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Comment by projektir | Hacker News Reader

> you fit the rest of the crap in any which way

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.

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Alternative strategy, get really fucking good at doing those things. Then you can get them done in a quarter of the time (compared to someone like the author), and you'll have a decent box of time to fill with doing things you love.

You can replace a daily 1 hour cooking with a 3 hour Sunday meal prep and save 4 hours for a week - you can spend 5 hours automating you lawn being watered, but probably not automate cutting it. There’s only so much time one can save.

Lawn cutting services are cheap and straightforward. Can't think of many things easier to automate.

Yes, and when you automate too many things with other people's labor it ends up getting expensive. Even if you have money, its not really much time savings - 30 minutes a week?

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.

Sort of, but a lot of these things are either time bound or not in your control. I think if they were so easy to optimize, most would have already optimized them.

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.

> no, your optimization techniques for at-home body weight are not welcome here

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.

Exactly what I was trying to get at! Thank you.

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