I find myself doing this too. My kids put such a large constraint on my free time that between work and family I only have 3 hours or less per day to do everything, so I am tempted to sacrifice sleep to gain a bit more book reading, side project, or video game time.
I always had my children with me when I was doing 'me things'. Including reading, video games, woodworking, hunting, hiking, and even meditation. For reference, I'm a super introverted person, and really need alone time to recharge my batteries.
It's a nice way to instill values while also enjoying them while they're small.
I mean, they will grow up eventually (really fast actually) and won't want to hang out with you at some point, so even if you "can't" do your 'me time' with them, you will have access to it again, eventually.
I do try... with some success. My kids are still very small though so they get bored after a few minutes if I am reading out loud from anything other than a children's book. We are still in the "high entropy" stage of childhood with most of our kids.
Anything outside I include the kiddos but I'm playing DOOM and Sekiro right now so I can't exactly have a toddler watch me decapitate demons/samurais and I'd rather have a beer etc. after the kids are sleeping. When they get older we'll probably play some Mario Kart/Minecraft style stuff together.
My 'me' time is exclusively after the kids are sleeping anyway.
From just reading the headline, I thought this article was going to be about little kids refusing to go to bed! I get so frustrated when my toddler won't go to sleep, exactly because it cuts into that precious free time.
I'm also doing this, big time.. Between a full-time job, building a new home, renovating another and having a wife and kid, there's not any "me" time until past wife+kids bedtime.
I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.
Nothing beats having some time alone to work on your personal projects. Especially after wasting a full day working with enterprise code that was written by an offshore company six years ago.
> I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.
I certainly understand the sentiment. But I'd question is this actually true? Have you considered doing a Gwern-style self-experiment to quantify the impact?
Maybe try something like your current routine for two weeks, then rigorously maxing out sleep for two weeks. Take systematic surveys of your subjective wellbeing and energy levels throughout the day. Then compare the two periods.
You might be surprised to learn that what you think is giving you energy, is actually taking it away. I think as humans we tend to have very bad introspective intuition about what actually improves our energy and mood. I know I certainly do. Being scientific about it can reveal some surprising results.
> You might be surprised to learn that what you think is giving you energy, is actually taking it away.
I feel like you are confusing physical energy with spiritual energy. The stuff that makes you feel motivated and driven and excited, versus just capable of doing work.
No mention of how to get out of this unhealthy habit.
I'm struggling with this myself. Some of my conclusions so far:
* When I am sleep-deprived I am less productive. So I spend more time doing "work". Then I have less time for everything else I want to do (family, cooking, sport). So I take more time away from sleep. And the cycle repeats. Sleep deprivation is self-perpetuating.
* What I do at night, when I am exhausted, in 2 hours can be done in the morning in half an hour.
* I get angrier and negative much more easily when I am sleep deprived.
For my particular case: limit the time dedicated to "work" and do the other things in the time it is usually dedicated to it. Stay away from screens past 11. Listen to ebooks for falling asleep. Use the good sleep energy to finish work stuff earlier, do more exercise, etc. Break out of the vicious cycle and start a virtuous one.
I still fail at doing it from time to time. I think this must feel similar to what relapsing alcoholics feel. I try to not be too hard on myself and keep trying.
Yes, for many, their job is a matter of survival. There is something really horrific in how a society as technologically advanced and productive as ours has almost eliminated leisure time, rather than increased it.
Its interesting, we have developed several time saving inventions over the past 50 years, only to have that time we saved filled up with more work.
I was reading the book '168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think', and the author mentions how researchers in the past were predicting we would have so much free time in the future.
I think there was a comment about this regarding the speculation that more efficiency in parallel processing architecture would make all the work faster- the retort, so to speak, is that instead nodes would be expected to do more work in the same amount of time as before.
Humans are being treated like this. As technology increases, humans are merely expected to produce more in the same amount of time. There's no law that guarantees humans would have more free time due to increased efficiency.
So, I'm not going to say this is definitely the reason, and there's no way around it currently, but this is partially a function of a competitive work environment. Someone is bound to be willing to put in the time, or the threat of it will keep people from exploring (demanding) progressive things like 25-35 hr workweeks.
On the edges, where people are forced to work 60+ hrs a week there's enough leverage of people simply being unwilling to do the job (though even this isn't as true for some elite jobs). On the other hand, if they're just being asked to clock in from 9-5? There would need to be some outrage and push, but this makes you look lazy. There seems to be some progress made on vacations in corporate America, though.
Also, some roles would legitimately suffer or not work at all at 20-30 hrs. I think the ideal is to normally work 40-60 hrs "busy weeks", but not try to load people down when things naturally get slower and let them dip into the time for personal, so it's usually 30-35, or occasionally a bit less.
I would recommend reading “Atomic habits” it’s a small and easy book to read. It has a lot of “aha” moments were stuff you already know click in your mind on how to develop good habits and remove bad habits, it provides good guidance.
I also think being sleep deprived destroys your willpower. So getting enough sleep for a few nights, perhaps on the weekend, and then trying to keep a streak going.
Additionally I’ve had a lot of success using a habit tracking app (I love way of life but habitica is also great and free).
I would also recommend this app called “Intellect,” it is designed to help individuals beat their bad habits and alleviate their personal psychological problems!
I'm the absolute opposite. Mornings are for endless procrastination, what can be done in 10 minutes before sleep can be done in an hour in the morning, even if I drink a lot of coffee. This is a really unhealthy habit as sometimes if the activity proves engaging, it keeps me from sleeping, obviously.
