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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

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...
- darkerside 8y ago
  "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through." -Ira Glass I think some of the frustration comes from not sticking with any one thing long enough to get meaningfully better at it.
  - taurath 8y ago
    It only works if you keep your eye on the goal, rather than what’s in front of you immediately. Otherwise it’s just self punishment
  - stinkytaco 8y ago
    This assumes getting better is necessarily the goal, which it may not be. For example, I like to play soccer. I'm not terribly good at soccer, nor do I spend much time outside of playing to improve (i.e. doing soccer specific workouts, drills, etc.). I have the self awareness to realize that my ceiling is limited and my enjoyment would not be greatly impacted by "fighting my way through." I just want to play. In a twisted way, I feel I achieved a sort of mastery just by doing the thing for the thing's sake. This isn't to say that it's not good advice, but when I spent my life relentlessly trying to optimize (a trap I still fall into frequently, I'm reading these comments after all), I just got frustrated and felt like a failure. I decided it was OK to watch a TV show I enjoyed, to read books that had nothing edifying except a story I enjoyed or to simply waste time. I think regular self assessment and awareness are possibly more important that optimization or improving.

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...

darkerside 8y ago
"Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through." -Ira Glass I think some of the frustration comes from not sticking with any one thing long enough to get meaningfully better at it.
- taurath 8y ago
  It only works if you keep your eye on the goal, rather than what’s in front of you immediately. Otherwise it’s just self punishment
- stinkytaco 8y ago
  This assumes getting better is necessarily the goal, which it may not be. For example, I like to play soccer. I'm not terribly good at soccer, nor do I spend much time outside of playing to improve (i.e. doing soccer specific workouts, drills, etc.). I have the self awareness to realize that my ceiling is limited and my enjoyment would not be greatly impacted by "fighting my way through." I just want to play. In a twisted way, I feel I achieved a sort of mastery just by doing the thing for the thing's sake. This isn't to say that it's not good advice, but when I spent my life relentlessly trying to optimize (a trap I still fall into frequently, I'm reading these comments after all), I just got frustrated and felt like a failure. I decided it was OK to watch a TV show I enjoyed, to read books that had nothing edifying except a story I enjoyed or to simply waste time. I think regular self assessment and awareness are possibly more important that optimization or improving.