paragraph is so relatable. I feel ya man.

projektir 8y ago

This is generally why I don't cook much and don't really plan to. It shortens my evenings and the tradeoff just doesn't seem worth it.

jakehilborn 8y ago
I've found meal prepping to be a fantastic solution. I can make 5 meals in about an hour with my 4 burner stove. These meals are cheap, help me eat a lot of vegetables, and allow me to easily hit my macronutrient goals for strength training.
- projektir 8y ago
  Yeah, meal prepping is something I've kind of wanted to look into but from what I've seen it only works for half a week and I still need good recipes for it. Not to mention that it kills my Sunday, which I take issues with.
- Rjevski 8y ago
  It's definitely better to batch stuff, but even then, an hour of your time is probably worth a lot more than the equivalent of buying those 5 meals already made. Not to mention, I assume the one hour doesn't include time to clean up, which for me is one of the biggest drawbacks of cooking.
  - stinkytaco 8y ago
    They say that money can't buy happiness. That may be true, but it can buy a dishwasher, which is much the same thing. Easily one of the best material purchases I've ever made. I only mention this because I only realized this after I purchased the dishwasher. And so I spend time researching and "optimizing" in hopes of finding the next dishwasher in my life, which is how one falls into the trap this article describes.
stinkytaco 8y ago
I can understand the money tradeoff (your time is worth more than your money, ergo you do not cook), but I'm curious how you handle the health tradeoff? Do you eat lots of prepared foods or restaurant foods, or just lots of raw stuff?

girzel 8y ago

I think the main problem with the author of the article is that he's still essentially reacting passively to the world around him. He's acting in response to things that bump up against him -- maybe he's trying to assess whether they're important or worth doing, but he's still fundamentally passive. The difference between him and his friend who does the triathlon is -- there's no one who looks at the clock early in the evening, glances around their apartment, then checks their phone real quick, then says, "I guess I'll train for a triathlon." That's the sort of desire or goal that comes at a different moment in time, perhaps while you're doing something else, or you're caught between things. And you think, "Shit, I should run a triathlon". Once you've had that thought, when you get home from work your first thought is, "when do I train for my triathlon?" And once that's done, you fit the rest of the crap in any which way. The point being, start out with one or more positive, active goals. Prioritize them (as acconrad has said). Everything else just sifts in afterwards. It could be raising your kid, or volunteering for local politics, or playing the piano. Do something first and foremost, something you have decided to do, and you'll find you somehow still have time for all the other crap. (Or you'll find that you don't, and it doesn't matter.)

projektir 8y ago
> you fit the rest of the crap in any which way This is really the only relevant thing here, and effectively amounts to "spend less time on these things", "half ass them more", or "don't do these things". Which is fine, and I think the subconscious point of this article is that if you focus on what a "proper" person should do, you'll run out of time real fast, and generally people need to cut corners. And that advice that adds a daily time drain is questionable. I don't really know anyone who does it all.
- darkerside 8y ago
  Alternative strategy, get really fucking good at doing those things. Then you can get them done in a quarter of the time (compared to someone like the author), and you'll have a decent box of time to fill with doing things you love.
  - 8y ago

Xcelerate 8y ago

My wife gets frustrated with my attempts at ruthless prioritization and my efforts to remove future potential time sinks from my life. I would like to achieve financial independence before having a house, dog, and children (well, I did own a house briefly before moving across the country). This is unlikely to occur, so I'm trying to figure out the next best path for the future: a small, well-built house with a simple yard, a breed of dog that is easy to train and requires little grooming, and as for children... well I just hope I get lucky. I don't want "free time" in order to lounge around and watch TV (I don't even own a TV). I want free time to be able to research topics that interest me and start companies. It's difficult for a middle class or even upper-middle class person to simultaneously maintain a full-time job, family, health, and extremely productive hobbies. And I would say it's next to impossible for someone who came from a below-middle class background.