What's weird is psychoactive substance rarely seem to change this productivity dynamic. Even if I'm well rested and drink coffee in the morning, I'm still inclined to procrastinate, whereas in the evening even after drinking alcohol or smoking weed, I can be productive even for intellectual tasks. Obviously I do not condone working while under influence, but if it's a friday and I have literally nothing to do (e.g. during lockdown) drinking a few beers, smoking some pot and programming for my side-projects or playing chess around midnight is really fun for me. In the mornings, I just infinite-scroll reddit for at least an hour before I can even leave the bed.
This perfectly describes me as well, although I don't use substances much at all. I have learned to embrace it as well as I can. I accept that my productivity is much lower in the morning and attempt to get the most done after lunch and dinner.
I do the same. It’s typically a symptom that I don’t really care for the job I’m supposed to do. When I do care, I can barely brush my teeth and I’m right at work. When I don’t care, the morning is full-on procrastination; the boring but necessary stuff gets done mid-afternoon, often out of restlessness.
I reckon something happens at the physical level that triggers a tiny bit of adrenaline in the afternoon, so I get sharper. If I skip lunch, for example, I get sharper sooner - the body is actually slightly starved of resources, why am I feeling better? There must be something in me that goes “body tired -> let’s power it up”, probably some sort of small-scale adrenaline deployment.
Note that coffee can take 2 hours to actually work its magic, depending on one’s metabolism and tolerance, so drinking more of that won’t necessarily help your mornings. The only thing that helps me is doing something I actually care about.
Nah, I like my job. I'm equally unproductive on weekends on my hobbies etc. I'm just groggy in the mornings and get better in the afternoon, and after dinner I'm the sharpest and most energetic both mentally and physically.
Created a throwaway to say that as someone being treated for ADHD as of recently, 100% this. Every day at work for years had been doing exactly what the GP describes. If I'm really interested in the work, I'm all in and focused. But when I'm not, I push off every task that can be pushed off as far as possible. And the overwhelming majority of the time, it's the latter. To the point that I've sat at my desk quietly questioning my career choice dozens of times.
I recently took a trip to the beach and spent a half hour or so outside in the transition between full light and darkness. It was surprising how tired I was feeling as early as it was. Let yourself experience the transition to night and then limit your light exposure.
Heh, around here (61° N) the sun currently sets at about 3:15 pm or so :D Need a light therapy lamp to convince my body that no, it's not time to go to sleep yet. Paradoxically, once it's actually time to go to sleep, my brain/body suddenly refuses to feel tired! Melatonin helps, though.
Not that far north myself, but the pain is definitely real. During winter it is dark when I get up and dark when I leave work. The sun is a thing that only exists outside office windows.
It's not as bad here at 51° N, but that does not mean it's possible to see the sun set or even be in a bright outside.
(Though we were lucky and able to see the sun only the day before yesterday.)
It's pretty clear that the "unhealthy habit", like most unhealthy habits, is a symptom not the disease.
In this article the problem is being overworked. The solution isn't to remove that little bit of extra pleasure from your life so you can sleep better and be an even better, harder worker, but to find a better balance.
If you have this problem is very likely because you have a major part of your life you don't feel like you have control over: maybe your jobs is awful, maybe your marriage is awful, maybe you just feel too stressed about the world.
Treating the symptom and not the root cause will not yield the results you are looking for even if you succeed.
Exactly. The parent comment is missing the point. People are doing it because their life would be an endless unbearable grind of work and basic bodily needs. For my mental health it's definitely a worthy trade-off, I can do the grind for a few days but it really sucks the joy out of life if you can't do anything enjoyable every day.
I fall into that habit a lot. For me it largely comes from a feeling that there are a large number of tasks that I have to get done.
The biggest thing I do to overcome that is to take a day off and don't do anything productive at all (easy if it happens to fall on a weekend, more effective if I do it on a weekday). This breaks the first step -- less productive does not mean spend more time working, it means taking time off to recover.
For me it's about "reminding myself I don't have to do things". That voice in my head telling me how vital it is I get all the things done is just one voice. All I need to do is work well enough to ensure me and my family are fed, clothed and have somewhere to sleep.
This is going to sound strange, but the only thing that has ever worked for me was HQ, the live trivia game app. It was nightly at 9PM, so I'd my various daily tasks done and then I'd have to go to my bed to plug my phone in to play because it killed the battery. When it was over around 9:15 I was kind of settled in and would usually be able to fall asleep by 10 which is ideal for me.
So I guess if you can build in some sort of "hard stop" a little before you want to fall asleep that might work, but I haven't really found anything since.
Stop blaming yourself. Even the article mentions that it is the employer to blame. It even suggests that the solution is to show solidarity and put pressure on your employer by talking to him as a group. Otherwise I don't think there is anything you can do.
I think the answer lies in the sentence "people who don’t have much control over their daytime life refuse to sleep early in order to regain some sense of freedom during late-night hours". Now, obviously, very few people have complete control over their daylight hours -- we need jobs, after all. But we can still feel like we're in control if we at least agree with the path we're on. If you're struggling with 'revenge bedtime procrastination', consider whether you feel in control of the direction your life is heading, and if not, how you might wrest some of that control back.
And during this time slot for oneself, somethings can't be done as it was done earlier. Physical stores are closed, sometimes there isn't enough space to watch your TV in the desired volume, you can't go to your yard and do your wood-working hobby.
Even when you find/trade your time, it's not the same time.
Even without the pandemic, i just need 2 hours of me time when the kids are all sleeping.
As most parents know, they often don't go to sleep as easy as one wishes so my own shedule gets moved further back.
I follow a similar pattern, but a major component for me is anhedonia / depression. I don't have anything in my life that is fulfilling or exciting or fun. I delay going to bed, both hoping to suddenly feel that spark of excitement for something, and feeling reluctant to go to bed in this unsatisified state.
