There's Not Enough Time
blog.karthiksthings.com
blog.karthiksthings.com
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.)
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.
The point here is for even an above average worker the daily expectations of the modern lifestyle can overwhelm even a budget minded person, or a couple with kids.
Exercise is often time gated. It's not something you want to rush in many cases. Definitely not foam rolling. Exercise also often incurs logistical costs (i.e., getting here). [no, your optimization techniques for at-home body weight are not welcome here]
Meditation is not really prone to that.
Doctor visits you can't control. Or haircuts.
Calls and visits to bureaucracies you can't control.
Social time fundamentally is not something you want to squeeze.
There's also a danger with getting spazzy if you optimize too much.
I think the bigger issue is too much crap for a person to take care of. Too many things to remember and schedule when they should just happen. I think it's an externality that is being captured by no one and it will get worse with time and we won't notice because we'll just call people who fail inferior.
Body weight exercise is not all you should be doing, but it's certainly helpful. Don't be close minded. Running is possibly the best exercise you can do, and you don't need to go anywhere.
Meditation can absolutely be fit into short segments throughout your day (and if you're overwhelmed, yes, it's probably a good idea).
You're right about most of the rest. You can obsess about what you're missing, or appreciate what you have. Either way, you'll be absolutely right.
I feel like there are so many parts of life I want to explore to see if I'd like them. I and a lot of people my age haven't found our 'triathalon' and I'm worried about not having enough time to find it.
Also, the post was more about there being so many recommendations and 'upkeep tasks' for being healthy and functional. I don't see how assessing whether things are worth doing is 'fundamentally passive'.
"Upkeep tasks" are never worth making your main focus. Fooling with diets, the quantified life, exercise regimens... these are not worth making the focus of life. They make you healthy and functional -- for what? You need something to be healthy and functional for. Start with that thing (or things), and work backwards. You can't make oiling your wheels (or tending to your .emacs file) the whole point. And I don't mean we all need some all-fired existential purpose in life, I just mean we need something we've decided to do.
If you're not yet 40... uh... hang in there.
Sorry, this might be my first ever man-on-the-mountain, lemme-tell-you-how-things-are post, and I don't mean to make a habit of it. But I've got some years behind me, and a lot of mistakes, and this is something I feel pretty confident about.
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.
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
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.
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.
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-so... [2]: https://www.amazon.com/Mastery-Keys-Success-Long-Term-Fulfil...
I think some of the frustration comes from not sticking with any one thing long enough to get meaningfully better at it.
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.
Off topic, but if you're interested in sports theory and writing, Suarez always makes me think of John McPhee's "A Sense of Where You Are", a profile of Bill Bradley when he was at Princeton. Probably one of my top 5 favorite sports books or articles.
And that's ok! And neither will I. I think some of my enthusiasm comes from picking up soccer later in life. I've found learning things as an adult is a totally different skill from learning as a child. By accepting that my goal is improving myself, and not competing with the world's best, I've found great joy in the smallest steps towards being a more perfect player.
Eh, this only works if the stuff you enjoy happens to line up with "productive" activities. :P
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.
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.
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)#...) and never return.
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.
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.
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.
> Do you eat lots of prepared foods or restaurant foods, or just lots of raw stuff?
A mix of the three. I'm more likely to eat raw kale than cook it in something. I like things like canned chickpeas. I sometimes boil things or cook simple items like scrambled eggs.
Cooking up a bowl of pasta is like 10 minutes of actual engaged cooking time. Boil some water, add pasta, meanwhile fry a some sausage and onion (maybe add some broccoli or other vegetable), once pasta and sausage are cooked, drain the pasta water, add pasta sauce from a bottle and the sausage, then put it in a bowl. Boom, there's a good dinner.
Then consider a lesson in putting yourself in the shoes of others. When I make the decision to not cook, I am not you. Capture that, and it will make sense. Unfortunately, more often than not, I found people are just looking for someone to consider below them, rather than understanding that some people just make different choices.
I think cooking takes as much time as it does modulo your skill level. Obviously someone who cooks a lot will have lots of tricks up their sleeve. Their confidence level will be high. They won't make dumb mistakes. It doesn't take them forever to chop an onion. My cooking skill level has never been high. For example: I'm really bad at coordination. If I am doing two things at once (boiling + frying), I tend to mess up timing. Something ends up overdone underdone.
Another: logistics. When did I buy that broccoli? What if I can't find good broccoli? What if it spoils? Now my plan is in ruins. This is probably the hardest part of cooking for me, is deciding on ingredients, buying them at the right time, and not letting them spoil.
