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This has been my line of thought for a while. You spend a minimum of 8 hours working, and ideally you get 6-8 hours of sleep. Let’s say you have a couple more d

This has been my line of thought for a while. You spend a minimum of 8 hours working, and ideally you get 6-8 hours of sleep. Let’s say you have a couple more daily responsibilities that take 2-4 (could be commute, cleaning, some other maintenance). There’s almost no time to do anything, and some of the hours you have left may be at non-prime times of the day. > The true optimization for becoming a more efficient person is to do less of the thing you're doing most of, and do more of the other stuff you do less of. The problem is this means sleep or work. I’ve opted for the former, and suffer for it. Sacrificing working, at least any notable amount, just means trading time-loss for money-loss which may or may not work depending on person.

Zababa 5y ago
I've heard this called before the "4 hour life", you have 4 hours every day for yourself: https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca6412 https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca641...
- ericmcer 5y ago
  I wouldn’t mind if it was my 4 best hours a day, but it’s the 4 hours after work and dinner when my energy levels allow for a half effort workout and a bit of reading or TV.
  - cecilpl2 5y ago
    One of the best things I did for myself was moving all of that free time to the morning. Now I wake up at 5, have coffee, exercise, play or work on whatever hobby has my attention at the moment, then work all day. I have loads of focus and attention and energy for my fun things. Evening is pretty much make dinner, eat, relax for a bit and be in bed reading by 8.
    - prawn 5y ago
      This can be a good strategy until you have young kids. After then, they often hear you get up and then seek you out to get help making breakfast or want to sit on your lap. But otherwise, it prioritises your side project while you're fresh in the morning and puts relaxing (movie/TV/etc) for when you're fading at the end of the day.
      - cecilpl2 5y ago
        That's a good point - I don't have kids and don't have any good advice on how to work around them. :)
      - bcrosby95 5y ago
        A lot depends upon how much sleep your kids need too. Our first would sleep 12 hours per night. Yay, lots of free time. Our second sleeps 9 hours per night. Whoops.
    - doix 5y ago
      I recently found myself in the same position by being in Asia while working for a European company. All my free time is in the morning without having to wake up early (in the dark). I go surfing or swimming/gym and then work 12pm-11pm with some breaks for lunch and dinner. I go to bed straight after working, which means I've stopped drinking. It's made a huge difference to my quality of life and I hope I can keep this up forever. Having to wake up and go straight to work seems like a depressing thought now.
- stevofolife 5y ago
  Generally true. The next step of optimization would be automating parts of your job so you can reduce 8 hours of work to like 6 hours of work. Now you have more time for yourself.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    Well, unless your job requires you to be present for 8 hours, in which case it's harder to use those 2 new hours.
    - Viliam1234 5y ago
      If presence is all that is required during those 2 hours, there are some useful things you can do: Think. Make plans on paper. Study.
  - penjelly 5y ago
    except in practice this never works. you cant automate all tasks, even as a programmer a lot of time is spent architecting or debugging, even requirements gathering in some cases. Those details aside, if you automated hours of your job away youd then be asked to do more work (or if you own the place youd probably want to improve your product more anyway) instead of just sitting around working on your own projects during business hours, which some businesses would fire you for or at least theyd claim your work as their intellectual property.