The only things that are legally available here are ritalin and modafinil (only if you have narcolepsy). I tried 5mg of ritalin 2 or 3 times, it made me work and think faster and with more focus, but it also felt jittery and I'm not sure it was all that pleasurable.
So based on that and on worries about causing more long-term damage I haven't tried to take it longer. Maybe I should try combining it with something that's supposed to be fun, but I don't know how I feel about doing this without some kind of a plan. E.g. combining with games that are challenging I would be worried about lowering my frustration tolerance.
yes, and watch that stuff. I'll give you that for the first few times you actually were working and thinking faster (i.e. it wasn't subjective), but that goes away after a few weeks, at which point you might find yourself addicted.
They may be good for a short term boost, but they do not provide any long-term gain.
I was suggesting to try stimulants, because some people have an underlying ADHD that's causing depression or anxiety etc as a comorbidity. And for those people the standard stimulants used to treat ADHD also help with their other symptoms.
I have ADHD, but never any depression. (But I have friends with those combinations.)
Your reaction to Ritalin matches mine to caffeine or dexamphetamine: the dose I get jittery at is lower than the dose were I see positive effects. Luckily, Ritalin/methylphenidate works fairly well for me with rather manageable side-effects.
By the way, I bet you have other options!:
Caffeine is universally available. But has a bad side effect profile.
Nicotine is a wonder drug, too. Nicotine patches are available over-the-counter. See https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine (Please don't confuse nicotine with smoking. Smoking is still bad for you.)
I am taking methylphenidate, but for long term effects, I am actually seriously considering switching to nicotine patches:
Nicotine protects your brain against parkinson's, which runs in my family.
But in any case, from what you describe, it doesn't necessarily sound like your depression is linked to something that stimulants can help with in the first place?
Stimulants to work around depression seems like a recipe for more depression. A high is usually followed by a low, not to mention fucking up your brain long-term.
I would suggest seeking professional mental health help. I'd also suggest meditation and a bit of self discovery. If it wasn't 2020 I'd also suggest travelling, break the pattern find some perspective.
Life is too short, find some help, get to the root of your problem. Life lesson for me that I am still trying to embody is happiness is a choice. It's really true. When I dig deep I realize that I actually like to wallow in unhappiness, it gives me an identity. This is obviously not healthy but realizing that is the first, incredibly difficult step. Shaking myself out of a black hole spiral is so hard. But forcing yourself to go for a walk, see some friends, basically break out of whatever negative thoughts you have an choosing to do something positive is key.
You aren't alone feeling this way. Be kind to yourself.
They both don't have much of a low at low doses. And in any case, you wouldn't be getting a high from either any more after a few days of using them, tolerances to the high build very quickly.
My original comment was a bit flippant. I was obliquely hinting at perhaps treating an underlying ADHD, because that's sometimes cause for depression and something that's relatively easy to rule out (or treat) with eg some over-the-counter nicotine patches.
I'm not sure there's a root to discover that I don't already know about. I'm on the autism spectrum, I have some other health issues, I've missed out on a lot of development and experiences in life due to the ASD and mental health issues resulting from it. I struggle to keep up with work and all the other requirements life throws at you, how the world works is fundamentally depressing to me because it's in conflict with my values and I'm helpless to do anything about it.
Sorry for my flippant comment. I was actually more serious than I sounded like:
Underlying ADHD can sometimes cause depression and other weird comorbid things. If you treat the ADHD, the depression might get better. (I've seen it happen to friends.)
Yes, in the very short term, stimulants also make you happy directly. But that effect is fleeting and subject to building a very quick tolerance.
Here’s how you fix this. Go to bed early and wake up earlier. I do honestly believe that young adults naturally stay up later though. I think there’s an evolutionary reason for it, basically to keep the nights watch and ward off predators.
Are you suggesting they do their own things in the morning instead? They would still be sleep deprived, plus the issue is that they actually would have trouble forcing themselves to go to bed earlier as they procrastinate.
Nah... that sucks if you're trying to actually do something.
When i finish everything (work, home, cook food, eat, cleanup, random household tasks,...) it's usually 8 in the evening, maybe 9. If i want to do something (hobby, personal project....), I start at 9, and work until "too late".
If you go to sleep early, and wake up at (eg.) 5 in the morning, start work at 8, you have (eg.) 1 hour to get ready and commute + 2 hours of free time.
If anything "goes wrong" in my project, i have to debug, retry, fix, cut and cut again (and it's still too short),... doing this in the morning,it means, that you interrupt your pleasure-work at the moment where you're most productive (and where the thing you're doing is most "fun"/fulfiling). I can always go to sleep an hour later, or two, or five... most people are not that flexible with their jobs.
This is just my personal experience and opinion though.
Here's how you fix this (and how you fix nearly any social problem): organise with your fellow workers and demand better work conditions for all workers from your government and employers, with the threat of general strike across all industries.
I'm a night owl (sleep 12-8am) who occasionally experiences season-long hard constraints that force me into early bird schedules (sleep 8-4am). Whenever the temperatures get high and I don't have access to an air-conditioned gym, I have to get up for the daily temperature minimum, whatever it takes. Since this happens for an entire summer, it gives me the chance to adapt to the schedule and optimize around it.
The early bird schedule didn't reveal an untapped reserve of morning energy. It didn't shift my late night energy burst into the morning. In fact, it didn't shift the productivity burst at all -- it eliminated it. This wasn't for lack of sunlight and exercise; getting up early to run outside was the entire point. It wasn't for lack of cold showers, which were remarkably pleasant after suffering in the heat. It wasn't due to a poor diet, or meal scheduling, which I experimented with.
