Interesting to contrast this with articles that paint the various delivery/cooking/cleaning/task runner services as a kind of mom-in-a-box that real adults shouldn't need.
Maybe being a real adult is an unwise investment of time if you can afford to do without it.
There's a reasonable middle ground (that will differ by person). I spend very little time on bills--direct payment in most cases. I have a housecleaner who comes every few weeks to keep things at least vaguely under control. I have a lawn service. I use Amazon Prime which eliminates lots of little errands. That said, I don't go crazy with all the Internet task services, most of which seem like more trouble than they're worth and most aren't even available where I live.
OMG, that was a dreadful reading. And definitely, as an adult my life feels quite more easy and manageable than what she says, and I work, clean, cook, watch netflix, practice sport, and meet my friends besides all the other adult obligations.
How much time do you spend taking care of kids? That's the real time sink of adulthood (not just childcare itself, but also all the extra strain it generates in terms of household work, cleaning, etc).
10 years ago I had all the time in the world, even though I was an adult - a single, childless adult.
I have scaled back years ago: ditched the car ( does away with a whole class of problems/bills ). When I had a job no more than 32hrs. No TV, no cable. Do my groceries in combination with going the postal office, while biking/walking. I rent, do not own. Try to own as little as possible.
I call it the 'small life'. Lots of people in town know me, I know them, build a pretty social life.
- Found a job and dwelling that are reasonably near each other and the other amenities you need in your life, all in an area that's easily navigable by bicycle and foot
- Found a job that allows you to work only 32 hours while still paying enough to pay the bills
> No TV, no cable.
> Lots of people in town know me, I know them, build a pretty social life.
I love TV( youtube, Netflix, amazon etc). I grew up with state TV and there is no stopping me now. There are all kinds of amazing stuff on TV, there is no limit to how much you can explore the world. Eg: This week, I time traveled back to soviet union in the 50's got to look their communal houses, social classes, dress codes, social norms ect all while being entertained [1].
I would rather be emotionally dependent on TV than a bunch of unpredictable random strangers. 'Small life' to me not less stuff ( stuff is cheap), its having predictable emotional dependencies. I don't understand the minimalism movement, people are somehow emotionally tied to their couch so getting rid of it makes them free?
>ditched the car ( does away with a whole class of problems/bills ).
I never got into an actual car till I was 19 yrs old. Now I own a cheap new car that bought for around 20k from my savings. Only bill I pay is insurance of ~$100, and there is routine maintenance once every couple of months. I don't consider that 'whole class of problems'. I love owning a car, so much freedom and less dependence on random unpredictable human beings. Small life.
I save a solid 10.5 hours a week.. that grooming nonsense is for public facing human resources and not a cave dwelling engineer like me.. just put me in front of a computer in a dark room or in the lab with a bunch of hardware leave that grooming shit to the sales force.
When I look at my 4 yr old son, what really strikes me is the way he lives in the moment. He does not care about the future one single bit. He does what he wants to do (or has to do) and that is his entire world at that moment. No worries, no planning, no "I have to save some energy because I still have to do X in 2 hours and then Y, and when am I finally going to finish Z?" He just goes until he drops. When he comes home from a camping trip, which seemed quite intensive, activity packed, he runs into the garden and starts to jump on the trampoline. The he cries because he doesn't want to go to bed but is asleep as soon as his head hits the pillow... Until he jumps out again to play with his cars. There is only now.
I feel the answer is in there. Live more in the now and experience the calmness, even though you may be just as busy as ever. Busyness is just a label you put on your activities yourself. I'm sure my son does not understand being busy and if he would he would label it as a positive feeling. Busyness is a feeling caused by thinking of all the things you still have to do. Some people feel it when they have to do shopping and cook on 1 day, some people seem to never feel it even though they shop, cook, visit friends, work and do sports on 1 day. It's very subjective and there are techniques (mindfulness?) to feel it less than you do now.
To be fair, it's a lot easier to live in the moment when the planning is someone else's responsibility, i.e. Your son can live in the moment because you're the one buying the food, paying the bills
But if you can manage to not think about it until say 19:50, you will feel less busy. Working on your current task with 100% dedication, spending your breaks looking out the window just watching the birds land on the branches of the cherry tree will make you feel less busy, I guarantee it.
Edit: Not that I ever manage that myself of course but the theory is sound.
I can't say that I'm perfect at this, but I've found that to-do lists are a great way tool for helping me not think about things: Knowing that something is on my list and so I won't forget about it allows me to push it out of my head far more effectively.
Agreed - to-do lists help a lot, along with judicious use of reminders (a simple prompt helps a lot).
At least for me the key is to aggressively wean my to-do list, keeping items on it that I'm highly likely to complete in the next few days, as opposed to an ever-growing wish list.
Yep. There's a value to also keeping a maybe someday list but a to do list really does need to be tractable. I've known people who kept these ever-expanding multi-page to do lists and never got anything done.
I'm really not much of a productivity "system" person but David Allen has some good ideas around completing quick tasks, to do lists, breaking things up into manageable chunks, calendars being for events that are tied to a specific time/date, etc.
Regarding ideas from GTD, I can't stress the importance of weekly review enough. I find it to be at the same time the most important and most difficult part of a productivity system. All my attempts of managing my work gave immediate benefits for efficiency and peace of mind, but then quickly fell apart because I didn't do weekly reviews. Now I forced myself to treat them as top priority thing to do (more important than my job, even) - and the system has been stable for many months.
Good point. I don't do it systematically and should. Whenever I do, I realize stuff that I should be working on and stuff that has turned into a bit of a black hole.
Definitely. The appearance of smartwatches which are capable of understanding a command along the lines of "remind me to do $thing at $time/$place" has been excellent for improving my relaxation.
I concur. I use todo lists aggressively and I've noticed that I often don't remember most of the bullshit/errands I have to do, even on the same day but e.g. after work. I rely on my todo list to remind me, and to inform me when I'm making plans. My head feels much "lighter" than when I had to juggle all responsibilities in it all the time.
That said, there's a caveat here - as they say, "out of sight, out of mind", and I find it too easy to defend from being overworked by simply ignoring the todo list and not looking at it. This is dangerous and leads to failed obligations.
Same. My todo list didn't start working until I started scheduling reminders at fixed times to look at and process the list. I have just barely enough willpower not to dismiss the reminder until I've processed the list.
--> "busy" people
You shouldn't plan a grocery trip
--> you
You shouldn't schedule a grocery trip
You shouldn't consider your diet in advance (plan meals)
You shouldn't check if groceries are needed before shopping
You shouldn't make sure you have money in the bank before shopping
So there isn't much of a difference, you still have considered that you could afford groceries, that you need them, and even have a time planned. Then I wonder, why can't one make a grocery list and then go watch the birds?
As an aside, those living on tight budgets typically have no choice but to think about everything in advance, like you're piloting a dinghy on the high seas.
Yes - that can be a problem. For example, today may be the only day in the next few days I have time to buy groceries. So, not getting it today is more than "not having food for dinner", it's more like "not having breakfast for the next few days". Aight, so now I just buy breakfast on the go for the next few days, which means I've just spent 3x+ the amount of money I would on breakfast as opposed to just planning ahead...
I know people that made this their life style and how such occasions as opportunities. Opportunities to eat with friends, eat at your parents or do some rigorous dieting. Moreover, not being prepared by having at least some canned food in your closet has nothing to do with being busy or not.
My new technique is put many more items than possible on the todo list then get comfortable with the Swiss cheese appearance. Life is irregular so keep a pool of tasks in mind, not a rigid series.
I chose a system with super fast capture and sort, and I have reminders scheduled to view and re-sort everything I've captured at specific intervals. This is working for me, for the first time ever.
Emacs org-mode. You can write capture templates that populate the file of your choice with boilerplate of your specification, and you fill in the rest, and it's all tied to the keystroke of your choice. Then another keystroke of your choice pulls up lists of any or all of your captures, sorted chronologically or by category or both, and it's single keypresses to sort/resort into new categories. As with all things Emacs, it's a learning curve, but feels like magic once you have it set up the way you like it. I have capture templates for work for Right Now, Today, This Week, Coming Up, Ongoing, Pending, Done, Daily Log, and Meeting Notes; I also have capture templates and another file set up for my personal diary. All entries automatically tagged and timestamped.
I had been using org-mode for years before I started using custom capture templates and agenda views, and now it's clear to me that they're the magic that makes org-mode worth learning.
Compromises: no pictures, no phone. Other people make these things work, but it hasn't been worth it for me.
Oh and for reminders: Apple Reminders at 9:00, 12:45, and 16:00.
Any chance you could share some of those templates / views, if possible? I've been learning Spacemacs, coming from Sublime + Vintageous, and it's been a blast, but I haven't cracked the org-mode nut quite yet. Email's in profile if you'd rather not be public about it. :)
Your son lives in the now because that is all he can do. It's not a preference. If everybody were to live in the now, we wouldn't even have agriculture. Of course it's good to relax, but this line of thinking seems pernicious. It's great that adults are constantly harried by life's demands.
Agreed, with conditions. It is still possible to live in the moment and still have all of the tools that the higher brain functions give you, i.e. planning, forecasting.
The key is to plan in the present, then do the next thing and the next thing, each time in the present. Living like this requires adult versions of faith, agility and resourcefulness.
Even with planning, there can still be time for: "when you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep". Not everything needs to be planned. Big things do, but not everything does. Know when to deploy the higher functions and when not to.
The article doesn't really answer the question. It says adults are busy because they have too much stuff to do (duh..) But "why" is still a good question, and it remains unanswered.
The answer is that, as we grow up, we tend to develop the belief that our well-being needs to be justified somehow. In other words, we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved". And the way to justify, or "earn" our well-being, we are told, is by action. By doing things. So we become obsessed with doing things, as a way of seeking approval and justifying our well-being.
Of course, as any child knows... this is ridiculous. Action is not a means to an end. Action itself is one of the ways to enjoy life.
> I see it more as people wanting to experience everything they can.
I call this the buffet approach to life. Some people seem to want to cram a tiny bit of every thing onto their plate, nibbling at everything there is to offer. The alternative being a full course dinner with superbly executed dishes that compliment each other. Or you could just eat steak, whatever you prefer.
> It says adults are busy because they have too much stuff to do (duh..) But "why" is still a good question,
The article says that adults work, commute, clean, cook, take care of their dependent and so on... they don't do that to justify their existence but because it has to be done, unless you're rich enough to find other people doing these things for you...
