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Comment by pattle | Hacker News Reader

I always long for a life of idleness but financial constraints and my personal life are preventing it. I often dream of owning a house in the country with a few acres of land so I can live a life of seclusion, spending my days pottering about and indulging in hobbies.

I find that these days I rarely get any significant time to myself without interruptions of some kind. Like the article suggests this stifles my creativity because I can't think deeply enough about a subject before I'm distracted. It's true with my current lifestyle I get more done but it's less meaningful.

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You should read "Deep Work" i found it very enlightening and have put a lot of it into practice to make sure i have time for deep and creative work.

https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/...

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll check it out

I recommend reading The Shallows by Nicholas Carr before reading Deep Work.

Why?

Because Deep Work is more a "how", while The Shallows is more of a "why". It's good to know why, before you try to get to know how. Specifically, The Shallows is an investigation into what the Internet and modern technology does to the brain and what kind of side-effects it may have (affecting our ability to focus). It's a very well-written and accessible book.

Deep Work is more of a how-to book - about how to get ahead in world that's losing its ability to focus (due to the stuff described in The Shallows).

Thanks for responding!

Thanks for the follow up i have ordered the book. I didn't find deep work lacking but still look forward to reading the shallows.

Minimizing your commute goes a long way without having to physically remove yourself to some desolate region.

If you spend 2 hours commuting every day, then that's 2 hours that are essentially wasted, that could be used to cultivate idleness (or other, less idle activities).

I am so much happier to have all but eliminated my commute by living close to my office. Even when I was taking the train and could read, listen to music, play games, etc, those were always compromise activities and didn't contribute to my personal happiness.

Other people have suggested meditation/mindfulness as a solution, but that isn't necessarily the only way forward.

I agree that commute minimization is a game changer for freeing up time.

But it is a privilege.

Unless you happen to be very secure in your quickly-commutable job, or located a short commute distance from a variety of different job opportunities, you are at high risk of losing that short commute.

This is exacerbated in places like SV that have disparate job and housing centers, and extremely steep housing costs near those job centers.

> Even when I was taking the train and could read, listen to music, play games, etc, those were always compromise activities and didn't contribute to my personal happiness.

I've found that my short train commute (25 min) is a great time to memorize the compositions for an instrument that I play, with the help of a metronome app while viewing the sheet music on my phone.

It's far more relaxing than reading the news, for certain.

But it is a privilege.

I suspect that it's mostly down to undervaluing our time. Although we all complain about the hell of driving in traffic or riding on a busy train very few people are willing to compromise their income to avoid it. We probably get what we deserve.

I agree that we undervalue our time ... until we start to value it more, and then often it's too late (or expensive) to make a change to free more of it, and then the complaining commences.

I also think that this may have more to do with housing costs than income potential, given that there is a steep cliff of decreasing housing affordability associated with proximity to work, especially in knowledge-sector dominated areas.

This is usually the opposite in manufacturing industry dominated areas (i.e. the Rust Belt), where people often pay more to live farther away (and upwind/upstream) from the environmental externalities created by manufacturing facilities.

Sadly, I don’t know of too many rural tech companies. Which is sad, because I would take a fairly ridiculous pay cut to not live in a city.

Having a house in the country, I have discovered that one of my new hobbies is mowing. :-) I quite like it, actually; it's very reflective and the immediate results are gratifying. I also get to pull vines and weeds out of the rose bushes.

Gardening is a great way to escape distractions, especially if your main problem is electronic distractions. Even if you’ve got a smartphone in your pocket, muddy and/or gloved hands are a good deterrent to “let’s quickly check ...”

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