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It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my

It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually: - energy: learning requires much more than the other "bad" activities like phone - correct psychological state: procrastination is typically triggered as a response to anxiety for me, so any learning I do instead of the phone will also have this poisonous quality of guilt and fear. - uninterrupted time I have a problem that I take any learning way too seriously, such that it would require deliberate focused practice. Sometimes it kills all the fun, and sometimes I give up just because it takes too much energy. Still, it's extremely rewarding for me to learn stuff, even at this age when intelligence is becoming less useful, or at least harder to monetize.

Scarblac 3mo ago
But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night. If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes mental energy.
- dofm 3mo ago
  > But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It's never been the phone for me, particularly. I just don't pick mine up very often. To have much more time to learn things I had to learn one key skill: systematically lose interest in syndicated American television. Other people can watch Lost, Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother etc.; I will use my time elsewhere. (OK so I picked three that are widely recognised as having a major letdown as an ending, but you see my point I guess.) Once I stopped sharing an interest in watching every episode of some show that a friend or the general zeitgeist was obsessed with, that is hundreds of hours (per show!) for a hobby. And these days it's hobby-enabling money, because in many cases these shows are the only reason to pick up an extra streaming subscription. You can buy a good 3D printer and some filament, or an electric guitar and a little amp or headphone effects unit for less than a year's premium plan for an American streaming service, and a fully playable guitar alone costs about as much as a year's standard Netflix. I learned this long enough ago that I have gone without a television for decades now. I had to re-learn it in the era of streaming TV. If you think you want to see one of these shows, they will be around forever so you can watch them from a hospital bed one day.
- kelvinjps10 3mo ago
  this is true
- frankie_t 3mo ago
  It isn't always just phone. If you are in a "bad" state, you'll find something else to ease it. And it's often hardly more productive than doomscrolling: just brooding, switching between activities rapidly, or drowsing. But phone is still the worst offender, of course. It doesn't just steal time and energy, it also reinforces its usage by producing more anxiety
- jambalaya8 3mo ago
  Wondering, which would you consider healthier, an hour scrolling on the phone or an hour watching a tv show (either a fictional one or talk show, either with commercials)? (aside from this, fascinating math ;))
  - Scarblac 3mo ago
    It's hard to say because it depends on what you're looking at too, of course. But doomscrolling seems to teach your brain to never pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds, while at the same time being more exhausting than watching TV. So I'd say the TV is healthier.
  - dpkirchner 3mo ago
    Whichever one you are more likely to do with friends and family, I'd say. IME that's TV because we're experiencing the same thing. If you're alone, it's probably a wash.
sanderjd 3mo ago
I think when people say "not enough time", they just mean "uninterrupted time". This is the thing that is extremely difficult in conjunction with parenting (and not just toddlers). There is a close to zero sum tradeoff between being truly present with your kids, and having intellectually high quality uninterrupted time. But there is actually lots of time scattered about throughout the days! It's just in little moments here and there before you hear "dad, can you help me?". I really struggle with this, I have enough time in these scattered moments for my mind to get bored frequently, but I have nowhere close to the uninterrupted time necessary to develop a real serious hobby like woodworking. (Parenting is also the best thing in the world, this is not a complaint about parenting, it just happens to be that the specific topic of this article is the hardest thing about it, for me.)
- thunderbong 3mo ago
  That's a really nice point - about uninterrupted time. I do notice however, in myself as well as in others, that given an amount of uninterrupted time, we quickly get bored and pick up our phones to break it. I recall that when Covid hit, I suddenly had a lot of interrupted time on my hands. It quite felt like the times from when we were kids, when he had these vast swathes of time in the afternoon and before bedtime. I think for a lot of adults, besides the chores and errands that keep life busy, it's become a habit for us to fill up what little uninterrupted time we get with distractions.
- munificent 3mo ago
  When I had kids, I made a deliberate choice to focus on hobbies that were more amenable to interruption. I mostly put aside music and any physical artform that required getting out and putting stuff away each session. Instead, I did a lot more writing, programming, and making stuff on my laptop since pausing and resuming was only a Ctrl-S away. It also required learning the meta-skill of being able to break a large project into tiny pieces. I got a lot better at leaving notes to myself, not having too many projects going on in parallel, and thinking about problems when I was otherwise idle.
  - sanderjd 3mo ago
marginalia_nu 3mo ago
(Author of the post) For energy, it both requires and pays dividends. It's a bit like working out in that sense. I think my intended takeaway was that you really don't need to have make the thing you're studying take a lot of time, that daily consistency matters more than pouring hours into practice and obsessing about it. Though in general, I do still think it's the phones and media diet that is the problem with the sense of lacking time. Few years ago I had a full time job I felt like I had no time. Then I had a part time job, and I still had no time. Now I'm self employed, with nobody to answer to, and I still often feel like I have no time. Like damn, to get more time than I actually already have I'd need to move in next door to a black hole. Though when I unplug, then holy crap do I suddenly end up with a lot of time.
- MrScruff 3mo ago
  I think what the parent post was saying is that there is a finite amount of useful mental function time in any one day, and once you’ve exhausted this any attempted learning will be pretty inefficient. Also some jobs will have a faster burn rate. Doing a workout is separate as it doesn’t draw on the mental energy pool.
  - lacunary 3mo ago
    is true that if you've done some amount of mental effort in the day, learning becomes "pretty inefficient"? I could see that being true if you're exhausted, but then doing a workout would also be a problem.
    - coderc 3mo ago
      I would say that learning draws from the pool of "mental energy", but working out draws from the pool of "physical energy". Just because your brain is tired, it doesn't mean that your biceps are.
      - MrScruff 3mo ago
        Yeah exactly. After a hard day when my brain is frazzled, a workout will actually make me feel better.
idiotsecant 3mo ago
