Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mikekchar | Hacker News Reader

I got married (answers both questions, I'm afraid). I often wonder if that is a really bad way of doing things since I tend to simply do what my wife wants. If I want "me time", I need to tell her in advance so she can put it in my schedule. However, I've always been super easy going in that respect. My wife loves organising things and trying to optimise stuff so that everything fits. She even optimises the meal preparation so that we never throw out any food (it's a miracle as far as I'm concerned). However, on the weekend I often want to cook and my wife will say, "I'd like paella. Please use up the mushrooms, milk, sauerkraut and pickles". So, I have to be pretty creative.

To be a bit more helpful (because I don't really want you marrying my wife -- it would be inconvenient for me), I think the real key is to ask yourself why you want a schedule. Where are the places you are hurting? It might be better to address those pain points directly rather than trying to overhaul your approach to living life. At least as far as I'm concerned (being very easy going in this respect), there is nothing wrong with not having a schedule. In fact, it is completely liberating. However, you need to have priorities and make sure that your priorities are addressed.

For me, at home, it works in a similar way.

There is a downside though.

I'm very very forgetful, so sometimes, my wife needs to remind me to do a certain task 3 or 4 times before I actually do it. I started noting things down to avoid forgetting as this puts some strain on our relationship.

I've been trialing the Things app recently. Pressing F12 anywhere, even when using some other app, pops up a window where you can quickly add a todo. When you're doing something else, and suddenly remember something you might want to do later, it's very easy to store it.

When you have the popup open it has shortcut keys for associating it with a certain project or date. If you're in a hurry, you can skip that and move it to the proper place later. Because of the shortcut and being able to organize later, it's completely effortless to note something.

Everything you add shows up on your phone as well, so it's really convenient for taking notes around a topic and not forgetting stuff. You can have daily repeating tasks too, which are nice for habit-building.

I am about to buy a kanban board at home, to make sure I remember all that needs to be done and make sure I get the priorities correctly.

It is a shame that I cannot upvote the parent comment 15 times.

Jokes apart, I find parent's awareness perplexing. Wife organising nearly everything in a married couple is way more common then anyone realises where I live, yet most men like to think that they are in charge when they (we?) tend to hide away from 90% of decision making.

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