    - skhr0680 5y ago
      Even if you don’t go as far as working on side projects at work, automating even 30min-1hr worth of manual tasks can leave you less exhausted when you get home.
    - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
      You don't have to tell your office every time you automate a task do you?
  - taneq 5y ago
- philh 5y ago
  This doesn't acknowledge weekends, which if you have the same 8 hours sleep and 4 hours "not for yourself", add more than 50% to the time you supposedly have "for yourself". (4×5 + 12×2 vs 4×7.) Which doesn't necessarily change the point, but I'm not sure what if anything the point is supposed to be, and it seems an important omission.
  - Zababa 5y ago
    I assume that for most people the "not for yourself" time is bigger on the weekends, it is for me and the people around me.
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      Indeed. In my case, ever since I became a parent, I consider weekends a total write-off.
  - andrewzah 5y ago
    Weekends aren't necessarily free time. Saturdays and Sundays are chore days, or family days, or simply resting, or ... About 4h remaining for yourself is still fairly realistic.
  - cableshaft 5y ago
    Don't usually have much extra time on the weekends. Weekends are for making up for a week of the house getting dirty, relatives and friends wanting to meet, extra long walks for the dogs that only got short walks during the week, errands that got put off, some catchup sleep, actually relaxing a bit since there wasn't much during the week, etc. I might have 2-3 hours each day (of energy and motivation) to work on projects but not 8. Of course I never have 4 hours during the week either, I'm lucky to get 1 in usually.
    - penjelly 5y ago
      youre not alone. Unless i actively maintain my apartment itll deteriorate over the week (i even meal prep weekends to alleviate some) i do agree with others though. More time spent disengaging from the work your doing may actually net you a positive in the productivity dept
throwaway2331 5y ago
One simple trick to exit the labor class; investment banking MDs hate him; "how can one man achieve so much?": Work less, but keep clocking the same amount of hours. A lot easier to do with WFH, but still achievable if you're in an office cubicle. Impossible to do if you work a trade/labor-intensive job.
- bobobob420 5y ago
  Or open office where everyone can see your triple monitor screen and it’s a company work station so you literally can’t do anything else, can’t even open a personal laptop. Any cellular data reception is very bad.
  - jrumbut 5y ago
    I worked in an open office for years and never understood how people did things besides work. I tried 100% remote but that got lonely. Now that I have an office, it's like I'm living a completely different life where there's energy for meaningful activities after work. I get so much more done. The socialization is down from 2019 but there's a feeling to being in a building full of people that's different from being stuck in your house all day. I can't imagine accepting an open plan office job again, the money would have to be life changing. I suspect cubicles would be fine.
    - jrumbut 5y ago
      Edit: when I said "did things besides work" I meant "did things outside of work" not "goof off at work"
- cardosof 5y ago
  Just wanted to mention that this is getting harder and harder - companies will just let you use their approved hardwared, full of monitoring software to keep you in line. And it will get much worse, as in Mana by Marshall Brain
- feoren 5y ago
  That is literally illegal, at least at my job.
friedman23 5y ago
In my experience, sacrificing sleep is extremely counter productive. You could probably cut out 1 to 2 hours of work, get 8 hours of sleep a night and be just as effective at your job as you would have been getting 6 hours of sleep a night.
threatripper 5y ago
10 hours work 2 hours commute 8 hours sleep 2 hours food and maintenance leaves 2 hours to do all the rest.