Not every adult needs to cook in order for all the people to be fed.
Shared homes, or shared meals, would reduce the need cook so often. And reduce resource usage.
We've moved to a social system where all adults are expected to work. This leaves less time for social cohesion, domestic management, childrearing, and such. We've lost a lot in no longer having half of all parents not encumbered by paid work.
> We've lost a lot in no longer having half of all parents not encumbered by paid work.
We've also lost the ability to financially survive in a one-worker household, overall. Inflation adjusted household wages have long stagnated, and that's when factoring in women entering the workforce! Twice the workers for the same pay...
> we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved".
That may be your own personal motivation, but it is far from a generalization or even shared by many people.
For instance, people do work to make a living. For some people, making a living means paying the rent and put food on the table. For others, it means affording luxuries and materialist goals. Most people do need to work to cover these expenses, and the higher they cost the harder they need to work for them. This is the norm.
Then there are also other motivations. Some people decide to become entrepreneurs not because they seek riches, but because they believe they are able to create something new, something that no one else can provide, and believe that they have an obligation to be a source of progress and push the world forward in their own personal way.
Having grown up in the UK I've always felt guilty about not doing anything in my free time. Partly because everyone else seems to be living such a busy and rewarding existence (or so they would have me believe).
Now, living in Spain, I feel it's OK not to do anything. Just sitting in the shade for 6 hours watching the world go by doesn't make me a weirdo, like it does back home.
I find the vocabulary isn't that hard to learn as you pick up new words each day and eventually they stick. The grammar required to put those words together is another matter though.
It really does depend on your situation though. I have one to one lessons twice a week but it's not really enough as I manage to get by without having to speak that much during the week.
However, I know people who have picked it up fairly quickly because they are working in a public facing environment where they really have to learn fast.
The grammar required to put those words together is another matter though.
I wrote down a grammar card with all the verb conjugations (-AR, -IR, -ER verbs) and carried it in my pocket everywhere. When I couldn't remember, I (as soon as practical) pulled it out of my pocket and double-checked.
The most difficult one for me was getting la/el correct. Although by that point I knew the correct gender of each noun, it didn't come out correctly when speaking quickly.
I'm in Sevilla for several weeks and was told by locals to come in September rather than August, due to the heat letting up. So far, it's been 40-45C every single day (save for the past few), and that leaves me couped up in the apt.
I'm missing Lisbon, where I usually live (over 300 days of sun yet it never really gets unbearably hot). I can't imagine being in Andalucia during the entire summer, though I hear Granada isn't as bad (probably due to being 30 min to the mountains and 30 min to the beach).
True, I believe some of the the Northern regions can be relatively temperate? It is easy to forget that Spain is such a big country sometimes, especially compared to the UK.
Heh, I've noticed that Western culture does put a different emphasis on work ethics. After moving to Russia, I've just noticed a different approach to how work is perceived, and my partner and her mom have often cited this proverb at me:
Работа не волк - в лес не убежит.
Work is not a wolf, it will not run to the forest.
Basically, the idea is work isn't going anywhere, so no need to worry that much about it. At my last job in the US, I couldn't understand why people were so adamant about how busy they were when most of the time people were doing what they could to look busy. It's not that they were actually burdened with work, it was that they wanted to appear like they had no time. My employees would frequently get into arguments over who had the busier and more difficult schedule. My family does the same (one of my brothers prides himself on how little free time he had)
I guess it's just this perception that important people are busy and the inverse of that is if you're not busy you're not important. Just speculation, of course, but it's my experience that once you get away from the US, you lose this mindset.
Edit: I guess in fairness I should note that I did have genuinely busy coworkers - our under-staffed programming team were constantly under pressure and in constant repair mode due to not having the time or resources to move out of a crisis state. This is a true "always busy" scenario in my mind.
>Having grown up in the UK I've always felt guilty about not doing anything in my free time. Partly because everyone else seems to be living such a busy and rewarding existence
There are certainly area of the UK where this is true, but not all. I guess it can seem that way because we have dense areas of population where the good and bad parts are so close together?
The original author's distribution of time over responsibilities is not identical to mine, but it's similar enough to make me wonder where you're getting those 6 hours from. I'm not saying it's "weird," in fact I think it sounds lovely. But I doubt I could find six contiguous free hours in the next six months, except maybe if I spend my holidays with my in-laws.
I'm OK with not really doing anything, but I try to draw a line between totally squandering time (e.g. scrolling endlessly through facebook, or watching a show you don't enjoy, purely to kill time) and calm, idle time reading a book or watching nature. I haven't figured out how to describe it well yet.
> In other words, we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved".
It's not about being "deserved". There is no merit, morality or legitimacy concern here. Just plain pragmatism : good things will not come to you if you just sit on your couch all day.
Take for instance item 4 in OP's list: cleaning. Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.
> Of course, as any child knows...
Well yeah, because children have their parents do stuff for them. That's precisely OP's point.
There absolutely is a 'morality' (in the socially enforced sense) of cleaning. It's not quite as bad as it used to be, but your level of cleanliness isn't entirely a free choice because it affects how people judge you. And, unless you're extremely independent-minded, how you judge yourself.
Similarly there is a 'morality' of leisure: Protestant work ethic and all that. Note that one of the sibling comments talks about feeling a lot more comfortable relaxing in (Catholic) Spain.
> Take for instance item 4 in OP's list: cleaning. Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.
Maybe it should be like this. Our bodies clean themselves.
I keep wondering, how's the research in self-maintaining and self-cleaning materials going. Surely, getting rid of the need to constantly clean your house will require a lot of small breakthroughs, but it is a worthy goal given the time we all collectively waste.
(Personally I view all maintenance as waste - you have to pay your dues and not skimp on it, but you should at the same time minimize the cost as much as possible.)
Maybe because the people with means and influence don't really worry about this problem: they pay someone to do menial tasks like cleaning for them. I know in the country I live manual labour is so cheap I have a maid and a gardener that do that for me. It's so cheap I probably wouldn't bother automating it even if I could. The furthest I go is packing a dishwasher. Just because I don't like dirty dishes standing around on the days that the maid isn't there.
> Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.
The roomba and our cleaning lady are magical?
It's very simple: I get paid x/hr, the roomba as time advances effectively approaches a cost of 0/hr of work (same goes for the clothes and dishwasher) and the 1 hour the cleaning lady spends here is cheaper than what either of us earn during an hour. Why would we possibly spend our valuable time doing that when we can outsource it to a person and a robot for much less?
It's more practical than that. If you want things, you have to make them happen.
You don't clean and cook because you need to justify your existence but because you want to eat a decent meal on a clean plate. Many actions are definitely means to an end.
And yet people in certain European countries and tons of other parts in the world with different work attitudes can have tons of free time, despite having children et al.
Which ones are those? I'm from an European country and one of the biggest sources of internal stress for me is just noticing how much of my life gets wasted by having to have a job.
>Which ones are those? I'm from an European country and one of the biggest sources of internal stress for me is just noticing how much of my life gets wasted by having to have a job.
Check out most small towns (200K or less) and villages in places like France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc -- the one's I know off.
>Didn't mean to imply that. I was just whining about my own life ;).
Heh, I added that part to refer to the original parent's question.
From what I've seen (and lived myself) in such places, work is mostly something you do, quite casually, for 8 hours or so, and then (or even in between work, e.g. with "siesta" etc) there's lot of socializing, slower everyday pace, etc. And everybody knows everyone else. People are not "ambitious" in the stereotypical "make it big" US idea.
That said, this also holds in "smalltown USA" too -- well, except for the unfortunate souls who work as employees in nationwide firms like Walmart, et al. But for those with own businesses, farms, etc, it's mostly like that.
Of course in larger cities you can easily work 14 hour days for shit pay.
Well, they have free time for "everything else" too.
E.g. kids can just go out and play or go to afternoon classes themselves, they don't have to be constantly supervised by their parents or be driven everywhere, so they get more freedom, and parents gets more self time, for one example.
they have more free time in small towns because usually your grandparents and parents and in-laws live close by and will help with babysitting (often people these days are only children, so plenty of parents/grandparents available to help), cleaning and cooking, not to mention that in general you live within ~10 minutes commute of your workplace.
North America is a lot more "everybody fends for themselves" than Europe, I mean, here parents will charge rent to their kids and nobody bats an eye, so forget about free babysitting and/or your mom coming over to clean your place and leaving your fridge stocked with leftovers. Not to mention living in sprawly cities with huge commutes in general...
My thoughts exactly. The question is a very good one. But the article does not really answer it.
To add to your observation, I think there is also a social aspect to it. I have often felt that being "not busy" is not socially acceptable. Or in other words being busy is somehow more respectable. So we tend to brag about being busy, and helps to perpetuate this point of view.
To decondition oneself out of all of the social conditioning naturally involves giving up both cynicism[1] and pride[2] (they are socialized feelings).
[1] Urban Dictionary defines "Tell me more" as an expression of put-down: "When someone say something stupid or simple. It's used to annoy people by asking them to tell you more when the statement is final." http://tell-me-more.urbanup.com/6108370 And it takes the simple naïveté of childhood to dislodge the sophisticated cynicism of adulthood.
Ha, I should have been more careful, there was no hidden tone in my previous message. I genuinely wanted to know more about how to, and what are the limits (losing condition is probably not childhood regression either).
Do you consider asian philosophy (like buddhism I believe) that takes a contemplative approach on existence, to be childlike (from memories, I used to spend a lot of time contemplating things, lots of things are amazing when you're a kid, stone, river, rain, sky, ..)
ps: interesting interpretation of the nature of pride and cynicism. I'm not so sure about the social roots of pride, even though I agree that it's often socially distorded, but pride is also felt when doing something you feel about as beautiful, loving and right. For instance the other day instead of killing some annoying insect I took a step to tame my instinct and carefully move them out my room. This is also something I'd call "pride" even though it's far less social, but I agree it's not unrelated either)
pps: also not that I said 'your brain' as I believe it's a part of nature and evolution in our maturation from child to adult. As a child you enjoy asking things from others; a lot less later on though.
I find the word 'marvelling' more fitting to describe the childhood experiencing of "lots of things are amazing when you're a kid, stone, river, rain, sky, .." than 'contemplating' because the contemplation of Buddhism is a whole new ball game entirely (I find nothing childlike--much less naive--in withdrawing from the world of senses into a detached reality that forms the essence of meditative practices).