To hear the early birds talk about it, these exercises should have transformed me into a superior moral being of hyper-optimized productivity, overflowing with perfection in every aspect of spirituality and performance. That isn't what happened. Not in part, not in whole. The net effect was small and negative. I traded high-energy night hours for low-energy morning hours. It was worth it to access the daily temperature minimum, but I wasn't able to make the morning schedule work for me, despite having every intent and incentive to do so. When the constraint lifted, I moved back to my regular schedule and recaptured its benefits.
Night owls: try the early bird schedule, there are enough people who report benefits from switching that you owe it a solid try.
Early birds: tips and anecdotes are fine, but frame them in terms of what works for you. Cut the sanctimonious bullshit. It isn't helpful, it isn't appreciated, and it isn't appropriate.
This doesn't work for me. Evolutionarily speaking, we evolved without a regular day-to-day sleeping schedule until the advent of agriculture (see my other lengthy comment on this.)
What worked for me was putting my time and energy towards things which I feel improve the world.
It’s interesting the use of the aggressive language “revenge“ And “retaliatory” which seems to have a negative charge. I wonder if it is due to the culture of China, its communist leaning, or something deeper that looks at personal leisure time as a bad thing.
Considering that these are English language words, I don't think a linguistic analysis is going to give you insight into Chinese culture. The exact choice of words used in translation is largely going to be a reflection of the English language.
Also, what's the equivalent in other languages? In English, wouldn't we say 'self-sabotage'?
You might have misunderstood. The term that is being described here is kind of like a meme-phrase/word. Like in the article said, it was likely invented years ago, probably in the Chinese version of twitter/social media/etc.
The revenge and retaliatory terms are more subversive than negative.
The retaliation is against losing control of your own time. The revenge is against your corporate-master, your boss, the pointy-haired boss, the Communist political officer, "the Man", late stage capitalism - whatever you want to call it I don't think the sentiment is limited to China and communism, etc. and that's why this article struck a chord enough for it to get onto hnews.
That said, the subversive nature of the wording is very very Chinese. Not just Communist Chinese, but this type of subversive back-talk has been alive for many many generations since the imperial days, where you had to talk in circles in order to not be executed.
Interesting that the most downvoted comment is the only one concerned with China instead of "Yeah but let's talk about me!"...
China has a culture of "labor" as the symbol of one's personal worth, and this ties into the Maoist/Communist ideal of empowering _labor_. In America, "idleness" might be the _reward_ of labor, or even a _kind_ of labor: thinking, imagining, talking, creating ideas themselves: "idle" labor. In America, physical labor is respected, but probably more _rewarded_ is one's talent for idle labor, especially nowadays. In China, the labor is its own reward, and idleness is "evil" - maybe nobody believes that anymore, but they go along with it. Furthermore, China knows that ideas are easy to steal, but labor isn't.
If your government/culture looks at you like an ant, of course it'll judge you only by your net output.
Other than a "thank god I'm not Chinese", I'm not sure what other discussions one could have without going onto politics and being considered and anti-chinese.
I love chinese and japanese culture, but their particular work ethic is total nightmare and wrong on every level and needs to disappear as soon as possible.
EDIT: I'm currently sleep deprived (of course...) so I'm sorry if this comes out harsher than needed.
2ND EDIT: Other than that, this is not even a work ethic/culture problem, is that many current working practices are not suitable for human survival beyond basic functions. It doesn't change if you're chinese or not.
Except for all the demanding jobs where you need to unofficially work outside your working hours... I live in one of those countries with a reasonable working hours limit, but I'm an academic, my partner is a doctor, both of us work "voluntarily" outside working hours. I need to prepare clases, request grants, and do research in a hypercompetitive environment where you need better CV than competitors. She needs to be up to date with the latest findings in medicine.
It does work for workers in many sectors, though. I'm not criticizing working hours regulations, far from it - just saying we should probably do more than that.
You both are well-compensated for that, though. You could choose to be a mediocre academic and she could choose to be a mediocre doctor. It’s a trade-off.
I need to prepare clases, request grants, and do research in a hypercompetitive environment where you need better CV than competitors.
Not to be unsympathetic, but it's baffling to me why academics, who are mainly smart, innovative people, don't band together across disciplines to reshape their environment and wrest control out of the hands of the administrators who frequently make their life a misery.
I don't know if administrators are what make academic life difficult. It sounds to me like the parent post is saying that it's difficult because there are lots of really smart and motivated people competing at near-maximum effort for limited resources.
That matches my experience in academia. The prof in charge of our lab worked a lot because he was obsessed with the work and wanted to succeed, not because someone was cracking a whip.
competing at near-maximum effort for limited resources
Yes, but why? Most academics I know are miserable and worn ragged by this endless competition. I'm asking why they don't construct a more favorable environment for themselves where they are not constantly being played off against each other. Administrators are part of that system, as opposed to being autonomous villains.
I was astonished to see the article treat leisure time as something to be optimized out of people's lives rather than as fundamental to their well being.
It's almost like they're trying to normalize a 6 day/72 hour week for everyone.
Not that my situation is anywhere near as dire as a worker on the 996 plan in China, but I do a similar tradeoff. During work I also help the kids get through their school day, so my workday gets a bit longer, then after that I have my own schooling in the evening, and then there's no time left. So I steal it from sleep time or else I get nothing at all.
Can't tell you how much I look forward to 1) being done with OMSCS, and 2) the pandemic ending and the kids going back to in-person school. Never going to complain about teacher salaries again (not that I really ever did, but still...)
I finished OMSCS in April. I was surprised to find that I just oscillated between trying to start the 10 different projects that had been waiting for me to finish, and doing absolutely nothing because I finally didn’t have to.