Zababa 5y ago

I've heard this called before the "4 hour life", you have 4 hours every day for yourself: https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca6412 https://medium.com/@pskallas/4-hour-life-glossary-4740bca641...

ericmcer 5y ago
I wouldn’t mind if it was my 4 best hours a day, but it’s the 4 hours after work and dinner when my energy levels allow for a half effort workout and a bit of reading or TV.
- cecilpl2 5y ago
  One of the best things I did for myself was moving all of that free time to the morning. Now I wake up at 5, have coffee, exercise, play or work on whatever hobby has my attention at the moment, then work all day. I have loads of focus and attention and energy for my fun things. Evening is pretty much make dinner, eat, relax for a bit and be in bed reading by 8.
  - prawn 5y ago
    This can be a good strategy until you have young kids. After then, they often hear you get up and then seek you out to get help making breakfast or want to sit on your lap. But otherwise, it prioritises your side project while you're fresh in the morning and puts relaxing (movie/TV/etc) for when you're fading at the end of the day.
    - cecilpl2 5y ago
      That's a good point - I don't have kids and don't have any good advice on how to work around them. :)
    - bcrosby95 5y ago
      A lot depends upon how much sleep your kids need too. Our first would sleep 12 hours per night. Yay, lots of free time. Our second sleeps 9 hours per night. Whoops.
  - doix 5y ago
    I recently found myself in the same position by being in Asia while working for a European company. All my free time is in the morning without having to wake up early (in the dark). I go surfing or swimming/gym and then work 12pm-11pm with some breaks for lunch and dinner. I go to bed straight after working, which means I've stopped drinking. It's made a huge difference to my quality of life and I hope I can keep this up forever. Having to wake up and go straight to work seems like a depressing thought now.
stevofolife 5y ago
Generally true. The next step of optimization would be automating parts of your job so you can reduce 8 hours of work to like 6 hours of work. Now you have more time for yourself.
- Zababa 5y ago
  Well, unless your job requires you to be present for 8 hours, in which case it's harder to use those 2 new hours.
  - Viliam1234 5y ago
    If presence is all that is required during those 2 hours, there are some useful things you can do: Think. Make plans on paper. Study.
- penjelly 5y ago
  except in practice this never works. you cant automate all tasks, even as a programmer a lot of time is spent architecting or debugging, even requirements gathering in some cases. Those details aside, if you automated hours of your job away youd then be asked to do more work (or if you own the place youd probably want to improve your product more anyway) instead of just sitting around working on your own projects during business hours, which some businesses would fire you for or at least theyd claim your work as their intellectual property.
  - skhr0680 5y ago
    Even if you don’t go as far as working on side projects at work, automating even 30min-1hr worth of manual tasks can leave you less exhausted when you get home.
  - ghostbrainalpha 5y ago
    You don't have to tell your office every time you automate a task do you?
- taneq 5y ago
philh 5y ago
This doesn't acknowledge weekends, which if you have the same 8 hours sleep and 4 hours "not for yourself", add more than 50% to the time you supposedly have "for yourself". (4×5 + 12×2 vs 4×7.) Which doesn't necessarily change the point, but I'm not sure what if anything the point is supposed to be, and it seems an important omission.
- Zababa 5y ago
  I assume that for most people the "not for yourself" time is bigger on the weekends, it is for me and the people around me.
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    Indeed. In my case, ever since I became a parent, I consider weekends a total write-off.
- andrewzah 5y ago
  Weekends aren't necessarily free time. Saturdays and Sundays are chore days, or family days, or simply resting, or ... About 4h remaining for yourself is still fairly realistic.
- cableshaft 5y ago
  Don't usually have much extra time on the weekends. Weekends are for making up for a week of the house getting dirty, relatives and friends wanting to meet, extra long walks for the dogs that only got short walks during the week, errands that got put off, some catchup sleep, actually relaxing a bit since there wasn't much during the week, etc. I might have 2-3 hours each day (of energy and motivation) to work on projects but not 8. Of course I never have 4 hours during the week either, I'm lucky to get 1 in usually.
  - penjelly 5y ago
    youre not alone. Unless i actively maintain my apartment itll deteriorate over the week (i even meal prep weekends to alleviate some) i do agree with others though. More time spent disengaging from the work your doing may actually net you a positive in the productivity dept

throwaway2331 5y ago

One simple trick to exit the labor class; investment banking MDs hate him; "how can one man achieve so much?": Work less, but keep clocking the same amount of hours. A lot easier to do with WFH, but still achievable if you're in an office cubicle. Impossible to do if you work a trade/labor-intensive job.

bobobob420 5y ago
Or open office where everyone can see your triple monitor screen and it’s a company work station so you literally can’t do anything else, can’t even open a personal laptop. Any cellular data reception is very bad.
- jrumbut 5y ago
  I worked in an open office for years and never understood how people did things besides work. I tried 100% remote but that got lonely. Now that I have an office, it's like I'm living a completely different life where there's energy for meaningful activities after work. I get so much more done. The socialization is down from 2019 but there's a feeling to being in a building full of people that's different from being stuck in your house all day. I can't imagine accepting an open plan office job again, the money would have to be life changing. I suspect cubicles would be fine.
  - jrumbut 5y ago
    Edit: when I said "did things besides work" I meant "did things outside of work" not "goof off at work"
cardosof 5y ago
Just wanted to mention that this is getting harder and harder - companies will just let you use their approved hardwared, full of monitoring software to keep you in line. And it will get much worse, as in Mana by Marshall Brain
feoren 5y ago
That is literally illegal, at least at my job.

friedman23 5y ago

In my experience, sacrificing sleep is extremely counter productive. You could probably cut out 1 to 2 hours of work, get 8 hours of sleep a night and be just as effective at your job as you would have been getting 6 hours of sleep a night.

threatripper 5y ago

10 hours work 2 hours commute 8 hours sleep 2 hours food and maintenance leaves 2 hours to do all the rest.