Try explaining rent to kids. We have to pay to exist? We have to pay how much? And they are right! I don't have a problem doing nothing. I don't care what others think. But I have to work far more than necessary because of the labour skiming rentiers. They are living off my back.
What's the problem with complaining about being downvoted? So it's ok to downvote without explanation, but not acceptable to ask for one? HN mods are such wankers, it's pathetic.
That's just how the world is, you know. Back in prehistoric times, you didn't just happen to find a free shack and live in it - you needed to build it and maintain it. Right now, landlords take care of that for you - for a price.
The land is the price. Maintenance is not much. They exploit the system, no way do most add the value they derive. They are parasites forcing up costs.
Ok, so we do away with private property ownership... How do you determine who gets to live where? Can I just build my house wherever I want? Can I block your doorway with a house I build right in front of yours?
In all fairness, you can't build a shack or pitch a tent just anywhere and live off the land. (Though, in practice, there's a lot of empty space in Western US and unimproved land can be very cheap. On the other hand, I don't suppose the parent poster would seriously live in a shack with no utilities, transportation, food supply, etc.)
Try building it in the forest though - it is most likely illegal due to some rentier (or government) already owning it. I think the grandparent has some truth to their words.
Existing outside the dwelling is illegal. Dwellings are owned by the elite rentier class, so you need some money just to exist (unless you are a rentier).
It's called "land enclosure". There is no common land and you must pay someone to stand anywhere.
I don't expect to exist for free given all the services the state supplies, such as healthcare, policing, roads etc. I also don't expect someone to own some land forever and derive rent from it as the workers pay taxes to build up infrastructure which augments the land value.
Yeah, the land is not free, but, outside of metro areas, the land can be dirt cheap. You certainly don't have to toil for years to buy a piece of it. Plus, in places like Siberia or Northern Canada perhaps, you can live for decades in a public forest without anyone noticing.
While raw "existence" is free, a sheltered existence is most certainly not. In many areas it is illegal to live in a tent or in a car, for example. It is also illegal to camp in a national forest for longer than 2 weeks.
> While raw "existence" is free, a sheltered existence is most certainly not.
I was replying to "We have to pay to exist?", not "We have to pay for a shelter?".
Being free to do something does not mean the means to accomplish it should be free of charge. I know lots of people think otherwise and therefore believe things like food, healthcare or accommodation should be given to them somehow for free, fortunately most people don't agree.
And we can't afford it because fiat money issuance by the banks is unconstrained and therefore trends towards saturation of all excess labour above basic needs such as food and clothing.
And the banks and the landlords mop it all up using the state to guard their property whilst the workers pay the taxes.
You also have to pay for the bounded, mappable area around that dwelling, unless you live in a ship on international waters or a perpetually-aloft aircraft in uncontrolled airspace.
In many places, homelessness, squatting, and camping without explicit permission are illegal. You might not have to continuously pay for the spot on which you stand, but if you stay on it for too long, eventually someone will come to collect or make you move on.
When it comes to kids, we often call it sharing. Billy has a toy truck you want to play with. You have a action figure he wants to play with. If you each share what you have, then everyone is happy.
That is all rent is. Billy has a house, you have cash. He wants to play with cash, and you want play house. If you each share what you have with each other, everyone is happy. Pretty simple.
You're right. If we're explaining this to adults, it is even simpler: Create something of value and you can exchange it for things other people have created of value.
The landlord either created the house, or the landlord created someone else of value and traded it for the house that someone else created. Houses don't appear out of thin air.
Credit is just sharing value that was already created. Credit has to be repaid with value that will be created in the future.
> Also the house is often worth far less than the land.
While that can be true, it is only true if someone has created value around it, or has exchanged the value that they created elsewhere for it.
It is not like land itself is all that valuable. A quick look at the real estate listings showed me all kinds of vacant lots for just $2,000. It takes more than dirt to derive value. Something has to be created.
The state confers value through infra and planning permission. Credit is created from nothing and then repaid with real labour, it is not value already created. Banks rent money they create. The people add value through taxes, the landlord waits.
Also rent is a proxy for labour. You are labouring and then handing it over via a medium of exchange to your landlord who does very little work. He doesn't have to because our banks and govt allow exploitation through land.
Why aren't you getting your money back? The only reason why you would want to occupy someone else's space is precisely because you see an opportunity to get all your money back.
I'm sure it's different in different markets, different countries, etc.
That said, I know several people who own multiple homes and lease them out. They often barely break even with mortgage payments, maintenance, dealing with deadbeat tenants, etc. Sure, once a house is paid off, they have a nice source of income, but they're taking a decent amount of risk having so much of their money tied up in such a limited number of investments. Some of them are still under water on rental property mortgages after the 2008 crash.
They're not skimming labour off of their tenants. They're providing a service for a fee.
And if you're talking about large apartment complexes, that's not some landlord "rentier" class. That's a corporation, just like any other.
You don't have to pay to exist; just ask any homeless person. If you want to live in a home or any type of shelter, you have to make it yourself or obtain access to one that has been built. It has always been so. There are various ways to obtain access: squat, pay rent, perform services in exchange, couchsurf, join a commune, convince friends or family to accept you, buy, etc.
> They often barely break even with mortgage payments, maintenance, dealing with deadbeat tenants, etc. Sure, once a house is paid off, they have a nice source of income
So they get several hundred K for very little work that anyone could do.
There is no risk with the central bank land ramping. In urban areas they are limiting supply, forcing up prices and taking labour.
If someone does very little work and gets several hundred K that comes from somewhere.
Why is it necessarily exploiting people to charge a market rate for a good or service?
That makes no sense, unless you just don't believe in private property – which is a different argument and not one I'm super interested in having.
And honestly, if you think it's so easy to be a landlord, you should try it. It's not. It can be fairly easy, until you have:
- a tenant who won't pay but also refuses to leave, necessitating legal action to evict, which is doubly expensive due to the legal fees and lost income
- a tenant who wrecks the property, e.g., letting their cat pee all over the wood floor, but refuses to provide any additional money to remedy
- a tenant who falls in the yard and initiates a frivolous lawsuit against you
- squatters who refuse to leave and require police action
- a roof that needs replacing, new HVAC, new appliances, etc.
Investing in rental properties often performs no better than just investing in the general stock market. Is that exploiting people? Is it exploiting people to have a savings account that pays interest? Anybody can do that and gets free money.
I still don't understand. Just because a bank will lend someone money to buy a home, why is it exploitative to offer someone else the chance of living in that home?
I wish we could sit down over coffee or whatevs and discuss this. I feel like we must have fundamentally different views of the world, and I would like to understand yours better. I rarely meet people whose views I don't understand, even if I disagree – especially people to the "left" of me.
I rented for as long as I've now been a homeowner. I never felt like I was being exploited as a renter. I was essentially paying the same in rent as a mortgage, but as a renter, I got a ton of advantages. For example, I didn't have to pay for maintenance of the home, I got access to nice amenities, and I got the flexibility to easily move somewhere else at the end of the year. For a fee, I got to offload a huge amount of stress onto someone else – the property owner.
I know someone who owns two homes and rents them out. Meanwhile, she lives in a small rented townhouse shared with 2 other housemates. She does this, because she's very handy and can do most of the maintenance herself. And she feels she understands the real estate market better than the stock/bond market. So, these homes are basically her retirement savings. She's not forcing anyone to live in them, and she can't afford to have them sit vacant very long. So, she must price them at a rate that will attract renters. I just don't see the exploitation in that scenario.
Easy. "Kids, it's time you started paying me rent. Got no money? No problem. I got a lot of chores: cleaning the house, dishwashing, laundry, cooking, etc. Mummy and Daddy are off to catch some Pokemon or whatever."
Nope, totally wrong. The service you deliver to your children will far outweigh that rendered by them, at least in their youth. Inverse for renter / landlord.
All landlords reap far less than they sow. They are rentiers, they do not create wealth rather they exploit our regressive property laws to extract labour.
I think this is a wholly narcissistic point of view .. moreso, I believe that the reason adults are so busy is that they realize that none of the luxuries they've gained can be attained without the help of other people working for them and so in order to maintain a fair life, adults work just as hard as others need to - on average - in order to maintain civilized life.
Where civilized life is defined in the regions between childhood and adulthood.
This is not a realisation, it's a belief. And it's a very boring one. I quite enjoy my narcissistic views and have absolutely no interest in trading them in for your moralism ("fairness", "equality", "justice" and other socialist bullshit). Live your own hell all you want, just don't inflict it on others. Since you're a believer in "fairness", I'll cut you a fair deal: I'll keep my luxuries to myself and you keep your "responsibilities" to yourself. Deal?
I'm okay with your statement, its your right after all, but lets see if you have the same views in 5, 10, 20 years time from now. I wager not, but thats entirely up to you. Responsibility for ones social existence is one thing; calling it 'socialist bullshit' is another thing entirely. There is nothing in this statement of belief, that we are all very dependent on each other, that makes it a socialist ideal. Even the most rabid totalitarian-authoritarian imperialists have to admit, they can't make all the good shit themselves...
> ... But "why" is still a good question, and it remains unanswered
Mr. Clayton Christensen says its because adults like to invest their effort in stuff that gives them the most immediate sense of achievement - and that turns out to be their careers; spending your time with the kids (or doing other thing that might make more sense) doesn't give you this kick, often its a long term investment that gets neglected.
Actually our physiology, may constrain us to this type of behaviour, throught the inner reward system that releases certain dopamine and other "feel good" neurotransmitters only after a certain level of effort / stress has beed detected, that is after high levels of cortisol, which is connected to stress .
This is of course a very simplistic description and by no means explains the result but it may play an important role.
This is a mechanism evolved since our existence in the wilderness and may have very different/negative results in our modern lives if not filtered through higher level mental functions. But anyway giving the fact that it's such a low level mechanism is hard to control it totally..
I used to believe this, now a little bit less, at a certain age I'd say our brain takes pride/comfort into being a fair social agent (not a child anymore). You try to be independant while collaborating with others and satisfy your needs mutually. Society just amplified that trait.
If you ask that "why" question like a 3-year-old - i.e. keep asking it repeatedly until you get to the reason behind the reason behind the reason, the answer you'll arrive at is entropy. You can surrender to it or work against it. How much order you want, determines how much work you'll have to do. Western society has a certain baseline level of order that takes a fair amount of work to maintain.
