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Comment by lettergram | Hacker News Reader

I have a farm and work remotely. I'm awake 18 hrs a day, spend 6 with my family & 12 working -- 8 for tech job, 4 for farm. I do this 6 days a week. I'm insanely productive by most metrics (many many launched products, side gigs, work 1.5 jobs, etc). I schedule my day down to 15 min increments (though obviously, adjustments are always made).

Remote work affords me that opportunity and I work as hard as anyone. It's fun to wear the blue and white collar at the same time to be honest. I have survivalist friends, guys who work on cars, tech folks where wee discuss AI, etc.

I think Musk is wrong here, but do agree people need to roll up their sleeves and do legit work. You should always be contributing to your community, family, etc.

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Your work ethic is very impressive, but what do you mean by 'legit work'? Are you implying remote work is not legitimate? I'm confused because you even state that you spend your days working remotely - are you are obviously very productive at it. Is that not legit work, and only the blue collar is legit?

Not the author of the comment, but it is pretty clear to me that they are saying you can work from home and coast, or you can work from home and be productive, and they suggest that everyone who works from home should do the latter.

I agree with them. To me it isn't about the color of one's collar or the location they work from. It is about being productive. Productive workers should have flexibility, where possible. Unproductive ones shouldn't.

It's easier to coast at the office and look productive. Much easier. Attending every social fuction, social visits, adhoc meetings can kill half a week easy.

No disagreement here. I think office workers should be productive too.

Honest question: why?

Why should people work so hard all the time? In the US, we are already insanely productive compared to almost every other worker in every other country and even compared to ourselves a few decades ago.

We work hard to bring value to our employer who wouldn't waste a minute for sympathy when they lay us off to increase their margins for a quarter, but you feel that we have to be productive all the time or else, what? We are immoral?

I contend that the worker owes nothing but fulfilling their job description. If you don't have work to do, then why find it?

There is no need to 'be productive' every working hour of every day if you don't have to be. To do so is insanity in my opinion. Go be with your family. Kids grow up way too fast and you are missing it.

I think if productivity is high enough then there should just be fewer working hours.

Edit: I also want to be clear that I don't really think about productivity as an instantaneous measure, but more of an average over time. Someone (at home or at work) who is "coasting" in my opinion is someone who is rarely, if ever, productive. Someone who is productive is someone who gets good work done every week or month or whatever unit of time is relevant to the job at hand. What you do with this 5 minutes or that hour isn't really as important, IMO.

> people need to roll up their sleeves and do legit work.

I don't like this kind of Calvinist attitude toward work. Increasing productivity via technological advancement should free us all up to do more of what we want.

What does your planning process look like? I’d like to get more structure in my workday, maybe not that much… but how do you deal with the Stuff that inevitably Comes Up?

If you can, you push it to the next day and schedule accordingly. If you can, obviously plans changed lol. 99% of what we have going on can be pushed to tomorrow

How do you do this 15 minute scheduling, google calendar?

Most calendars you can break down to w.e. interval you want, I share a calendar with my family and we put our stuff up. Then for each bucket, I break it down individually as the day comes up. Takes like 10 min at night to put it all in, so maybe an hour a week of planning. That may seem like a lot, but worth the effort IMO.

As an example, every day my basic schedule: 6-8am with family, 8am-12pm [farm] work, 12pm-4pm [collaborative] work, 4-7pm chores & family, 7-9pm [emails / focus work] work, 9-10pm family, 10-12pm [focus] work.

Then the day before, I will break out individual events. There are times, for instance, I have to take a kid to the doctor so I'll block that out, put in all my meetings and adjust the 4-7pm family time to say 5-7pm (take an hr from work & family time).

It's all about being disciplined and trying to ensure you are organized and maximize time for me. Gotta keep focused

As an early retired person who is most definitely capitalizing on “taking it easy”, this lifestyle sounds positively exhausting and hellish to me.

I find it mostly interesting how different successful people can be with wildly varied takes on what works for them lifestyle-wise as well as what they value in life. Not to mention how we prioritize (and focus) our limited time on earth.

Kudos to you for making your life work well. We’re wired differently, and that’s okay.

i'm fascinated by your schedule as well - is your life (during the work week at least) really just work & family and all fully scheduled in advance?

what about hobbies? alone time? being lazy & purposefully wasting time? culture & entertainment? sports? etc. where exactly is your "me" fitting in here?

my european free spirited mind boggles

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that, morally, we should all be working like you do?

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