darkerside 8y ago
There's no such thing as free time. You need to take it or pay for that time if you want to spend it on something you want.
justtopost 8y ago
Some insight: if you don't engauge in common activities, your borometer of what is interesting or useful to the average person drifts, and fast. That is just something I learned from being somewhat similar in my persuits. Your income based assumptions also, are very different from my experince. The middle class has a grind, that the lower and upper classes are less bound to. I find upper-middle class friends to have the least free time, and the most harried lifestyle. I find a good gauge of having free time to research or recreate is reading frequency. Ymmv.
stinkytaco 8y ago
I found this approach was leading to depression. My attempt to have "extremely productive hobbies" just made me feel bad about them when they were neglected. It also led me to taking on too many things that interested me (garden, car, reading, tech, and so on). I found that when I quit prioritizing and just did stuff I enjoyed doing without worrying what the long term outcome would be, I was happier. If you've ever read Shop Class as Soulcraft [1] or Mastery (by George Leonard, not the Robert Greene book) [2] you will have some idea of what I mean. I began to pursue things for the sake of pursuing them, not because there was an end goal in site. I realize that this is a purely personal anecdote and I realize this is not how people get rich, run a triathlon or change the world, but maybe I just can't do those things. [1]: https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-soulcraft https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/shop-class-as-so... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfillment/dp/0452267560 https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...

black6 8y ago

There’s plenty of time — you just have to focus on the things that really matter. I have a 30 minute commute, so I’m away from home for 9+ hours every day. My wife is a stay-at-home mom and we have two children who aren’t old enough yet for school (not that mamma is ready for them to go). I do most of the cooking (we rarely eat out), she does most of the child rearing. We pretty much split the cleaning. I fix the house as it breaks, and do some home improvement when I can fit it in (just finished a set of bunk beds for the kids). We do something fun at least one day most weekends (beach visit, fishing, zoo, etc). I have a couple of beers most nights and just enjoy my family as I cook or get the kids ready for bed in the evenings. Before I go to work in the mornings I get in a short exercise routine (stretching and some push/sit/pull-ups for maintenance). Still manage to get 7-8 hours of sleep a night. I perform regular maintenance on our vehicles. I don’t watch any TV or mindlessly browse the Internet during the week (OK, I’ll check up on some webcomics once or twice). Honestly I don’t do much of that on the weekends, either. I don’t read fiction much. I don’t check my IRA or 401(k) regularly. I don’t worry about my health — we eat fantastically healthy in my house and I’m not sedentary. I work to live; I don’t live to work. My family is the most important thing in my life and I enjoy every minute I’m with them. It would be nice, though, if we were on the galactic standard 25 hour day. I could use that extra hour every now and then.

flashman 8y ago

"As you're Ubering down the road of life, if you're ahead of schedule and there are no other productive activities you can fit in before your next appointment, don't forget to stop and smell the roses." There are a lot of very sad comments in this thread about optimising life and being productive and efficient. Don't have kids. Don't cook. Don't watch television or play video games, or at least save them until everything else is done. Buy other people's labour to free up more time for working to pay them. This is an unapologetic value judgement: living your life that way is a waste of time. There's not enough time, and that's okay. Let a few things go. You don't need to be optimally productive.

taurath 8y ago
I can’t help but feel like it’s because we feel like we need to carve out some time to actually do something that is fulfilling, satisfying, or worth living for. The idea of the grind through middle age isn’t uncommon - and as people see their parents who went through it have regrets and/or fail to have anything happening for them after retirement it starts to really grow on you just how much of a waste it can feel.
deleted 8y ago
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projektir 8y ago
> There are a lot of very sad comments in this thread about optimising life and being productive and efficient. Don't have kids. Don't cook. Don't watch television or play video games, or at least save them until everything else is done. Buy other people's labour to free up more time for working to pay them. Maybe you're over aggregating? :) I don't want to have kids in part because I like my video games and they and other activities I enjoy will have to go poof due to kids^t. Basically, you can only pick a few things before your time runs out. I think you're vying for a time where people wouldn't feel so short of time, but I don't think it's bad, in the moment, if people do successfully optimize their time for their situation, and I don't care if it makes some idealizer of the human condition unhappy. I do not owe it to anyone to fit some mold of the perfect human being who finds all the time to exercise, eat healthy, socialize, cook, AND have kids. It's all draining enough for me as it is. ^t there are other much more advanced and depressing reasons why I actually don't want to have kids, though

marsrover 8y ago

And this guy doesn’t even have a kid.

bluedino 8y ago

Wake up at 6am, not 9am and you get another three hours in your day.

marsrover 8y ago
I think there have been enough HN articles for us to know it doesn’t work like that. Wake up at 6am and he’s not going to bed at 1am anymore.

dweekly 8y ago

"five and a half hours of precious free time" - as a parent of two young children I read this and started keeling over with laughter.