I ended up going through some material and building a trading bot because I never got a chance to take ML4T.
My wife was incredulous that I was doing more coursework after graduating.
As a way of breaking this cycle, I've recently been considering going to bed earlier (e.g. 9-10pm), and then getting up at 5-6am, BUT with the proviso I can do whatever I want between 5 and 8, with no pressure to be productive (e.g. binge on Netflix for 3 hours). I just need to convince my wife to do the same :) Has anyone tried something like this?
I do this (allocate more unproductive time in the mornings) and it's great. I tend to wake up at about 7 and wake up slowly, browse the news and/or play a game until I start working at about 10. I've operated that way since I was a kid (with some exceptions), and find that every day is much better when the mornings contain no stress.
I love the morning, it’s the best time of day. I naturally tend to wake up quite early and have my whole life. However this is the time when I most prefer to do chores. It feels nice doing them in the morning, where later in the day I tend not to have the energy.
I made that switch earlier this year. Huge boost in productivity and happiness.
The tricky part is making sure you don’t pick up the phone before 10am. Too easy to wander over to HN and write about how much this sleep schedule switch helped.
For me mornings are great for deep work (usually) because my mind isn’t full of other people’s crap yet.
That sounds good because I think most people are more likely to "waste their time" at night rather than as soon as they get out of bed in the morning. You just don't get up and immediately start eating cake and watching Netflix.
I am trying the opposite. Wake up at 7, and focus exclusively on productive work until around noon, then if I am successful (I wasn't today), I allow the rest of the day to be guilt-free whatever I choose to do.
That's sort of how our schedule falls out anyway, bed around 10, rise around 6, first meetings don't kick in until 9. I have a variety of side projects, chores, and just plain entertainments that go in to that 7-9 slot, chosen based on what I'd most like, or need, to do. Sometimes I just sleep in a little extra. One day I'll commute again, I'm sure, but I am really enjoying this instead.
Tried this once. Wife noticed me get up and decided to start her day earlier. Youngest child heard me and ended up on my lap while I was trying to work.
I went back to my usual staying up until 2am or so. Virtually zero chance of getting disrupted then.
However, the activities described in the article -- "Rao would stay up surfing the internet, reading the news and watching online videos until well after midnight" -- don't sound like the kind of quality "me time" that makes life more worth living.
I say this as someone trapped in a similar cycle. My wife and I are exhausted after both working from home and pandemic parenting/homeschooling every day. By the time the kids are asleep (10:30 for the older one) we "need" some time to veg on the couch, and end up going to bed at 11:30, when really we would have been better off going to bed 45 minutes earlier.
But the "me time" trap makes us somehow believe that the hour or so we spend on our phones is necessary for us, when in fact it's stupid, wasted time, reading about politics or being on Twitter of whatever.
(Ok, we also have been teaching ourselves the piano, and playing chess and stuff, but many nights we still feel like we "deserve" some brain-dead "me time.")
I'm totally not convinced that surfing the internet or watching videos, however aimlessly, is somehow of lesser quality when it comes to relaxing. Especially given that, as you said, many people simply don't appear to have any mental energy left to do anything more "productive" after a workday, never mind a workday AND childcare. Of course, that's again a problem caused by work, not procrastination, but I very much challenge the notion that it's good for you to worry about whether your leisure time is of high enough quality!
Now, I do agree that social media and other things in the digital world can be actually addictive and psychologically harmful, but given the aforementioned state of mental exhaustion I'm totally not surprised that people should get hooked on things that are designed to continuously give your brain small rewards with minimum effort spent on your part.
I also think in many cases people are doing something that is at least a little worthwhile. If they are idly watching a vlogger/streamer/show it's still a social activity. I often watch content that makes me laugh, and I believe this helps me make my real life friends laugh.
The good thing about "me time" is that it's for ME. So you don't necessarily need to agree that it is quality "me time" for me to think that and enjoy it. In general I agree that spending time in front of a phone is not the best time spent, but if the goal is for individuals to enjoy themselves then it may best. I know lots of people that live for movies, shows, content from youtube, and more. So for them, spending a couple of hours in front of a phone watching their favorite show works as "me time"
I'm sure some people would love to spend their "me time" in the daylight, outside, or even being "productive" and learning new hobbies or practicing current ones. Unfortunately we have to prove value to society so we can get money for food and shelter.
You can't seriously expect to come to night exausted and sleep-deprived, only to be "productive". I don't want to be productive, I want to empty my mind of responsiblities and serious stuff, even if that means shooting aliens in my underwear for no benefit at all.
Actually, the "no benefit at all" is the entire point.
To be fair, a 996 schedule (9am-9pm, 6 days a week, 72 hours/week) doesn't leave a great deal of time for, e.g., hiking, biking, walks in the park. I suspect the trouble is less a paucity of imagination than a paucity of time.
School sets you up for this mindset. I don't think many people realize that there is more to a life than achieving or being productive. It's all good if that's what you actually enjoy, but if it's making you miserable you are indeed wasting your life. Knowing this should shake you awake, knowing you are miserable because of what you are currently doing should provoke a change, not seek some way to work with your misery.
I struggle with this a lot and have been wondering recently what it is that causes it, so it's refreshing seeing such an article today and knowing it's not just me.
Seems that my hunch is at least somewhat correct, that I just want more "me time". I feel a bit bad in that I don't have a tough 12hr schedule like some but still exhibit this behavior. I think its partially due to the fact that a lot of other things I do outside of work, my mind doesn't perceive as restful/me-time. Ex. I enjoy running, but exercise still feels like an obligation more than a privilege. Combine that with other social/communal obligations and certain errands and a lot of my non-work time ends up being for fulfilling the demands of some other authority concept.