Anxiety procrastination is basically my default state. I find doing things with my hands while listening to dumb podcasts helps dissipate that energy.
- foxglacier 3mo ago
  Have you considered it might be something medically treatable? There are drugs for that sort of thing. I've tried some and wouldn't have believed it was possible before - aren't I anxious because I haven't done things I'm supposed to do and the consequences are nebulous and growing? Isn't anxiety a real signal telling me to get them finished? If you lose that feeling, you'll be even more screwed! But it turns out neurotypical people can be productive without being driven by stress.
  - hirvi74 3mo ago
    I am a firm believer in the saying, "Show me a pill with no side-effects, and I will show you a pill that does nothing." It appears you definitely have received some benefit, but if you do not mind me asking, at what cost? > But it turns out neurotypical people can be productive without being driven by stress. As some that is neurodivergent, I cannot even fathom this. I cannot function without stress.
    - foxglacier 3mo ago
      There are side effects and you may have to try different drugs to minimize them and maximize the effect. Medicine makes sense when the side effects are less bad than the problem that the main effect is solving, not only when there are no side effects. Some people choose what, if any pill to take each day according to what they intend to do that day.
mattgreenrocks 3mo ago
I'd argue all of those are often issues of how we perceive circumstances vs what actually is going on. There are real situations that crowd out this sort of thing, but they don't apply to everyone (having people that need care comes to mind or crunches at work). Jung has a great quote to the effect of, "we don't solve our problems, but rather outgrow them." Life is going to feel like mostly-imperfect circumstances for any venture, and your brain can be too good at rationalizing any [lack of] behavior.
doright 3mo ago
I have too much emotional attachment to progress. A lot of people made the mistake of putting too much energy into e.g. career instead of what you really want outside of a paycheck. Well, now I really am doing the thing I've always wanted, of course I suck at it, and most days I feel bad in the process. Some people feel good about making mistakes. Though necessary for long-term success, this is a completely foreign mindset to me. I have no idea how a person can do such a thing. I tend to overreact instead. It's not any wonder I would turn to doomscrolling in response, it seems the stakes in my mind are too high and effort invariably leads to depression (speaking from experience). It's too important to me to fail at. Maladaptive phone usage is for escaping that anxiety. I'm most likely burnt out from other attempts in the past. I don't get this feeling at all with work since I'm only doing it for money. I would feel bad if I couldn't learn the things I really wanted to in life because the emotional toll is too high to pay, after putting in all the work to have a stable income. I still have to manage the rest of my life on top of optional things.
paulreaney 3mo ago
[dead]
hypertexthero 3mo ago
Making a strict hour and a half of no-interruption a day has worked well for me. Learned this from John Cleese (feel free to ignore the word “management” in the title of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g Still occasionally get interrupted because of life, of course, but marking off an hour and a half and closing a door and putting all chores/calls on silent during that time is very helpful. And I understand that for many it is simply not possible. Private space is a luxury in much of the world. A sense of play and no obligation also helps. For more on this I recommend Rubin’s The Creative Act.
jambalaya8 3mo ago
I have been having more 'luck' with those factors and less luck with physical comfortability (I don't mean air conditioning; I have that). Also, timing. It is very true that it is becoming hard to monetize knowledge. The depth a lot of people seek is often the depth of about at most five or six websearch queries, or maybe three or four AI-enabled queries. It blows my mind that people want things like neural interfaces and human/computer physical integration, in part because, okay, let's say you have all that information there in your head, 24/7. What would it even be useful for, especially if others had it. You could not really make pay in any career involving a thought economy, and at the same time, you would destroy curiosity and actual learning, and you would almost certainly be (ugh) Bored (and Boring to anyone else). One reason Elon rubs me the wrong way.
sixo 3mo ago
Psychological state is key, and I think you're understating it. The human mind is always passively working on problems. We are not necessarily aware of how much working memory is "tied up" on background computations, but when it's a lot, we will feel a natural aversion to new learning, it will be exhausting, and we will lack for curiosity. This is fine, working as intended. When in this state, what one usually needs to do is a different part of the learning process: not absorbing new information or abstractions, but making sense of what one already knows, working out contradictions, assembling larger-scale theories--synthesis, basically. "Learning" is only one part of the arc of "thinking". Usually this is best done by writing, and usually comes easiest when trying to convince someone else or what we believe. If you can't find the energy to learn, try writing instead.
Lwerewolf 3mo ago
Re: energy specifically - I think "psychological state" is the main thing. Once there's a will, there's a way. Make it not draining on your psyche to explore new stuff and you're good to go. This really is as simple as not watching random feeds. Re: "taking things way too serious" - a general life advice is to be after the journey, not the result. Goes for career, sports achievements and anything along the lines. Worry about getting to some place/rank/etc in particular and it's an endless stream of despair. Worry about just enjoying the practice and not being afraid to rock the boat (i.e. try something outside _your_ beaten path) and you're set. Actual intelligence is as useful as it gets nowadays, given that it's at a premium.
kashunstva 3mo ago
> I have a problem that I take any learning way too seriously, such that it would require deliberate focused practice. Sometimes it kills all the fun, and sometimes I give up just because it takes too much energy This is a common trait of perfectionists. I have long forgotten the source, but someone once wrote that “Perfectionists have a special ability to turn the voluntary into the obligatory.” I, too, find this in voluntary pursuits.
locknitpicker 3mo ago
Your comment is self-contradictory. Here's what you wrote: > It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually (...) uninterrupted time (...) Let's ignore the semantics nitpicking of trying to make believe that "time" does not reflect "energy" or "correct psychological state". Trying to frame "I don't have uninterrupted time" as something distinct from "I don't have time" is a choice that cannot be explained, let alone justified. I mean, do you honestly believe that setting 10minutes aside each day for a task has the same impact as being able to set aside an hour a week to invest in the same task? Perhaps it's more productive to focus on the actual problem: not having time.