A "why" I'll give that doesn't violate Ockhams Razor or elaborately explain social signalling without mentioning the term is I'm an introvert and I'm massively recharging when I'm standing in front of my stove chilling out to my favorite podcast while tasting amazing flavors from a new recipe, just basically loving life, just soaking up the good feels. I'll probably need them later at work or something. Standing alone in front of a stove is one of many extrovert hells but, not being an extrovert it is extremely recharging for me. In fact just sitting here writing this I'm daydreaming of an interesting mushroom and potatoe vegetarian casserole I'm excited to try cooking this Saturday, I'm really looking forward to the experience.
And to get that kind of recharging experience without hurting feelings sometimes you have to tell other adults, well, sure I'd "love" to sit in a two hour traffic jam to get to some sportsball game (I don't care about sports), or I'd "love" to sit in a smokey (I don't smoke) bar full of obnoxious drunks (I rarely drink) all night (I rarely stay up all night or up late), but woe is me I gotta do yardwork or the HOA will ticket me (actually I don't have a HOA where I live), woe is me woe is me, you guys go on bravely without me, adults are just soooo busy what a shame it truly is. And everyone leaves happy.
Its important to note there's doing laundry as per the mom in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory all exhausted and sweaty and drudgery and heavy manual labor for a 16 hour working day, but lets face it, my "2 hours per week" from the insane article is less than 5 minutes of moving stuff from baskets to machines and more than 1:55 of reading an exciting new book or playing in my workshop or playing video games or goofing off online. Again see above paragraphs, I'm sure doing laundry is some circle of hell for an extrovert but I've got my headphones on and I am totally rocking it and having a great time, maybe the best time of my week.
If you think its ridiculous for extroverts to "extrovert" in some of the article activities individually, imagine how crazy my actual life is for an extrovert when I double dip. If you're not sweating you're not cleaning hard enough, so I count cleaning time as exercise time, and why not do that while the clothes are in the dryer, that's triple dipping? That's not extrovert compatible lifestyle, somehow I don't envision hearing "hey bros come on over for beers and sweaty toilet scrubbing party!" Yet weird as it sounds with the right music or right podcast blasting, cleaning the bathroom isn't the worst part of the week.
Its not socially acceptable in general to be an introvert or admit to it, but I'm old enough to have accumulated enough F-you points to get away with that kind of behavior.
I think reading The Little Prince should be required approximately every five years from college graduation until end of life. It's far too easy to fall into a "daily grind", where one operates in a zombie-like mode executing a lot of minute tasks that are mostly devoid of any legitimate impact.
Or you know, you have responsibilities. I know where my free time went, it got soaked up by the kids. Get up, go to work, go home, kid time, bed time, now I have maybe an hour or two to cram in everything that makes me not a dull automaton, but half of that is spent fixing stuff or I'm too exhausted to do anything. You don't even get weekends, there's always stuff going on.
And I'm far from the busiest parent I know. One of the neighbors has a kid in competitive swim so she's up at 4AM every morning for swim class, then sending the kid to school, then sending the other kid to school, then a brief window to get stuff done during the day (at least she has that, with 3 year olds you don't get the school break), then bus pickup, then bus pickup, dinner, homework, then bedtime. Weekends are swim meets--every weekend. Often several hours away, plus whatever the other kid is doing.
Keeping a schedule like that up perpetually is exhausting, and there's basically no opportunity for adult activities. Nothing to talk about except swim meets.
Most of tasks are exaggerated or poorly managed. I do all the mentioned stuff, get a good night sleep (7-8 h), plus studying for master's degree and still have time for my hobbies and friends. Time management is a critical skill to learn while being adult.
A lot of my time is 'wasted' by recovering from work. I have a nice physically easy programming job. But it's quite a lot of hours, and there is travel on top of that. But when I get home I need to spend at least an hour basically going 'ughhhhh' and just doing nothing much. It's necessary, but eats so much time.
What's your commute like? Can you arrange things to combine commute and de-stress time?
In my experience the best way to de stress is to walk, but that's obviously not feasible for most. It's worth moving to make it possible, in my opinion.
Mass transit is pretty awesome too. Even if it takes longer, you can plug in your headphones and zone, netflix and chill, or best of all, take a nap.
Biking in urban areas can be pretty stressful, but the exercise it provides is pretty effective at helping the body recover from stress.
>> "Mass transit is pretty awesome too. Even if it takes longer, you can plug in your headphones and zone, netflix and chill, or best of all, take a nap."
Depends where you live. For me mass transit at rush hour is incredibly stressful.
Yeah, where does all this mass transit love come from? Every city I've been to has congested mass transit on rush hour. And if it's not congested, you still have to deal with inconsiderate, sick, obnoxious, or aggressive people. The 6 train in NYC home from work drained me even though I was only on it for one stop (two minutes). Definitely not getting a seat either; if you do, someone is hovering right over you anyways. It was more of a stress than when I used to drive 45 mins (different city).
Commuter rail might not be as crowded but has its own set of issues.
Missed security. You could argue it falls under the responsibility sections, but protecting your possessions without your presence is definitely extra effort.
Yes, good question. I think this is because nowadays, work is mostly a way to skew wealth distribution in your favor. Therefore people that can work more, do work more. That contributes to make them wealthier. The others, are unemployed.
You will never have it. As productivity increases you will have more disposable income and land prices will rise pushing up rents. See Henry George "On progress and poverty". The more advanced the more poor.
The current system transfers gains over to land. Silicon valley being a prime example, all on their big salaries with big rents. Zuckerberg and a bunch of land owners got rich, the latter without raising a finger.
If you're actually serious about cutting down your work week, check out the book 4 Hour Work Week. It's not perfect, but at least does a good job at entertaining the idea.
Because of the asymmetry in laboral relationships.
If you have a rare, valuable skill, employers will be willing to pay handsomely for your time, but they will demand a lot of your time. IF you are good enough, they will be even willing to pay you premium to have you not use your skills for anyone else. The caveat is that these arrangements are, more often than not, non-negotiable. It is an all or nothing proposition.
On the other hand, if your skills are commodity, potential employers will be happy to hire you part time (so they do not have to give you any benefits). However, your wage will be so low that, more often than not, you'll want to juggle two or more part-time jobs so you can earn a reasonable compensation that actually pays for your living expenses.
The numbers seemed very high to me so I created a list on my own and thought I'd share it (single, no kids, full time job).
1. Work: 40 hours
2. Cooking: 3 h (who the hell cooks three times a day?)
3. Laundry: 0.5 h (once a week)
4. Cleaning: 1 h (and I am very clean, I just avoid producing dirt)
5. Buying stuff: .5 h (I try to avoid buying too much stuff I don't really need)
6. Bills: 0 h (they a are paid automatically from my account)
7. Small errands: 1 h
8. Transport: 4 h (I ride my bicycle to work, so one could count that as exercise)
9. Staying healthy: 4 h (in addition to the bicycling to and from work)
10. Finances: 0 h (I have no idea how anyone can spend so much time on this. I just live by the simple rule: don't get into debt and move some of your income automatically on a saving account)
11. Taxes: 0 h (automated in Germany)
12. Responsibility for Yourself: 0 h (weird point)
13. Responsibility for your dependents: 0 h (I'm not responsible for anyone and visiting my family is fun)
14. Being sick: 0 h
15. One time errands: 2 h (I have to do some irregular stuff)
16. Long term planning: 1h (because I'm actively thinking about it at the moment)
1. Attire and Grooming: 3.5 h (half an hour every morning, 3 minutes in the evening)
2. Sleep: 49 h
3. Eating: 1.5 h (breakfast and lunch is included in work time)
Overall: 109 h
Free time: 49 h
I think it all comes down to priorities and you current life situation. But one can influence most of these things and you have to decide what is really important in your life. For me, it's free time.
You say free time is your priority, but even with this ideal list (it makes some very unrealistic assumptions) your free time is only 50% of your responsibilities time.
Yes, it could be more. I'm actually thinking about reducing my working hours. Could you elaborate on which assumptions seem unrealistic to you? I tried to list them as honest as possible, but for sure I might have overlooked something. The estimated free time aligns quite well with my daily perception (also, I could see 'staying healthy' as free time, because I go rock climbing and thats just something I love to do as a hobby).
On second thought, "very unrealistic" was harsh. I (or anyone) could nitpick a few hours per week here and there but nothing significant. You are right that it's really just about current life situation. As a married homeowner, my responsibility time is much higher, hah.
No kidding! I feel like my wife & I get somewhere between 1-2hr/day of discretionary time, and it's not in large blocks most days... and it includes things like calling the utility provider to figure out a billing problem, vacation & event planning, chatting with neighbors/friends, and anything else that isn't a natural part of the "committed parent + homeowner" categories.
It distorts the statistics a bit, though. You could have 75% of your waking hours be free time and still calculate that you're spending half your time on 'responsibilities'.
I think the meals I have are quite healthy, I just cook once a day. Also, if you enjoy cooking, wouldn't you add it to the free time because it's a hobby?
This! When I cook for fun (i.e. friends) I wouldn't count it as a chore, and the daily meals either I do big batches of stuff and freeze them (i.e. this sunday I cooked about 1kg of bolognese sauce that's now frozen in 1 servings) or I cook something that doesn't really take more than 20-30 minutes of active cooking.
I suppose it depends how you define cooking. If I'm at home, I'll generally make something 3 times a day but breakfast is usually something really quick and lunch will tend to be a sandwich or heated leftovers. I like cooking but I can't really imagine cooking multiple full-blown meals a day. I don't eat that much even if someone else is doing the cooking.
I explicitly divide my "cooking" into two categories. Food I make to sustain my body, and food I make because I like it as an activity. Most of the meals I eat fall under the former category, and so I personally prefer to eat meals that make themselves (e.g. drop some wieners into a pan, light up the stove, come back in 5 minutes, done) or to order - any time spent on preparing them is time wasted for me. Cooking for pleasure is something I'd put into "hobby" section, and thus not count it as a chore (cleaning up after it - that's another thing).
Even so, that can be reduced to twice a day if you cook in batches (i.e. have leftovers for lunch). That seems more optimal to me without compromising the healthy aspect.
Agree and extend with the suggestion to try healthy fast food. Take advantage of products like fresh instant salad in a bag, or frozen stir fry vegetables in a bag.
I'll have my wok cleaned and put away for next time before the frozen pizza chefs have their oven preheated. Or I'll be half done eating my lunch salad before the frozen burrito comes out of the microwave.
I'm not sure that "open bag, dump salad on plate" even counts as cooking, but that's like 1/3 of my meals and the "cooking" process takes about 10 seconds.