Then, I've let my hobbies wane over the years (especially in terms of what I can do inside during Covid) so the easiest thing I go to is just scrolling on my phone. Which feels like its for me but is ultimately really draining.
Trying a couple approaches to this.
1.) Anything BUT mindless browsing. Seriously, no guilt even if it's just a show on Netflix, buying one item at the store even though I "should" just batch shop, whatever as long as its self directed.
2.) Eek out that time and make it a priority, while still prioritizing sleep. Allow certain tasks that I "should" get done today to push out.
I'd get home exhausted ... but I honestly couldn't sleep unless I did some 'non work' a game or something at home away from work. I didn't feel stressed by work or anything, it was a great job with great people.... I just felt driven to do something ELSE no matter how tired I was.
Sounds like they're just behaving like parents with young kids.
I routinely stay up too late just to have some quiet, waking conscious alone time after a full day of work and time with the kids (which are now hopelessly intertwined).
>Sounds like they're just behaving like parents with young kids.
That was my thought as well. After the wife and kid (not so young now) get to bed is when I actually get quiet time to myself, which I need to unwind from the day.
It's actually gotten much worse due to WFH. My daily commute (via transit) provided some of that quiet time to gear up in the morning and unwind in the evening.
We have the option of remote, flex (hot desk), or office (perm desk) when this is all over. Before I was a 3-4 days in the office, 1-2 at home kind of guy. I’m planning on being a 5 days a week in the office guy so hard when this dies down and I can get a shot.
As someone with a demanding job that often takes the whole day (plus now, a kid) I do this very often. I didn't even know it had a name.
The piece seems to imply it's a wrong choice, because it would be better to just go to sleep. Maybe in many cases it is. For me, that's not the case, because if I don't get some "me time", I just can't sleep well. I'd rather go to bed at 1:30 and sleep well than go at 12 and spend two hours rolling in the bed because I'm still thinking about work and haven't had time to "unwind" my mind. So I don't think it's a bad decision, and it doesn't feel like "revenge" either, just some needed personal upkeep time (like sleeping itself).
Of course, I know it would be best to remove the stress, so as to have time both for myself and sleep and not have to choose the lesser of two evils... easier said than done, though.
It may raise eyebrows, but with the current WFH culture, I simply take naps during work time. If I feel tired, then it's in my and my employers' best interest for me to nap since I will be much more productive for the next few hours.
I've tested this also by not sleeping, and my code becomes worse and I need to rewrite a lot of it anyway.
In fairness, I do try to go to bed on time, but my issue is that I sometimes only sleep 5 to 6 hours. My body just won't sleep, so I make up for it during work time.
I'm not sure I completely agree with this logic because you are saying "if I neglect <X> in personal time, then it is in my and my employer's best interests for me to address <X> during work time (because otherwise I will be less productive)"
However, X could be a wide range of things. To use an extreme example, I could neglect fixing my furnace during personal time, and thus I can do it on my employer's dime so that I don't die of carbon monoxide poisoning while WFH (I would be unproductive if I am dead)...
The key to making the parent post make sense is to not think of time as personal/work time. My job is 100% project based so I don’t need to be owned by my job during the 9-5 hours. If I nap all day and work nights and my projects all complete, who cares? I understand not all roles fit this model.
I think I agree with their logic more than I would have thought on my own.
I would be less productive at work if I were stressing out about a personal item that I would normally handle during "personal time". I've had fantastic employees have horrible weeks / months because they refused to take a few days off to deal with personal items.
As an employer, I would definitely say it is in my best long term interest to have an employee who is happy and doesn't have problems at home. If that means someone I'm paying 6 figures needs every Friday off for a few months then so be it. Or in this case, taking a nap whenever they need to, provided it's not a 4 hour nap everyday at 1 PM.
If you were in an office then your employer - or the building's landlord - would arrange for someone to fix the furnace. But your employer has now commandeered your home as your workspace during the pandemic. It's probably seeing a lot more wear and tear because of this. Are they going to pay someone to come out and fix your furnace? Probably not.
It's the same equation at play in the Uber/Lyft/auto+gig realm. A portion of the means of production[physical space, electricity, plumbing, etc.] has been shifted from being employer-owned to employee-owned while keeping other parts of the equation constant. Rather than employers bearing the cost of purchasing or maintaining these means, employees find themselves paying for these out of their wages. It might be tempting to respond with "yes, but employees have or were going to buy these anyway." But consider effects beyond the surface level, additional wear to heating and cooling machinery because the machinery would otherwise be idle while the employee was away at work, the wear of home office furniture, and the change in monthly data usage w.r.t. data caps. Some employers have recognized this shift in burden, but have most? How does this shift affect incentives?
Keep in mind that a lot of this stuff is really owned, at the end of the day, by capitalists... in the literal sense, by institutions and individuals who command capital. Auto gig workers typically rent or lease the cars, then work to pay them off, living on precarious margins. Sure, they're responsible for maintenance, but at the end of the day, the cars will vanish if they don't make their payments. Most of us rent our houses or have mortgages on them, but they're not paid off.
Which is why people are working so much in the first place! There are payments to be made, on a strict schedule. You could lose your home and burn bridges if you don't keep up. Quite a few people actually do lose their homes and burn bridges. It's common to think of this as being their fault for being lazy.
But this whole arrangement is unsustainable for the people and for the planet.
And this is the whole point of Thomas Piketty's famous book a few years back that caused a big stir but is all but ignored by political and economic leaders in the US.
There are very good reasons why cultures before banned usury. Sure, rent and debt are powerful economic tools, but with great power comes great responsibility, and I'm still waiting for the lawmakers and business leaders where I live (the US) to go ahead and exercise that responsibility by creating sensible countermeasures to protect people from exploitation.
