4 ms·

I am always somewhat puzzled by the focus on free time without taking into account the energy balance of a person. I find often that when someone says “I don’t

I am always somewhat puzzled by the focus on free time without taking into account the energy balance of a person. I find often that when someone says “I don’t have the time”, what they really mean is that they don’t have energy left to take on something else. In my case, I find that there’s often enough hours, but I don’t always have the energy to be active 100% of that time and just end up taking some rest.

lez 7y ago
This is largely effected by the nutrition / mental / health state of the individual. I personally spend a lot of time (cooking, sports, spend time researching mineral/vitamin/other supplements), and it took me around 4 years to find the things my body needs. I am now very rarely "energy exhausted" and mentally clear the whole day, having more energy than 10 years ago. The message here is that one can spend time and pick up habits that make the body function better, with a good chance that the efforts will pay off one day.
- alltakendamned 7y ago
  Ah well, being fit certainly helps, and I'm pleased you found what works for you! But so does being early twenties instead of in your forties (not assuming anything here, just stating age is one of many factors). If only aging could be solved by taking a multivitamin :) And while I agree that taking care of one self is important, I want to touch upon a more fundamental point. I am perfectly OK with taking rest from time to time, or taking it easy, or just sitting back with my feet up enjoying a good book, or a glass of wine with my wife. There's in my opinion little need to always be on 100% and it's perfectly OK if people aren't. I know this opinion is like cursing in church on this forum, but many people would do well being nice to themselves a little more.
  - kungtotte 7y ago
    I think the point of this calculator is to show people that there's time to take those breaks. I filled it in and over-estimated a bunch of areas and it still said I have 11 hours of free time each week. That's a whole lot of books and wine that I can enjoy and still meet all of my existing priorities including spending time with my kid. That's freeing in a way, it tells me that when I feel pressed for time it's really all in my head and taking an hour to read a book shouldn't be a problem if I just take a few minutes and prioritize my time. Also it's probably useful for some people to see how much time is spent on work and commuting relative to other parts of their life. If they truly have no time to read a book but work+commute is eating up more than 50% of their days, maybe it's time to do something about that and fix one or both parts of that equation (move closer to work or change jobs to get closer to home, and work fewer hours)?
- vaylian 7y ago
  Do you have any reading materials that you can recommend that helped you to figure this out?
  - lez 7y ago
    One important one is http://lynnefarrow.net/book.html http://lynnefarrow.net/book.html Then there is (on top of above) the vitamins / minerals category, in which I was shocked to find that most supplements out there are in a form that doesn't get used by the body. Sorry, no english doc here :( Addressing my various food intolerances - it's very personal and it's more about the process. Experimenting with avoiding gluten, milk, egg (for me). Try-and-repeat. Be consistent (this was the hardest for me). And fighting my constant virus load - again, very personal, but these ones that work for me, using in combination: lactoferrin, grapefruit seed extract, ganoderma lucidum mushroom, propolis drops, and one I won't write down on HN because I get downvoted for it... :)
kd5bjo 7y ago
The trick seems to be to identify your various different out-of-energy states and what activity is consistently restorative for each. Then, get experience with those activities when you’re fresh so that you have less of a hurdle to jump over when you really need them. The biggest issue, of course, is that it requires you to experiment with new things when you’re dead tired in order to figure out what helps in the first place. A more subtle problem is that some activities help at first and then cause problems later- Television/YouTube is like this for me; sometimes, it’s the most effective way of resting but if I’m not careful I’ll go straight through energetic into a different, harder to escape lethargy.
- alltakendamned 7y ago
  I think the benefits of active versus passive leisure time is an interesting area to explore.
- scotty79 7y ago
  I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit. I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I slept for few hours and after that wake up and be semi-funtional human again, able to do homework or enjoy myself for a bit. The problem was I got addicted to TV and I watched it even if I wasn't that tired and theoretically had energy to entertain myself with something that had better joy/effort ratio than TV. Instead I always defaulted to TV which costed me too much energy for enjoyment provided. Eventually I had to ask my mom to put a parental lock on TV and even then after school I was lying in front of turned on TV that showed no channel (due to parental lock) pushing buttons at random trying to unlock it. I even managed to unlock it once (3 digit code) but couldn't repeat it. Eventually my dumb brain learned that lying in front of a TV no longer gives me any joy (because I can't turn the channels on) and I shook the addiction.
  - kd5bjo 7y ago
perfunctory 7y ago
"The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part." -- Bertrand Russell, http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html
- raindropm 7y ago
  Damn, and it was written in 1932.
bordercases 7y ago
I've heard the terms "bandwidth" and "cycles" be used in exchange with 'time'.
- cerberusss 7y ago
  That's a good way of thinking about it, I've added this to my notes on the subject.