Whenever I do make food, say, for potlucks, it's a sufficiently advanced process that I don't really want to repeat it every single day.
Also, I'm used to tasty food. I'm not used to bland food. Boiled pasta with store sauce is just not going to cut it, I tried. I'd need to, at minimum, add cheese to it. And boiling pasta is hardly cooking anyway.
My example was just that, an example. But to elaborate on it, it's not hard to make pasta sauce from scratch.
To add to my recipe, instead of using pasta sauce, add some passata or a tin of chopped tomatoes as well as some garlic to the pan with the sausage and onion, as well as some mixed herbs (or fresh if you're fancy) and some salt & pepper. Maybe add some olives or capers, both of which will last forever in your fridge. Now you have an easy, fresh pasta sauce from scratch (or just as much from scratch as a restaurant).
You can make a curry pretty easy too. Get some good curry powder, chickpeas, canned tomatoes, some diced chicken, onions, and garlic.
Cook the onions and garlic, add the curry powder and chicken, cook the chicken a bit, then add the tomatoes and chickpeas. Serve with a packet of precooked rice to make your life easier.
Steak, green beans, and mashed potatoes is an easy meal to make. You can even buy good frozen mashed potatoes.
Stir fry is like the easiest thing to make, just fry random meat and vegetables, and then add noodles or rice.
Here are some other easy meals to cook, which require minimal effort and ingredients: Salmon, broccoli, and quinoa. Lamb chops with roast pumpkin and parsnips. Haloumi, arugula, tomato, and cucumber salad.
Have a look at the recipes here: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/collections/midweek-meal-r...
Or here: https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/collections/quick-recipes
They're easy, tasty, and relatively cheap.
Seriously, I'm about the least organised person in the world and I can manage to cook for myself 5 days a week. It's not a difficult undertaking.
No one cooks every night in this world, unless it's their job. Real food lasts a lot longer than you think it does, and that shows your inexperience or lack of trying to even inch near the real thing.
You remind me of a kid that gets a water pistol expecting a bb gun and cries because water doesn't hurt.
Your gripes with cooking:
- I don't understand how long food lasts. Takes one time to learn.
- I don't know how to cut things. Takes one time to learn.
- I am used to tasty food. The cheap food from your restaurant is not from scratch. Restaurants are often less fresh and less diverse than what you make at home.
- I don't want to cook every day. What are you cooking, 2 sausages and an egg? How about cooking 4 sausages and 2 eggs. Use a pot that doesn't feed 1 person like a normal person. Do you cut parts of a tree off as you need them or do you cut the base?
Honestly I don't know how you live by yourself when you can generate these kinds of "blockades". How about before you pin something you can't do down to it's "negatives" you actually start to pin some effort into it.
Do you catch Ubers everywhere because last time you got in a car your feet got tired from grabbing the steering wheel and your back hurt from sitting upside down? No one taught you to drive that way, no one taught you to cook pasta, toss in sauce and a piece of cheese on top...
Just going to keep putting my comment in until it's not censored lol.
* 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.
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).
* 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...
Great suggestions otherwise though.
Between walking to/from work and the shops, I get a nice hour outside every day.
It also breaks up the monotony a bit. I go crazy if the only 2 places I spend time at all week are work and home. I specifically try to spend time away from home in my evenings.
The heck is No 2?
What is this mythical 10 minute haircut? I never had a 10 minute haircut.
Also, he's referring to the clipper settings. Number 2 is about a quarter of an inch.
I cut my hair real short for health reasons. But not having to fuss constantly with long hair has been a huge secret of success as a woman. It is not lost on me that some women with PhDs -- like the "Mother of Dark Matter" and the first female Field's Medalist -- had quite short hair.
Vera Rubin, Mother of Dark Matter, pics:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=vera+rubin&FORM=HDRSC2
Maryam Mirzakhani, first female Field's Medalist, pics:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=Maryam%20Mirzakhani&qs=...
But cleaning? I've got no interest, nor do I feel I get much value from it, so I outsource. I also make a real effort (failing often), to not do things that I don't feel add value: browsing social media or hacker news, opening articles I will never read in tabs in my browser, organizing things (send them to the thrift store), shopping (I shop online quite a bit), and so on.
If I did all that you suggested, I honestly don't know what I'd do with all that spare time.
I think that household chores are good for your mental health. While you're cooking dinner, or mopping the floor, or fixing that broken curtain rail, it gives you time to disconnect from everything. You've got a task at hand that you can focus on and exclude everything else.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.