You are making the assumption that people working from home work on a clock, and talking to my friends and coworkers is not common. Although I have one friend who does it pretty religiously, and he seems to be happier for it.
But that's not what the comment says. He says he is not neglecting the bedtime and despite of that he cannot sleep enough. It can have a whole range of reasons why someone cannot sleep, many of them out of the commenter's control, so there cannot be any neglect whatsoever in any sense of the word in that case.
Your example isn't even bad though. The point is that why do we have to eat the personal cost of that? My work follows me home and I don't get compensated. If you aren't structuring your time around this, I do think it's often in the best interest of the company.
Replace "nap" with any other life maintenance that is an impediment to work.
It is much quicker to just pause work for an hour, fix the problem and then get back to it. I'm not trapped in an office twiddling my thumbs while having to put off the problem for later.
I also find this makes me much more amenable to dealing with work problems on non-work hours. You aren't leeching my life problem solving time during the entire work day, so I don't have to be as protective of it when I'm on personal time.
I do this as well, and long have as I’ve worked from home for close to 15 years. The naps are really only 15-20 minutes, typically before I make or get coffee in the afternoon around 3 or 4. I’ve certainly spent more than 15 or 20 minutes staring at some code during a mental block, reading a random internet link, or chatting with a coworker. This is far more healthy (it’s got to be?) and it lets my subconscious work on a problem or just wander for a minute.
I had another tech friend who didn’t drink coffee, but always took a tea nap where he drank some tea, then immediately laid down for 15-20 minutes. By the time the caffeine kicked in, he got up and was ready for the next push of the day.
” Not Amazon Video, not YouTube, not even old-fashioned broadcasters. No, according to the company's chief executive, Reed Hastings, Netflix's biggest competitor is the pesky human need to close your eyes and sleep for a third of the day.”
I've found it helpful to wake up at the same (early) time everyday no matter what and then rely on my body to "tell me" when it's time for sleep. This keeps me lined up on a steady circadian rhythm. If it gets disrupted, that's OK, it snaps back in day or two as long as I stick to the same wake-up time.
It's much harder to do this with a prescribed "bed time" if you're not ready, it's really hard to sleep.
>“I was almost depressed,” she says. “I was deprived of all my personal life.” After her shift, which sometimes included overtime, she had a small window to eat, shower and go to bed – but she sacrificed sleep to eke out some personal time. Often, Rao would stay up surfing the internet, reading the news and watching online videos until well after midnight.
Same here. There's not much "psychology" mystery to it, humans are not robots, we need some fun/me/entertainment/wind-down/-time, not just to sleep, work, and eat.
Sleeping feels so fleeting, you close your eyes and poof there go 8 hours(not to say that it isn't beneficial or necessary of course). To work 8 hours, sleep, and then work another 8 hours felt not much different than just working 16 hours with a small break in the middle. So I would stay up for a while to have fun at the expense of the next day...and probably many days thereafter.
It gets worse when sleep isn't fleeting. Waking up every two hours and then struggling to get back to sleep really draws out the misery of working long hours.
Note: Before anyone tries to give me advice, my depressive episodes cause primary insomnia. Whatever you think will work, won't. It's been tried.
A question: why do you personally believe the causality is depression causes insomnia? Alternatively why do you not think that insomnia causes depression?
I've been diagnosed Bipolar 1 by a psychiatrist. Primary insomnia is a known symptom of depressive episodes. Uncommon to be sure, but not unknown.
And to prove it really is primary insomnia, let me walk you through the three different kinds of insomnia I deal with.
1. Anxiety-related insomnia. Rare. My brain is stuck in a feedback loop.
2. Manic insomnia. Occasionally. My brain running overclocked and I don't feel tired. Imagine trying to sleep while doing lines of cocaine.
3. Depression insomnia. Common. My body can sleep but brain cannot sleep. I can lay in bed for eight hours, motionless and thoughtless while being fully conscious of every moment while my body rests. I get up with my body feeling great and my mind exhausted.
Sorry, I was just trying to grok how you understand things to help me learn. I hope I didn’t come across as attacking you.
Completely off-topic, but I am interested in the science of psychological diagnoses, because a diagnosis is usually a recognition of a cluster of symptoms, and only sometimes is a cause given.
Funnily enough, before you mentioned it, I didn’t know what ‘primary insomnia’ meant. A definition for others: “Traditionally, a distinction has been made between secondary insomnia, which arises due to another condition, and primary insomnia where a patient has problems sleeping but where there is no underlying medical cause. However, this distinction is now considered less important because:” from https://bpac.org.nz/2017/insomnia-1.aspx
Trying to understand causes is an epically hard road, as shown by the slow progress in non-psych medicine over the last century. Especially hard if your own mind is throwing roadblocks in the way (mental tar pit, manic disinformation, delusions, time 110% dedicated to surviving with no spare cycles).
I wish I could say that about myself. Since a few months, I often lie awake for hours waiting for sleep to come along and poof the night away. More often than not, it takes until 3am for me to fall asleep, and I feel as broken as you might expect the next morning.
I don't really have a good handle on what changed, or how to get back into my old sleep cycle. I just know it's annoying as hell.
I just saw a note this week that in cases like this it might be good to ask 'what have you tried?' before giving any advice. Maybe HN should get into that habit.
Why? If they decide to share their personal story online, at the very least they should expect to get replies from people who may relate to it and are willing to share their own experiences for what they're worth.
If they get offended by that advice, the issue is on them, not me.
Also, ironically enough, your comment is actually the unsolicited advice in the thread...
I guess you're right, both comments are, since nobody asked for advice.