Time spent cooking isn't a factor when determining the health of the meal.
I make five medium sized breakfast burrito's on Sunday night and refrigerate them. One every morning. That's a whole wheat wrap, a couple eggs, green peppers, and chopped onions. This takes me about a half hour on Sunday including cleanup and 5 seconds to grab one out of the fridge each morning. I supplement it with a granola bar.
I won't claim to be ultra concerned with my dietary balance, but you definitely don't need to spend a ton of time cooking to be healthy.
I once spent a few months alternating between cooking up a batch of "the concoction" on a weekend afternoon, and eating nothing but that over the next two weeks.
If it tasted better, I might still be doing it. It's actually the same sort of thing prisons feed to problem inmates to punish misbehavior, except they call it "nutriloaf", and put more actual food in it.
Mine was mostly eggs, coconut oil, and chia seed. It looked horrible, but it barely tasted like anything at all. I might tweak my recipe and try it again some day, but the family won't even look in its general direction, so somebody still has to actually cook meals.
No, it's not from actual measurement. I tried to think through my days in the past few weeks. But even if I'm off an hour here or there, I'd never come down to just 10 hours of free time a week.
It's not that nasty if you have non-carpeted floors and a swiffer. Living somewhere warmer (no salt, snow, etc.) helps too.
I don't have orthopedic problems, but I've found that I'm generally more comfortable by the end of the day if I'm wearing shoes at home vs barefoot or slippers. This is especially true if I spend a few hours in the kitchen standing up to cook, etc.
Additionally, where I grew up it's odd/rude for a visitor to remove their shoes or be asked to remove their shoes. Different strokes and all that. :)
Curious where you grew up, because I've noticed lately (since we stopped wearing shoes in the house), that almost all our visitors -- no matter what their ethnicity or place of origin -- tend to either volunteer to remove theirs or tell us they also don't wear shoes indoors.
Not OP but: High quality mats inside and outside every entrance to the house/apartment. I use a stiff bristle mat outside and a softer/more absorbent mat inside.
> 2. Cooking: 3 h (who the hell cooks three times a day?)
i work from home so i do usually. once you get good at cooking, most restaurant food is un-appetizing or extremely expensive for what you are receiving. it also helps me maintain my weight and not be a complete fatass.
i still eat out a couple of times a week but i'd say a good 75% to 90% of my meals are cooked at home. par-cooking common ingredients in batches helps a lot. it's basically like running a small commercial kitchen for myself.
once you get good at cooking it's basically a 'flow' activity. line cooks get 'in the zone' when the rush hits.
also, once you get the basics down most day to day meals take about 10-15 minutes to cook, not including roasting time which is passive.
the only downside for cooking to me is the cleanup. that never stops sucking for me and brings out my lazy streak.
I think if you actually timed some of this stuff your numbers might need to be adjusted. For example, unless your 1/2hr laundry is drop-off/pick-up from a service, it takes a couple hours to run a load through a washer, dryer & fold to put away. Ditto with errands. Some weeks you get lucky. Other weeks, not so much.
People with children at home will obviously have very different time allocations (I do laundry almost daily, and if I let it pile up to fold once a week it takes 2-3hours to fold and put away everything. Family meal times can take 2hours each, depending whether we get the food ready quickly and the kids feel like eating. Someone is always sick. )
Not OP, but laundry for me consumes about that much time, since I swing by a local (self-service, in my apt complex) laundromat to drop things in the wash, which takes a couple minutes, swing by again to transfer to dryer, and then the third time to pick it up, at which point it gets folded. Those might take place over the course of a couple hours, but 1.5hrs is spent doing other things. Not at all unreasonable.
Well if you cook for more people, and someone cleans for more people and someone else does something for more people... it becomes fun and you won't have to do some stuff of that list because someone else did it.
Being rich and never having to work except on something you really want to do is worth achieving mostly because of this. I don't really care about material things, and I love my job, but being free to do anything I want is liberating.
This also leads to breakthroughs like tools, agriculture, figuring out the planet is round, math, philosophy, physics etc. Most people would just party though.
"I'm busy" is really just an excuse for not taking productive action. You know all those people you look up to that seem to be 10 times more productive than you? Whether it's Elon Musk running multiple blue ocean companies while being a technological innovator or Richard Branson leading over 400 companies, or whoever it might be, they all have the same 24 hours that you do. In the end it's up to you whether you find ways to make the most out of your time or just repeat the same tasks every day.
It took me a long time to realize this, but it finally clicked for me fairly recently. Record everything you do for a day, figure out which are of low or no value, and figure out how to get rid of them, create systems to reduce the time you spend on them, or delegate them. The most time-consuming things often can't be totally cut out, but they can be systemized or delegated. In the end, only you control your time (and if you don't, you have a bigger problem).
Edit: If anyone is interested in the resources I've found helpful in this realization and the implementation of taking actions to take back control of my own time, feel free to send me an email (in profile).
"The most time-consuming things often can't be totally cut out, but they can be systemized or delegated."
This is a big part of it, and it makes the comparison between Musk or Branson and an average Joe a bit disingenuous. They have the wealth afford to delegate many things that consume an average person's time. I doubt Musk does his own grocery shopping, and Branson likely doesn't scrub his own toilets.
It's hard to come up with examples without choosing people with wealth, since people who excel at time management become wealthy. It starts with good time management techniques, which leads to wealth, which leads to the ability to delegate the low and no-value parts of your life.
Let's say someone with bad time management goes to the grocery store every day, and the nearest one is a 10 minute drive away. They spend at minimum 45 minutes going to and from the grocery store, choosing food, waiting in checkout lines etc every day. That's over 5 hours per week! Musk spends 0 hours. But it's not all or nothing. Instead, a 30 minute investment of planning out a general meal schedule and grocery list for it on Sunday, and one trip to the grocery store might take an hour and a half. That's 3.5 hours of savings per week!
Repeat this for cooking, cleaning around the house, etc, and I guarantee you can find significant time savings in systemizing routines. If you save even 2 hours every week, that's an entire 8 hour work day per month. If you make, let's say, $300 daily as a software engineer that's quite a bit of savings! Even... maybe enough to hire a house cleaner and someone to do grocery shopping for you.
Let me give you one example. Birthdays. My wife has two sisters and both parents are alive. That's 5 events a year. Double that for my family. 10 events a year. That's basically once a month I'm spending a weekend afternoon or evening. That's just birthdays.
Add kids in and suddenly every other weekend is filled with something. That isn't including extended family.
This is my single biggest justification for not doing my own laundry. I've run experiments.
If I take my laundry to a laundromat, run it through the washer, move it to the drier, (run it through the drier again because it isn't dry), fold and put it all away, it costs me about $12 in quarters. It also costs me two or three hours of time, where I'm pretty much stuck at the laundromat, unable to do anything really worthwhile.
If I drop the laundry off at the laundromat and have them do it for me, that wash-dry-fold service usually costs about $30. I toss it in a bag, stop at the laundromat on the way to work, then on the way home that night I stop in again and pick up bags of fresh, nicely folded laundry, with all my shirts on hangers. It's so much easier, and trading a little bit of money for time not spent doing something tedious is a big win.
I don't understand it. We've had washing machines for decades in this country. Surely USA can afford them as well. You can get a used one for nothing. Literally.
I rent, but when I moved in I still paid to replace the washer with a washer-dryer. I spend less than 5 minutes a month on washing clothes. (I have multiple laundry baskets so they're pre-sorted)
If something needs ironing I either don't buy it in the first place, or I have it dry cleaned just to get in ironed.
I'm fortunate enough to have access to people who stopped working. All do not need to work for income. Often, after working years, they perish quickly.
Others spend their days in front of tv. This saddens me. Imagine telling the young intern that after you sell your practice you spend your days watching tv. Day in day out.
Or the widow who is always on her couch.
Or the well off retired exec trying to figure out how to spend years and years of days ahead of him.
Being rich and old and not working is a bad formula.
I never realized how much free time I had until I started blowing my responsibilities off and watching TV series or playing video games.
The point is, a lot of the things we do in our adult lives are bullshit errands that exist only because of habit, custom or societal expectations. I'm in progress of trying to get rid of as much of them as possible (and automate others), to reclaim some free time for actually productive endeavours.
This is a good point. For example, I hate going to the grocery store. Buying good food to cook for a night is fun, but the general grocery shopping is a horrible experience. A combination of Amazon Subscribe and Save, Pantry, and services like Blue Apron mean I rarely go to the store. And things like subscribe and save mean I never have to think about when I'm out of toilet paper, it just shows up on a schedule which I have figured out now.
It seems counter-intuitive, but I massively cut down on my grocery store time by going every day. Pop in after work every day, grab 3-5 items, hit the self-checkout and out. Takes about 5 minutes. If I forget something, no big deal, I'll be there tomorrow.
Whereas before you'd spend time thinking about the rest of the week to make a list, dash around the kitchen to check the essentials, drive to the store, spend > 30 minutes in the store getting everything, drive back, ... Probably 1.5-2 hours total.
I peapodded for a couple years when my kids were very small and ultra-high labor, but I found the ability to micromanage my delivery made me spend about as much time on their website as I used to spend shopping (omg hold on while I google ten pages about how many oz of fresh blueberries I need to buy to make exactly 1/2 crushed cup whereas at the store I'd rely on my finely honed nearly instant engineering estimation ability). So if my daughter needs a box of raisins for snack time at school and there's 6 days until delivery and 2 are a weekend and there's 8 on the shelf and the next delivery is the 22nd then I need to buy how many packs of raisins? Whereas in the store I'd just buy one week sized pack per week until there's a backlog and then skip a week which is a much simpler algorithm.
Also I like hiking but lets get real sometimes the weather sux or its dark out or the air is clouded with bugs... and the supermarket is well lit, flat, hvac, bug free, sometimes I just need to put a couple thousand steps on the ole step counter...
I am also an amazon S+S user like yourself and a HUGE gripe I have is UPC churn. So I subscribe to three gigantic mouthwash bottles delivered every six months and like clockwork each time that rolls around the UPC has been cancelled/discontinued and I need to shop a fresh for something inflation adjusted to be 1.5 oz smaller for their profit or whatever. I would like to S+S to a more generic product/service like ship me qty three of two month sized (enormous) mouthwash bottles twice a year of minty fluoride freshness and I don't care the exact brand or the exact size to the mL.