franciscop 8y ago

The next time I move jobs this is going to be a fairly high priority for me while negotiating. Either 7 h/day work or 4 days/week. I love doing things on my free time like programming, robots, and learning Japanese and cooking, but I don't have free time anymore.

toomanybeersies 8y ago

I don't know how I've done it, but somehow I've reached a zen-like state where I just don't worry about this shit. I haven't ruthlessly optimised my day, I just deal with shit when I deal with it and everything works out fine. I usually have time to watch some TV with my flatmate, or head to the pub for a couple of pints with a mate. How does it take 2 hours to cook dinner? It takes me at most 15 minutes of engaged time to cook dinner. Apparently it takes 2 hours for the author to go to the gym too. I think the author just needs to chill out and stop worrying about shit.

Pxtl 8y ago

Now imagine it with kids. Honestly, I have no idea how I was ever stresser about time before I was a parent.

projektir 8y ago
From what I've seen most parents effectively cease to exist once they get kids (i.e., drop hobbies) and their life revolves around their kids, so I am not really convinced that the time problems doesn't exist and parents don't just flag it as "OK" in their heads due to hyper-focus on their kids.

blunte 8y ago

Much of what is on our list isn't really important. And I have personally identified Time as my #1 enemy in my quality of life. There are a few resources that provide a different perspective. One I would suggest is The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. As thinking, analytical people, we should (grudingly?) realize that there truly is nothing other than this moment. And this moment usually doesn't care about your time on a foam roller... unless it does, in which case you get on the foam roller. I think there's a problem for highly creative or mentally busy folks. We see so many possibilities, and perhaps we excel as many things we try. That brings a feeling of unrealized possibility that nags on us. We could be a good this, or that, or whatever. In some cases it might matter to the world if we accomplished it (assuming that ultimately even matters). But quite often, perhaps, the unrealized potential may not be worth much. So the worry about the time we should be spending to realize that potential can be dropped. Not to belittle the "average guy", but we all probably know the guy that has had the same job for 10 years and who is SO happy to go home most night of the week - and especially to be there Sunday - to watch whatever game on his big TV. He's got the deadly but oh-so-tasty snack that he's blissfully unaware shorten his life with each mini-sausage. He's got a wife who appears to actually like sports and who provides the snacks for him and his buddies (not being sexist; just painting a typical American Dream picture). His big Ford F250 4x4 parked outside is only 1.5 years old. Life is good. If he's really rich and bad-ass, he's got a new Harley in the garage for his every-other-weekend-warrior needs. Meanwhile, the HN crowd is browsing high achiever Github projects, considering their own many ideas, and feeling like underachievers. And eventually we die, or we set off on the ocean like Jim Gray (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#Disappearance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Gray_(computer_scientist)#...) and never return.

ohohoho 8y ago
Very well said.
projektir 8y ago
> Not to belittle the "average guy", but we all probably know the guy that has had the same job for 10 years and who is SO happy to go home most night of the week - and especially to be there Sunday - to watch whatever game on his big TV. He's got the deadly but oh-so-tasty snack that he's blissfully unaware shorten his life with each mini-sausage. He's got a wife who appears to actually like sports and who provides the snacks for him and his buddies (not being sexist; just painting a typical American Dream picture). His big Ford F250 4x4 parked outside is only 1.5 years old. Life is good. If he's really rich and bad-ass, he's got a new Harley in the garage for his every-other-weekend-warrior needs. I think this is actually an ideal. But I don't think this ideal is as easy to reach as "average guy" would imply. A lot of these "average guys" hate their job, their relationship, or both, and the happiness evaporates, the Sunday game the only thing really keeping them afloat. What you describe is contentment and stability and I honestly think most people don't have that. Even the really well off engineers still have to worry about their job and the sharpening of their skills. It's very hard to just sit back and not worry about it all, because you have to continue to do work to keep it up, and therein lies the rub.

givinguflac 8y ago

One thing that’s really helped us save time is grocery delivery with peapod. It saves so much time and if you value your time in any reasonable way, you’ll almost certainly come out ahead.

DoreenMichele 8y ago

How do you even clean a toaster? Do you have to take that shit apart with a screwdriver or something? That’s a good thirty minute investment. Fourty-five, if you count the fifteen minutes it’d take me to find a screwdriver. Toasters typically have a trap door on the bottom for emptying the crumbs and for ease of access for cleaning the inside. Once you know how to do things, lots of things aren't that time consuming. Eating right is also vastly less time consuming than being sick all the time.