lez 7y ago

This is largely effected by the nutrition / mental / health state of the individual. I personally spend a lot of time (cooking, sports, spend time researching mineral/vitamin/other supplements), and it took me around 4 years to find the things my body needs. I am now very rarely "energy exhausted" and mentally clear the whole day, having more energy than 10 years ago. The message here is that one can spend time and pick up habits that make the body function better, with a good chance that the efforts will pay off one day.

alltakendamned 7y ago
Ah well, being fit certainly helps, and I'm pleased you found what works for you! But so does being early twenties instead of in your forties (not assuming anything here, just stating age is one of many factors). If only aging could be solved by taking a multivitamin :) And while I agree that taking care of one self is important, I want to touch upon a more fundamental point. I am perfectly OK with taking rest from time to time, or taking it easy, or just sitting back with my feet up enjoying a good book, or a glass of wine with my wife. There's in my opinion little need to always be on 100% and it's perfectly OK if people aren't. I know this opinion is like cursing in church on this forum, but many people would do well being nice to themselves a little more.
- kungtotte 7y ago
  I think the point of this calculator is to show people that there's time to take those breaks. I filled it in and over-estimated a bunch of areas and it still said I have 11 hours of free time each week. That's a whole lot of books and wine that I can enjoy and still meet all of my existing priorities including spending time with my kid. That's freeing in a way, it tells me that when I feel pressed for time it's really all in my head and taking an hour to read a book shouldn't be a problem if I just take a few minutes and prioritize my time. Also it's probably useful for some people to see how much time is spent on work and commuting relative to other parts of their life. If they truly have no time to read a book but work+commute is eating up more than 50% of their days, maybe it's time to do something about that and fix one or both parts of that equation (move closer to work or change jobs to get closer to home, and work fewer hours)?
vaylian 7y ago
Do you have any reading materials that you can recommend that helped you to figure this out?
- lez 7y ago
  One important one is http://lynnefarrow.net/book.html http://lynnefarrow.net/book.html Then there is (on top of above) the vitamins / minerals category, in which I was shocked to find that most supplements out there are in a form that doesn't get used by the body. Sorry, no english doc here :( Addressing my various food intolerances - it's very personal and it's more about the process. Experimenting with avoiding gluten, milk, egg (for me). Try-and-repeat. Be consistent (this was the hardest for me). And fighting my constant virus load - again, very personal, but these ones that work for me, using in combination: lactoferrin, grapefruit seed extract, ganoderma lucidum mushroom, propolis drops, and one I won't write down on HN because I get downvoted for it... :)

kd5bjo 7y ago

The trick seems to be to identify your various different out-of-energy states and what activity is consistently restorative for each. Then, get experience with those activities when you’re fresh so that you have less of a hurdle to jump over when you really need them. The biggest issue, of course, is that it requires you to experiment with new things when you’re dead tired in order to figure out what helps in the first place. A more subtle problem is that some activities help at first and then cause problems later- Television/YouTube is like this for me; sometimes, it’s the most effective way of resting but if I’m not careful I’ll go straight through energetic into a different, harder to escape lethargy.

alltakendamned 7y ago
I think the benefits of active versus passive leisure time is an interesting area to explore.
scotty79 7y ago
I think there are two problems. Tiredness and boredom. TV's sweet spot is when you are mildly bored and pretty tired. It tires you even more but alleviates boredom a bit. I had after-school routine. When I was comming back from school I was bored and tired but too bored and not tired enough to go to sleep immediately. So I watched TV for an hour or two becomming slightly less bored and completely tired. After that I slept for few hours and after that wake up and be semi-funtional human again, able to do homework or enjoy myself for a bit. The problem was I got addicted to TV and I watched it even if I wasn't that tired and theoretically had energy to entertain myself with something that had better joy/effort ratio than TV. Instead I always defaulted to TV which costed me too much energy for enjoyment provided. Eventually I had to ask my mom to put a parental lock on TV and even then after school I was lying in front of turned on TV that showed no channel (due to parental lock) pushing buttons at random trying to unlock it. I even managed to unlock it once (3 digit code) but couldn't repeat it. Eventually my dumb brain learned that lying in front of a TV no longer gives me any joy (because I can't turn the channels on) and I shook the addiction.
- kd5bjo 7y ago

perfunctory 7y ago

"The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part." -- Bertrand Russell, http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html

raindropm 7y ago
Damn, and it was written in 1932.

bordercases 7y ago

I've heard the terms "bandwidth" and "cycles" be used in exchange with 'time'.

cerberusss 7y ago
That's a good way of thinking about it, I've added this to my notes on the subject.