Scarblac 3mo ago

But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night. If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes mental energy.

dofm 3mo ago
> But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It's never been the phone for me, particularly. I just don't pick mine up very often. To have much more time to learn things I had to learn one key skill: systematically lose interest in syndicated American television. Other people can watch Lost, Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother etc.; I will use my time elsewhere. (OK so I picked three that are widely recognised as having a major letdown as an ending, but you see my point I guess.) Once I stopped sharing an interest in watching every episode of some show that a friend or the general zeitgeist was obsessed with, that is hundreds of hours (per show!) for a hobby. And these days it's hobby-enabling money, because in many cases these shows are the only reason to pick up an extra streaming subscription. You can buy a good 3D printer and some filament, or an electric guitar and a little amp or headphone effects unit for less than a year's premium plan for an American streaming service, and a fully playable guitar alone costs about as much as a year's standard Netflix. I learned this long enough ago that I have gone without a television for decades now. I had to re-learn it in the era of streaming TV. If you think you want to see one of these shows, they will be around forever so you can watch them from a hospital bed one day.
kelvinjps10 3mo ago
this is true
frankie_t 3mo ago
It isn't always just phone. If you are in a "bad" state, you'll find something else to ease it. And it's often hardly more productive than doomscrolling: just brooding, switching between activities rapidly, or drowsing. But phone is still the worst offender, of course. It doesn't just steal time and energy, it also reinforces its usage by producing more anxiety
jambalaya8 3mo ago
Wondering, which would you consider healthier, an hour scrolling on the phone or an hour watching a tv show (either a fictional one or talk show, either with commercials)? (aside from this, fascinating math ;))
- Scarblac 3mo ago
  It's hard to say because it depends on what you're looking at too, of course. But doomscrolling seems to teach your brain to never pay attention to anything for more than a few seconds, while at the same time being more exhausting than watching TV. So I'd say the TV is healthier.
- dpkirchner 3mo ago
  Whichever one you are more likely to do with friends and family, I'd say. IME that's TV because we're experiencing the same thing. If you're alone, it's probably a wash.