Good point on the Amazon S+S. I have had that happen a few times and it's annoying. I wish more products were Amazon Basics. Those rarely change. We get basics baby wipes for our dogs (don't ask), and I'm pretty sure they have never changed since I set it up almost a year ago.
The labor part is also a good point. I used to order groceries online and pick them up and found it easier to just go to the store. Only when I got S+S setup, and started using services like Blue Apron was I finally out of the labor of managing a delivery. I still go to the store every week or so, but it's to grab fruit, milk, and soda. I'm in and out in just a few minutes depending on when I go.
Hell, a lot of the shit I do at work is BS to make it look like I am busy or that I care. We could go to a 4 day work week and probably not lose productivity.
A lot of the time in my 60 hour weeks is just sitting on meetings I don't even need to attend. Or flying to a client when we could have a phone call.
It's easy. We are busy because we stay at work too much. Also todays jobs are not so fulfilling, which means you need more time to recover. Make the work day 4 hours + meal and things will be better.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 504 ms ] threadMaybe being a real adult is an unwise investment of time if you can afford to do without it.
10 years ago I had all the time in the world, even though I was an adult - a single, childless adult.
I call it the 'small life'. Lots of people in town know me, I know them, build a pretty social life.
I am not going back.
- Found a job and dwelling that are reasonably near each other and the other amenities you need in your life, all in an area that's easily navigable by bicycle and foot
- Found a job that allows you to work only 32 hours while still paying enough to pay the bills
The other choices have radically lowered or removed the bills I am getting. I hardly get any mail anymore.
I love TV( youtube, Netflix, amazon etc). I grew up with state TV and there is no stopping me now. There are all kinds of amazing stuff on TV, there is no limit to how much you can explore the world. Eg: This week, I time traveled back to soviet union in the 50's got to look their communal houses, social classes, dress codes, social norms ect all while being entertained [1].
I would rather be emotionally dependent on TV than a bunch of unpredictable random strangers. 'Small life' to me not less stuff ( stuff is cheap), its having predictable emotional dependencies. I don't understand the minimalism movement, people are somehow emotionally tied to their couch so getting rid of it makes them free?
>ditched the car ( does away with a whole class of problems/bills ).
I never got into an actual car till I was 19 yrs old. Now I own a cheap new car that bought for around 20k from my savings. Only bill I pay is insurance of ~$100, and there is routine maintenance once every couple of months. I don't consider that 'whole class of problems'. I love owning a car, so much freedom and less dependence on random unpredictable human beings. Small life.
1. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01GU8CN0K/ref=dv_web_wtls_list_pr...
What rest?
I feel the answer is in there. Live more in the now and experience the calmness, even though you may be just as busy as ever. Busyness is just a label you put on your activities yourself. I'm sure my son does not understand being busy and if he would he would label it as a positive feeling. Busyness is a feeling caused by thinking of all the things you still have to do. Some people feel it when they have to do shopping and cook on 1 day, some people seem to never feel it even though they shop, cook, visit friends, work and do sports on 1 day. It's very subjective and there are techniques (mindfulness?) to feel it less than you do now.
:-)
- When should I leave to get there by 20:00?
- Can I do something else along the way?
- What can I get done before then?
etc. etc.
Edit: Not that I ever manage that myself of course but the theory is sound.
At least for me the key is to aggressively wean my to-do list, keeping items on it that I'm highly likely to complete in the next few days, as opposed to an ever-growing wish list.
I'm really not much of a productivity "system" person but David Allen has some good ideas around completing quick tasks, to do lists, breaking things up into manageable chunks, calendars being for events that are tied to a specific time/date, etc.
That said, there's a caveat here - as they say, "out of sight, out of mind", and I find it too easy to defend from being overworked by simply ignoring the todo list and not looking at it. This is dangerous and leads to failed obligations.
A more practical thing might be to do your chores with music - so you'll focus on it and not on your next chore.
As an aside, those living on tight budgets typically have no choice but to think about everything in advance, like you're piloting a dinghy on the high seas.
If you do your moment stuff, and forget to buy groceries, is that really a problem of not having food for diner? Just skip it, you won't die.
Why doing today what can be done tomorrow?
Then you only need to do planning on the really important stuff.
(Yes, this has really happened.)
You could also buy food off your neighbour. Since you only care about now, there's no point worrying what they will think in the future.
"I'll give you $10 for that packet of pasta".
What's the difference between $10 in your pocket and theirs?
What is the price of peace and contentment?
I then have plenty of spare capacity for both generalised planning and chilling out.
For me, note-taking just ends up being something else to worry about. Particularly when it comes to work.
I had been using org-mode for years before I started using custom capture templates and agenda views, and now it's clear to me that they're the magic that makes org-mode worth learning.
Compromises: no pictures, no phone. Other people make these things work, but it hasn't been worth it for me.
Oh and for reminders: Apple Reminders at 9:00, 12:45, and 16:00.
The key is to plan in the present, then do the next thing and the next thing, each time in the present. Living like this requires adult versions of faith, agility and resourcefulness.
Even with planning, there can still be time for: "when you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep". Not everything needs to be planned. Big things do, but not everything does. Know when to deploy the higher functions and when not to.
The answer is that, as we grow up, we tend to develop the belief that our well-being needs to be justified somehow. In other words, we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved". And the way to justify, or "earn" our well-being, we are told, is by action. By doing things. So we become obsessed with doing things, as a way of seeking approval and justifying our well-being.
Of course, as any child knows... this is ridiculous. Action is not a means to an end. Action itself is one of the ways to enjoy life.
I call this the buffet approach to life. Some people seem to want to cram a tiny bit of every thing onto their plate, nibbling at everything there is to offer. The alternative being a full course dinner with superbly executed dishes that compliment each other. Or you could just eat steak, whatever you prefer.
The article says that adults work, commute, clean, cook, take care of their dependent and so on... they don't do that to justify their existence but because it has to be done, unless you're rich enough to find other people doing these things for you...
Shared homes, or shared meals, would reduce the need cook so often. And reduce resource usage.
We've moved to a social system where all adults are expected to work. This leaves less time for social cohesion, domestic management, childrearing, and such. We've lost a lot in no longer having half of all parents not encumbered by paid work.
We've also lost the ability to financially survive in a one-worker household, overall. Inflation adjusted household wages have long stagnated, and that's when factoring in women entering the workforce! Twice the workers for the same pay...
That may be your own personal motivation, but it is far from a generalization or even shared by many people.
For instance, people do work to make a living. For some people, making a living means paying the rent and put food on the table. For others, it means affording luxuries and materialist goals. Most people do need to work to cover these expenses, and the higher they cost the harder they need to work for them. This is the norm.
Then there are also other motivations. Some people decide to become entrepreneurs not because they seek riches, but because they believe they are able to create something new, something that no one else can provide, and believe that they have an obligation to be a source of progress and push the world forward in their own personal way.
Now, living in Spain, I feel it's OK not to do anything. Just sitting in the shade for 6 hours watching the world go by doesn't make me a weirdo, like it does back home.
It really does depend on your situation though. I have one to one lessons twice a week but it's not really enough as I manage to get by without having to speak that much during the week.
However, I know people who have picked it up fairly quickly because they are working in a public facing environment where they really have to learn fast.
I wrote down a grammar card with all the verb conjugations (-AR, -IR, -ER verbs) and carried it in my pocket everywhere. When I couldn't remember, I (as soon as practical) pulled it out of my pocket and double-checked.
The most difficult one for me was getting la/el correct. Although by that point I knew the correct gender of each noun, it didn't come out correctly when speaking quickly.
It helps, a bit, and is lot more convenient than firing up google translate every two minutes (which isn't that much use for a lot of grammar anyway).
I'm missing Lisbon, where I usually live (over 300 days of sun yet it never really gets unbearably hot). I can't imagine being in Andalucia during the entire summer, though I hear Granada isn't as bad (probably due to being 30 min to the mountains and 30 min to the beach).
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/sep/13/uks-hottest-...
Работа не волк - в лес не убежит. Work is not a wolf, it will not run to the forest.
Basically, the idea is work isn't going anywhere, so no need to worry that much about it. At my last job in the US, I couldn't understand why people were so adamant about how busy they were when most of the time people were doing what they could to look busy. It's not that they were actually burdened with work, it was that they wanted to appear like they had no time. My employees would frequently get into arguments over who had the busier and more difficult schedule. My family does the same (one of my brothers prides himself on how little free time he had)
I guess it's just this perception that important people are busy and the inverse of that is if you're not busy you're not important. Just speculation, of course, but it's my experience that once you get away from the US, you lose this mindset.
Edit: I guess in fairness I should note that I did have genuinely busy coworkers - our under-staffed programming team were constantly under pressure and in constant repair mode due to not having the time or resources to move out of a crisis state. This is a true "always busy" scenario in my mind.
Perhaps but I'm sure the primary thought in their subconscious is "don't back down or they will punish you by inventing new burdens for you."
See "protestant work ethic".
In the UK? Have you been to Yorkshire?
Was mostly referring to all the urban poor, crime, domestic violence etc that goes on in large parts of the UK.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-37108240
Edit: typing on phone
Amen.
It's not about being "deserved". There is no merit, morality or legitimacy concern here. Just plain pragmatism : good things will not come to you if you just sit on your couch all day.
Take for instance item 4 in OP's list: cleaning. Well, I can assure you that if I don't clean my apartment, nobody is going to show up magically and do it for me.
> Of course, as any child knows...
Well yeah, because children have their parents do stuff for them. That's precisely OP's point.
Similarly there is a 'morality' of leisure: Protestant work ethic and all that. Note that one of the sibling comments talks about feeling a lot more comfortable relaxing in (Catholic) Spain.
Maybe it should be like this. Our bodies clean themselves.
I keep wondering, how's the research in self-maintaining and self-cleaning materials going. Surely, getting rid of the need to constantly clean your house will require a lot of small breakthroughs, but it is a worthy goal given the time we all collectively waste.
(Personally I view all maintenance as waste - you have to pay your dues and not skimp on it, but you should at the same time minimize the cost as much as possible.)
The roomba and our cleaning lady are magical?
It's very simple: I get paid x/hr, the roomba as time advances effectively approaches a cost of 0/hr of work (same goes for the clothes and dishwasher) and the 1 hour the cleaning lady spends here is cheaper than what either of us earn during an hour. Why would we possibly spend our valuable time doing that when we can outsource it to a person and a robot for much less?
You don't clean and cook because you need to justify your existence but because you want to eat a decent meal on a clean plate. Many actions are definitely means to an end.
Because maintenance takes time and it's not handled by your parents anymore.
Check out most small towns (200K or less) and villages in places like France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc -- the one's I know off.
Or are small town residents not "adults"?
> Or are small town residents not "adults"?
Didn't mean to imply that. I was just whining about my own life ;).
Heh, I added that part to refer to the original parent's question.
From what I've seen (and lived myself) in such places, work is mostly something you do, quite casually, for 8 hours or so, and then (or even in between work, e.g. with "siesta" etc) there's lot of socializing, slower everyday pace, etc. And everybody knows everyone else. People are not "ambitious" in the stereotypical "make it big" US idea.
That said, this also holds in "smalltown USA" too -- well, except for the unfortunate souls who work as employees in nationwide firms like Walmart, et al. But for those with own businesses, farms, etc, it's mostly like that.
Of course in larger cities you can easily work 14 hour days for shit pay.
E.g. kids can just go out and play or go to afternoon classes themselves, they don't have to be constantly supervised by their parents or be driven everywhere, so they get more freedom, and parents gets more self time, for one example.
North America is a lot more "everybody fends for themselves" than Europe, I mean, here parents will charge rent to their kids and nobody bats an eye, so forget about free babysitting and/or your mom coming over to clean your place and leaving your fridge stocked with leftovers. Not to mention living in sprawly cities with huge commutes in general...
To add to your observation, I think there is also a social aspect to it. I have often felt that being "not busy" is not socially acceptable. Or in other words being busy is somehow more respectable. So we tend to brag about being busy, and helps to perpetuate this point of view.
I think that social acceptance sums up into that sentence here.
To get back to being a kid, one can decondition all that (while retaining adult sensibilities).
To decondition oneself out of all of the social conditioning naturally involves giving up both cynicism[1] and pride[2] (they are socialized feelings).
[1] Urban Dictionary defines "Tell me more" as an expression of put-down: "When someone say something stupid or simple. It's used to annoy people by asking them to tell you more when the statement is final." http://tell-me-more.urbanup.com/6108370 And it takes the simple naïveté of childhood to dislodge the sophisticated cynicism of adulthood.
[2] such as pride at "being a fair social agent" (your words) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12496092
Do you consider asian philosophy (like buddhism I believe) that takes a contemplative approach on existence, to be childlike (from memories, I used to spend a lot of time contemplating things, lots of things are amazing when you're a kid, stone, river, rain, sky, ..)
ps: interesting interpretation of the nature of pride and cynicism. I'm not so sure about the social roots of pride, even though I agree that it's often socially distorded, but pride is also felt when doing something you feel about as beautiful, loving and right. For instance the other day instead of killing some annoying insect I took a step to tame my instinct and carefully move them out my room. This is also something I'd call "pride" even though it's far less social, but I agree it's not unrelated either)
pps: also not that I said 'your brain' as I believe it's a part of nature and evolution in our maturation from child to adult. As a child you enjoy asking things from others; a lot less later on though.
As you want to know more about this topic I'll refer you to: http://actualfreedom.com.au/library/topics/naivete.htm ... and the "method" to deprogram oneself is: http://www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/articles/thismomento...
About Buddhism, I thought the withdrawing was only a first step toward a stable "marvelling". But I'm completely not educated on the subject.
I think that's what LSD does.
Edit: landlords of HN unite to downvote!
Try building it in the forest though - it is most likely illegal due to some rentier (or government) already owning it. I think the grandparent has some truth to their words.
Existing outside the dwelling is illegal. Dwellings are owned by the elite rentier class, so you need some money just to exist (unless you are a rentier).
I don't expect to exist for free given all the services the state supplies, such as healthcare, policing, roads etc. I also don't expect someone to own some land forever and derive rent from it as the workers pay taxes to build up infrastructure which augments the land value.
No. Existing is free. You have to pay in order to live in a dwelling you could not afford.
I was replying to "We have to pay to exist?", not "We have to pay for a shelter?".
Being free to do something does not mean the means to accomplish it should be free of charge. I know lots of people think otherwise and therefore believe things like food, healthcare or accommodation should be given to them somehow for free, fortunately most people don't agree.
And the banks and the landlords mop it all up using the state to guard their property whilst the workers pay the taxes.
The system stinks.
In many places, homelessness, squatting, and camping without explicit permission are illegal. You might not have to continuously pay for the spot on which you stand, but if you stay on it for too long, eventually someone will come to collect or make you move on.
And in just as many places, if not many more, it's not. After all, shanty towns do exist.
When it comes to kids, we often call it sharing. Billy has a toy truck you want to play with. You have a action figure he wants to play with. If you each share what you have, then everyone is happy.
That is all rent is. Billy has a house, you have cash. He wants to play with cash, and you want play house. If you each share what you have with each other, everyone is happy. Pretty simple.
Also the house is often worth far less than the land.
> Also the house is often worth far less than the land.
While that can be true, it is only true if someone has created value around it, or has exchanged the value that they created elsewhere for it.
It is not like land itself is all that valuable. A quick look at the real estate listings showed me all kinds of vacant lots for just $2,000. It takes more than dirt to derive value. Something has to be created.
That said, I know several people who own multiple homes and lease them out. They often barely break even with mortgage payments, maintenance, dealing with deadbeat tenants, etc. Sure, once a house is paid off, they have a nice source of income, but they're taking a decent amount of risk having so much of their money tied up in such a limited number of investments. Some of them are still under water on rental property mortgages after the 2008 crash.
They're not skimming labour off of their tenants. They're providing a service for a fee.
And if you're talking about large apartment complexes, that's not some landlord "rentier" class. That's a corporation, just like any other.
You don't have to pay to exist; just ask any homeless person. If you want to live in a home or any type of shelter, you have to make it yourself or obtain access to one that has been built. It has always been so. There are various ways to obtain access: squat, pay rent, perform services in exchange, couchsurf, join a commune, convince friends or family to accept you, buy, etc.
So they get several hundred K for very little work that anyone could do.
There is no risk with the central bank land ramping. In urban areas they are limiting supply, forcing up prices and taking labour.
If someone does very little work and gets several hundred K that comes from somewhere.
That makes no sense, unless you just don't believe in private property – which is a different argument and not one I'm super interested in having.
And honestly, if you think it's so easy to be a landlord, you should try it. It's not. It can be fairly easy, until you have:
- a tenant who won't pay but also refuses to leave, necessitating legal action to evict, which is doubly expensive due to the legal fees and lost income
- a tenant who wrecks the property, e.g., letting their cat pee all over the wood floor, but refuses to provide any additional money to remedy
- a tenant who falls in the yard and initiates a frivolous lawsuit against you
- squatters who refuse to leave and require police action
- a roof that needs replacing, new HVAC, new appliances, etc.
Investing in rental properties often performs no better than just investing in the general stock market. Is that exploiting people? Is it exploiting people to have a savings account that pays interest? Anybody can do that and gets free money.
I wish we could sit down over coffee or whatevs and discuss this. I feel like we must have fundamentally different views of the world, and I would like to understand yours better. I rarely meet people whose views I don't understand, even if I disagree – especially people to the "left" of me.
I rented for as long as I've now been a homeowner. I never felt like I was being exploited as a renter. I was essentially paying the same in rent as a mortgage, but as a renter, I got a ton of advantages. For example, I didn't have to pay for maintenance of the home, I got access to nice amenities, and I got the flexibility to easily move somewhere else at the end of the year. For a fee, I got to offload a huge amount of stress onto someone else – the property owner.
I know someone who owns two homes and rents them out. Meanwhile, she lives in a small rented townhouse shared with 2 other housemates. She does this, because she's very handy and can do most of the maintenance herself. And she feels she understands the real estate market better than the stock/bond market. So, these homes are basically her retirement savings. She's not forcing anyone to live in them, and she can't afford to have them sit vacant very long. So, she must price them at a rate that will attract renters. I just don't see the exploitation in that scenario.
Where civilized life is defined in the regions between childhood and adulthood.
Mr. Clayton Christensen says its because adults like to invest their effort in stuff that gives them the most immediate sense of achievement - and that turns out to be their careers; spending your time with the kids (or doing other thing that might make more sense) doesn't give you this kick, often its a long term investment that gets neglected.
He says so in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rHdS_4GsKmg (answering a question asked at 1:15:08).
i keep quoting this guy quite a lot recently...
This is of course a very simplistic description and by no means explains the result but it may play an important role.
This is a mechanism evolved since our existence in the wilderness and may have very different/negative results in our modern lives if not filtered through higher level mental functions. But anyway giving the fact that it's such a low level mechanism is hard to control it totally..
- my 2 cents.
And to get that kind of recharging experience without hurting feelings sometimes you have to tell other adults, well, sure I'd "love" to sit in a two hour traffic jam to get to some sportsball game (I don't care about sports), or I'd "love" to sit in a smokey (I don't smoke) bar full of obnoxious drunks (I rarely drink) all night (I rarely stay up all night or up late), but woe is me I gotta do yardwork or the HOA will ticket me (actually I don't have a HOA where I live), woe is me woe is me, you guys go on bravely without me, adults are just soooo busy what a shame it truly is. And everyone leaves happy.
Its important to note there's doing laundry as per the mom in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory all exhausted and sweaty and drudgery and heavy manual labor for a 16 hour working day, but lets face it, my "2 hours per week" from the insane article is less than 5 minutes of moving stuff from baskets to machines and more than 1:55 of reading an exciting new book or playing in my workshop or playing video games or goofing off online. Again see above paragraphs, I'm sure doing laundry is some circle of hell for an extrovert but I've got my headphones on and I am totally rocking it and having a great time, maybe the best time of my week.
If you think its ridiculous for extroverts to "extrovert" in some of the article activities individually, imagine how crazy my actual life is for an extrovert when I double dip. If you're not sweating you're not cleaning hard enough, so I count cleaning time as exercise time, and why not do that while the clothes are in the dryer, that's triple dipping? That's not extrovert compatible lifestyle, somehow I don't envision hearing "hey bros come on over for beers and sweaty toilet scrubbing party!" Yet weird as it sounds with the right music or right podcast blasting, cleaning the bathroom isn't the worst part of the week.
Its not socially acceptable in general to be an introvert or admit to it, but I'm old enough to have accumulated enough F-you points to get away with that kind of behavior.