sanderjd 3mo ago

I think when people say "not enough time", they just mean "uninterrupted time". This is the thing that is extremely difficult in conjunction with parenting (and not just toddlers). There is a close to zero sum tradeoff between being truly present with your kids, and having intellectually high quality uninterrupted time. But there is actually lots of time scattered about throughout the days! It's just in little moments here and there before you hear "dad, can you help me?". I really struggle with this, I have enough time in these scattered moments for my mind to get bored frequently, but I have nowhere close to the uninterrupted time necessary to develop a real serious hobby like woodworking. (Parenting is also the best thing in the world, this is not a complaint about parenting, it just happens to be that the specific topic of this article is the hardest thing about it, for me.)

thunderbong 3mo ago
That's a really nice point - about uninterrupted time. I do notice however, in myself as well as in others, that given an amount of uninterrupted time, we quickly get bored and pick up our phones to break it. I recall that when Covid hit, I suddenly had a lot of interrupted time on my hands. It quite felt like the times from when we were kids, when he had these vast swathes of time in the afternoon and before bedtime. I think for a lot of adults, besides the chores and errands that keep life busy, it's become a habit for us to fill up what little uninterrupted time we get with distractions.
munificent 3mo ago
When I had kids, I made a deliberate choice to focus on hobbies that were more amenable to interruption. I mostly put aside music and any physical artform that required getting out and putting stuff away each session. Instead, I did a lot more writing, programming, and making stuff on my laptop since pausing and resuming was only a Ctrl-S away. It also required learning the meta-skill of being able to break a large project into tiny pieces. I got a lot better at leaving notes to myself, not having too many projects going on in parallel, and thinking about problems when I was otherwise idle.
- sanderjd 3mo ago

marginalia_nu 3mo ago

(Author of the post) For energy, it both requires and pays dividends. It's a bit like working out in that sense. I think my intended takeaway was that you really don't need to have make the thing you're studying take a lot of time, that daily consistency matters more than pouring hours into practice and obsessing about it. Though in general, I do still think it's the phones and media diet that is the problem with the sense of lacking time. Few years ago I had a full time job I felt like I had no time. Then I had a part time job, and I still had no time. Now I'm self employed, with nobody to answer to, and I still often feel like I have no time. Like damn, to get more time than I actually already have I'd need to move in next door to a black hole. Though when I unplug, then holy crap do I suddenly end up with a lot of time.

MrScruff 3mo ago
I think what the parent post was saying is that there is a finite amount of useful mental function time in any one day, and once you’ve exhausted this any attempted learning will be pretty inefficient. Also some jobs will have a faster burn rate. Doing a workout is separate as it doesn’t draw on the mental energy pool.
- lacunary 3mo ago
  is true that if you've done some amount of mental effort in the day, learning becomes "pretty inefficient"? I could see that being true if you're exhausted, but then doing a workout would also be a problem.
  - coderc 3mo ago
    I would say that learning draws from the pool of "mental energy", but working out draws from the pool of "physical energy". Just because your brain is tired, it doesn't mean that your biceps are.
    - MrScruff 3mo ago
      Yeah exactly. After a hard day when my brain is frazzled, a workout will actually make me feel better.

idiotsecant 3mo ago

Anxiety procrastination is basically my default state. I find doing things with my hands while listening to dumb podcasts helps dissipate that energy.

foxglacier 3mo ago
Have you considered it might be something medically treatable? There are drugs for that sort of thing. I've tried some and wouldn't have believed it was possible before - aren't I anxious because I haven't done things I'm supposed to do and the consequences are nebulous and growing? Isn't anxiety a real signal telling me to get them finished? If you lose that feeling, you'll be even more screwed! But it turns out neurotypical people can be productive without being driven by stress.
- hirvi74 3mo ago
  I am a firm believer in the saying, "Show me a pill with no side-effects, and I will show you a pill that does nothing." It appears you definitely have received some benefit, but if you do not mind me asking, at what cost? > But it turns out neurotypical people can be productive without being driven by stress. As some that is neurodivergent, I cannot even fathom this. I cannot function without stress.
  - foxglacier 3mo ago
    There are side effects and you may have to try different drugs to minimize them and maximize the effect. Medicine makes sense when the side effects are less bad than the problem that the main effect is solving, not only when there are no side effects. Some people choose what, if any pill to take each day according to what they intend to do that day.

mattgreenrocks 3mo ago

I'd argue all of those are often issues of how we perceive circumstances vs what actually is going on. There are real situations that crowd out this sort of thing, but they don't apply to everyone (having people that need care comes to mind or crunches at work). Jung has a great quote to the effect of, "we don't solve our problems, but rather outgrow them." Life is going to feel like mostly-imperfect circumstances for any venture, and your brain can be too good at rationalizing any [lack of] behavior.