And I'm far from the busiest parent I know. One of the neighbors has a kid in competitive swim so she's up at 4AM every morning for swim class, then sending the kid to school, then sending the other kid to school, then a brief window to get stuff done during the day (at least she has that, with 3 year olds you don't get the school break), then bus pickup, then bus pickup, dinner, homework, then bedtime. Weekends are swim meets--every weekend. Often several hours away, plus whatever the other kid is doing.
Keeping a schedule like that up perpetually is exhausting, and there's basically no opportunity for adult activities. Nothing to talk about except swim meets.
In my experience the best way to de stress is to walk, but that's obviously not feasible for most. It's worth moving to make it possible, in my opinion.
Mass transit is pretty awesome too. Even if it takes longer, you can plug in your headphones and zone, netflix and chill, or best of all, take a nap.
Biking in urban areas can be pretty stressful, but the exercise it provides is pretty effective at helping the body recover from stress.
Mass transit would be much more appealing if you could, though!
Depends where you live. For me mass transit at rush hour is incredibly stressful.
Commuter rail might not be as crowded but has its own set of issues.
But I've always lived in places with polite people, especially at rush hour. We may be jammed in but we're polite.
The real answer, individual consultants, and self-run people aside, is that if you DONT work more (to employers standard), you become unemployed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progress_and_Poverty
The current system transfers gains over to land. Silicon valley being a prime example, all on their big salaries with big rents. Zuckerberg and a bunch of land owners got rich, the latter without raising a finger.
If you have a rare, valuable skill, employers will be willing to pay handsomely for your time, but they will demand a lot of your time. IF you are good enough, they will be even willing to pay you premium to have you not use your skills for anyone else. The caveat is that these arrangements are, more often than not, non-negotiable. It is an all or nothing proposition.
On the other hand, if your skills are commodity, potential employers will be happy to hire you part time (so they do not have to give you any benefits). However, your wage will be so low that, more often than not, you'll want to juggle two or more part-time jobs so you can earn a reasonable compensation that actually pays for your living expenses.
1. Work: 40 hours
2. Cooking: 3 h (who the hell cooks three times a day?)
3. Laundry: 0.5 h (once a week)
4. Cleaning: 1 h (and I am very clean, I just avoid producing dirt)
5. Buying stuff: .5 h (I try to avoid buying too much stuff I don't really need)
6. Bills: 0 h (they a are paid automatically from my account)
7. Small errands: 1 h
8. Transport: 4 h (I ride my bicycle to work, so one could count that as exercise)
9. Staying healthy: 4 h (in addition to the bicycling to and from work)
10. Finances: 0 h (I have no idea how anyone can spend so much time on this. I just live by the simple rule: don't get into debt and move some of your income automatically on a saving account)
11. Taxes: 0 h (automated in Germany)
12. Responsibility for Yourself: 0 h (weird point)
13. Responsibility for your dependents: 0 h (I'm not responsible for anyone and visiting my family is fun)
14. Being sick: 0 h
15. One time errands: 2 h (I have to do some irregular stuff)
16. Long term planning: 1h (because I'm actively thinking about it at the moment)
1. Attire and Grooming: 3.5 h (half an hour every morning, 3 minutes in the evening)
2. Sleep: 49 h
3. Eating: 1.5 h (breakfast and lunch is included in work time)
Overall: 109 h
Free time: 49 h
I think it all comes down to priorities and you current life situation. But one can influence most of these things and you have to decide what is really important in your life. For me, it's free time.
People who enjoy cooking, and people who actually care for their health.
I'll have my wok cleaned and put away for next time before the frozen pizza chefs have their oven preheated. Or I'll be half done eating my lunch salad before the frozen burrito comes out of the microwave.
I'm not sure that "open bag, dump salad on plate" even counts as cooking, but that's like 1/3 of my meals and the "cooking" process takes about 10 seconds.
[0] http://tokiunderground.com/
I make five medium sized breakfast burrito's on Sunday night and refrigerate them. One every morning. That's a whole wheat wrap, a couple eggs, green peppers, and chopped onions. This takes me about a half hour on Sunday including cleanup and 5 seconds to grab one out of the fridge each morning. I supplement it with a granola bar.
I won't claim to be ultra concerned with my dietary balance, but you definitely don't need to spend a ton of time cooking to be healthy.
If it tasted better, I might still be doing it. It's actually the same sort of thing prisons feed to problem inmates to punish misbehavior, except they call it "nutriloaf", and put more actual food in it.
Mine was mostly eggs, coconut oil, and chia seed. It looked horrible, but it barely tasted like anything at all. I might tweak my recipe and try it again some day, but the family won't even look in its general direction, so somebody still has to actually cook meals.
I don't have orthopedic problems, but I've found that I'm generally more comfortable by the end of the day if I'm wearing shoes at home vs barefoot or slippers. This is especially true if I spend a few hours in the kitchen standing up to cook, etc.
Additionally, where I grew up it's odd/rude for a visitor to remove their shoes or be asked to remove their shoes. Different strokes and all that. :)
i work from home so i do usually. once you get good at cooking, most restaurant food is un-appetizing or extremely expensive for what you are receiving. it also helps me maintain my weight and not be a complete fatass.
i still eat out a couple of times a week but i'd say a good 75% to 90% of my meals are cooked at home. par-cooking common ingredients in batches helps a lot. it's basically like running a small commercial kitchen for myself.
once you get good at cooking it's basically a 'flow' activity. line cooks get 'in the zone' when the rush hits.
also, once you get the basics down most day to day meals take about 10-15 minutes to cook, not including roasting time which is passive.
the only downside for cooking to me is the cleanup. that never stops sucking for me and brings out my lazy streak.
People with children at home will obviously have very different time allocations (I do laundry almost daily, and if I let it pile up to fold once a week it takes 2-3hours to fold and put away everything. Family meal times can take 2hours each, depending whether we get the food ready quickly and the kids feel like eating. Someone is always sick. )
It took me a long time to realize this, but it finally clicked for me fairly recently. Record everything you do for a day, figure out which are of low or no value, and figure out how to get rid of them, create systems to reduce the time you spend on them, or delegate them. The most time-consuming things often can't be totally cut out, but they can be systemized or delegated. In the end, only you control your time (and if you don't, you have a bigger problem).
Edit: If anyone is interested in the resources I've found helpful in this realization and the implementation of taking actions to take back control of my own time, feel free to send me an email (in profile).
This is a big part of it, and it makes the comparison between Musk or Branson and an average Joe a bit disingenuous. They have the wealth afford to delegate many things that consume an average person's time. I doubt Musk does his own grocery shopping, and Branson likely doesn't scrub his own toilets.
Let's say someone with bad time management goes to the grocery store every day, and the nearest one is a 10 minute drive away. They spend at minimum 45 minutes going to and from the grocery store, choosing food, waiting in checkout lines etc every day. That's over 5 hours per week! Musk spends 0 hours. But it's not all or nothing. Instead, a 30 minute investment of planning out a general meal schedule and grocery list for it on Sunday, and one trip to the grocery store might take an hour and a half. That's 3.5 hours of savings per week!
Repeat this for cooking, cleaning around the house, etc, and I guarantee you can find significant time savings in systemizing routines. If you save even 2 hours every week, that's an entire 8 hour work day per month. If you make, let's say, $300 daily as a software engineer that's quite a bit of savings! Even... maybe enough to hire a house cleaner and someone to do grocery shopping for you.
Let me give you one example. Birthdays. My wife has two sisters and both parents are alive. That's 5 events a year. Double that for my family. 10 events a year. That's basically once a month I'm spending a weekend afternoon or evening. That's just birthdays.
Add kids in and suddenly every other weekend is filled with something. That isn't including extended family.
I don't do my taxes because I can buy an accountants time, but I can't buy more "time".
It's another reason I don't want a huge collection of "stuff". "Stuff" takes your time.
I don't have a car for this reason, and I live in a city that doesn't require one.
But the article is motivating me to be more explicit about the things that take time. To make sure I spend that time doing what I want.
Also https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3JzcCviNDk
If I take my laundry to a laundromat, run it through the washer, move it to the drier, (run it through the drier again because it isn't dry), fold and put it all away, it costs me about $12 in quarters. It also costs me two or three hours of time, where I'm pretty much stuck at the laundromat, unable to do anything really worthwhile.
If I drop the laundry off at the laundromat and have them do it for me, that wash-dry-fold service usually costs about $30. I toss it in a bag, stop at the laundromat on the way to work, then on the way home that night I stop in again and pick up bags of fresh, nicely folded laundry, with all my shirts on hangers. It's so much easier, and trading a little bit of money for time not spent doing something tedious is a big win.
If something needs ironing I either don't buy it in the first place, or I have it dry cleaned just to get in ironed.
Others spend their days in front of tv. This saddens me. Imagine telling the young intern that after you sell your practice you spend your days watching tv. Day in day out.
Or the widow who is always on her couch.
Or the well off retired exec trying to figure out how to spend years and years of days ahead of him.
Being rich and old and not working is a bad formula.
The point is, a lot of the things we do in our adult lives are bullshit errands that exist only because of habit, custom or societal expectations. I'm in progress of trying to get rid of as much of them as possible (and automate others), to reclaim some free time for actually productive endeavours.
Whereas before you'd spend time thinking about the rest of the week to make a list, dash around the kitchen to check the essentials, drive to the store, spend > 30 minutes in the store getting everything, drive back, ... Probably 1.5-2 hours total.
Also I like hiking but lets get real sometimes the weather sux or its dark out or the air is clouded with bugs... and the supermarket is well lit, flat, hvac, bug free, sometimes I just need to put a couple thousand steps on the ole step counter...
I am also an amazon S+S user like yourself and a HUGE gripe I have is UPC churn. So I subscribe to three gigantic mouthwash bottles delivered every six months and like clockwork each time that rolls around the UPC has been cancelled/discontinued and I need to shop a fresh for something inflation adjusted to be 1.5 oz smaller for their profit or whatever. I would like to S+S to a more generic product/service like ship me qty three of two month sized (enormous) mouthwash bottles twice a year of minty fluoride freshness and I don't care the exact brand or the exact size to the mL.
The labor part is also a good point. I used to order groceries online and pick them up and found it easier to just go to the store. Only when I got S+S setup, and started using services like Blue Apron was I finally out of the labor of managing a delivery. I still go to the store every week or so, but it's to grab fruit, milk, and soda. I'm in and out in just a few minutes depending on when I go.
A lot of the time in my 60 hour weeks is just sitting on meetings I don't even need to attend. Or flying to a client when we could have a phone call.