doright 3mo ago

I have too much emotional attachment to progress. A lot of people made the mistake of putting too much energy into e.g. career instead of what you really want outside of a paycheck. Well, now I really am doing the thing I've always wanted, of course I suck at it, and most days I feel bad in the process. Some people feel good about making mistakes. Though necessary for long-term success, this is a completely foreign mindset to me. I have no idea how a person can do such a thing. I tend to overreact instead. It's not any wonder I would turn to doomscrolling in response, it seems the stakes in my mind are too high and effort invariably leads to depression (speaking from experience). It's too important to me to fail at. Maladaptive phone usage is for escaping that anxiety. I'm most likely burnt out from other attempts in the past. I don't get this feeling at all with work since I'm only doing it for money. I would feel bad if I couldn't learn the things I really wanted to in life because the emotional toll is too high to pay, after putting in all the work to have a stable income. I still have to manage the rest of my life on top of optional things.

paulreaney 3mo ago

[dead]

hypertexthero 3mo ago

Making a strict hour and a half of no-interruption a day has worked well for me. Learned this from John Cleese (feel free to ignore the word “management” in the title of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g Still occasionally get interrupted because of life, of course, but marking off an hour and a half and closing a door and putting all chores/calls on silent during that time is very helpful. And I understand that for many it is simply not possible. Private space is a luxury in much of the world. A sense of play and no obligation also helps. For more on this I recommend Rubin’s The Creative Act.

jambalaya8 3mo ago

I have been having more 'luck' with those factors and less luck with physical comfortability (I don't mean air conditioning; I have that). Also, timing. It is very true that it is becoming hard to monetize knowledge. The depth a lot of people seek is often the depth of about at most five or six websearch queries, or maybe three or four AI-enabled queries. It blows my mind that people want things like neural interfaces and human/computer physical integration, in part because, okay, let's say you have all that information there in your head, 24/7. What would it even be useful for, especially if others had it. You could not really make pay in any career involving a thought economy, and at the same time, you would destroy curiosity and actual learning, and you would almost certainly be (ugh) Bored (and Boring to anyone else). One reason Elon rubs me the wrong way.

sixo 3mo ago

Psychological state is key, and I think you're understating it. The human mind is always passively working on problems. We are not necessarily aware of how much working memory is "tied up" on background computations, but when it's a lot, we will feel a natural aversion to new learning, it will be exhausting, and we will lack for curiosity. This is fine, working as intended. When in this state, what one usually needs to do is a different part of the learning process: not absorbing new information or abstractions, but making sense of what one already knows, working out contradictions, assembling larger-scale theories--synthesis, basically. "Learning" is only one part of the arc of "thinking". Usually this is best done by writing, and usually comes easiest when trying to convince someone else or what we believe. If you can't find the energy to learn, try writing instead.

Lwerewolf 3mo ago

Re: energy specifically - I think "psychological state" is the main thing. Once there's a will, there's a way. Make it not draining on your psyche to explore new stuff and you're good to go. This really is as simple as not watching random feeds. Re: "taking things way too serious" - a general life advice is to be after the journey, not the result. Goes for career, sports achievements and anything along the lines. Worry about getting to some place/rank/etc in particular and it's an endless stream of despair. Worry about just enjoying the practice and not being afraid to rock the boat (i.e. try something outside _your_ beaten path) and you're set. Actual intelligence is as useful as it gets nowadays, given that it's at a premium.

kashunstva 3mo ago

> I have a problem that I take any learning way too seriously, such that it would require deliberate focused practice. Sometimes it kills all the fun, and sometimes I give up just because it takes too much energy This is a common trait of perfectionists. I have long forgotten the source, but someone once wrote that “Perfectionists have a special ability to turn the voluntary into the obligatory.” I, too, find this in voluntary pursuits.

locknitpicker 3mo ago

Your comment is self-contradictory. Here's what you wrote: > It's a very common thing to blame the lack of time and "finding" the extra time by suggesting to give up phone or some other form of procrastination. But in my experience, time is almost never a problem. It's usually (...) uninterrupted time (...) Let's ignore the semantics nitpicking of trying to make believe that "time" does not reflect "energy" or "correct psychological state". Trying to frame "I don't have uninterrupted time" as something distinct from "I don't have time" is a choice that cannot be explained, let alone justified. I mean, do you honestly believe that setting 10minutes aside each day for a task has the same impact as being able to set aside an hour a week to invest in the same task? Perhaps it's more productive to focus on the actual problem: not having time.