I chose this point to invite this discussion, but could have used one of the many others in the same vein as well. What is a good reaction to someone stating their plight but not actually asking for help?
I equate someone stating their plight with asking for advice. Particularly the following
> I don't really have a good handle on what changed, or how to get back into my old sleep cycle. I just know it's annoying as hell.
In my mind, the only point in saying that is for others to empathize and share their best ideas so that OP can have "a better handle" on things. I think it's only human to respond as I did.
I do think we live in an age where people are sensitive over their interpersonal boundaries to a fault. No man is an island, and people will always give unsolicited advice—the listener can simply just choose to ignore it in which case nobody is really worse off.
Advice is almost invariably provided "as is" and with a suggested grain of salt. I don't see how it's offensive, almost by definition, as there's a distinction between being judgmental of someone and genuinely trying to help.
And for what it's worth, I don't even get offended if people judge me and don't think others should either. It's part of what defines life in a society and judging / peer pressure has a net positive effect lest we remain barbarians.
Strangely enough, I drink a large cup in the morning but almost always feel very tired by mid afternoon, and find it easy (recognizing my good fortune here) to fall asleep at night. Amazing how varied biological/psychological responses can be to a single substance.
What I have observed (in my case) is that if
1. I am too tired, it actually takes longer to fall asleep.
2. If I have watched some heavy / thought provoking movie / series etc., those thoughts keep playing out in my head and then it takes longer to fall asleep.
In such cases, I have devised a strategy. I have developed a fantasy of my own which I keep playing out in my head consciously. I am fast asleep before I know it.
I often self sabotage myself, as humans are prone to do. I used to get into this cycle of playing video games or watching some show until like 6am and then I would go to sleep for 5-6 hours. I knew what I needed to do to get myself out of that cycle, as eventually it became unpleasant/anti-social/etc... but I just didn't want to take the steps. As can be seen in some of the comments, there is often a chasm between giving advice and taking it.
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[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 279 ms ] threadI always had my children with me when I was doing 'me things'. Including reading, video games, woodworking, hunting, hiking, and even meditation. For reference, I'm a super introverted person, and really need alone time to recharge my batteries.
It's a nice way to instill values while also enjoying them while they're small.
I mean, they will grow up eventually (really fast actually) and won't want to hang out with you at some point, so even if you "can't" do your 'me time' with them, you will have access to it again, eventually.
I only get energy from being alone and doing stuff on my computer, so I trade sleep for time every night.
I certainly understand the sentiment. But I'd question is this actually true? Have you considered doing a Gwern-style self-experiment to quantify the impact?
Maybe try something like your current routine for two weeks, then rigorously maxing out sleep for two weeks. Take systematic surveys of your subjective wellbeing and energy levels throughout the day. Then compare the two periods.
You might be surprised to learn that what you think is giving you energy, is actually taking it away. I think as humans we tend to have very bad introspective intuition about what actually improves our energy and mood. I know I certainly do. Being scientific about it can reveal some surprising results.
I feel like you are confusing physical energy with spiritual energy. The stuff that makes you feel motivated and driven and excited, versus just capable of doing work.
I'm struggling with this myself. Some of my conclusions so far:
* When I am sleep-deprived I am less productive. So I spend more time doing "work". Then I have less time for everything else I want to do (family, cooking, sport). So I take more time away from sleep. And the cycle repeats. Sleep deprivation is self-perpetuating.
* What I do at night, when I am exhausted, in 2 hours can be done in the morning in half an hour.
* I get angrier and negative much more easily when I am sleep deprived.
For my particular case: limit the time dedicated to "work" and do the other things in the time it is usually dedicated to it. Stay away from screens past 11. Listen to ebooks for falling asleep. Use the good sleep energy to finish work stuff earlier, do more exercise, etc. Break out of the vicious cycle and start a virtuous one.
I still fail at doing it from time to time. I think this must feel similar to what relapsing alcoholics feel. I try to not be too hard on myself and keep trying.
Its a management/company culture thing.
Burn out, find something healthy. The fact that most wont since they need the money tells us how nasty this is.
I was reading the book '168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think', and the author mentions how researchers in the past were predicting we would have so much free time in the future.
Humans are being treated like this. As technology increases, humans are merely expected to produce more in the same amount of time. There's no law that guarantees humans would have more free time due to increased efficiency.
On the edges, where people are forced to work 60+ hrs a week there's enough leverage of people simply being unwilling to do the job (though even this isn't as true for some elite jobs). On the other hand, if they're just being asked to clock in from 9-5? There would need to be some outrage and push, but this makes you look lazy. There seems to be some progress made on vacations in corporate America, though.
Also, some roles would legitimately suffer or not work at all at 20-30 hrs. I think the ideal is to normally work 40-60 hrs "busy weeks", but not try to load people down when things naturally get slower and let them dip into the time for personal, so it's usually 30-35, or occasionally a bit less.
https://harpers.org/archive/1932/10/in-praise-of-idleness/
I think Keynes talked about it a lot too.
I also think being sleep deprived destroys your willpower. So getting enough sleep for a few nights, perhaps on the weekend, and then trying to keep a streak going.
Additionally I’ve had a lot of success using a habit tracking app (I love way of life but habitica is also great and free).
I would also set an alarm every night.
What's weird is psychoactive substance rarely seem to change this productivity dynamic. Even if I'm well rested and drink coffee in the morning, I'm still inclined to procrastinate, whereas in the evening even after drinking alcohol or smoking weed, I can be productive even for intellectual tasks. Obviously I do not condone working while under influence, but if it's a friday and I have literally nothing to do (e.g. during lockdown) drinking a few beers, smoking some pot and programming for my side-projects or playing chess around midnight is really fun for me. In the mornings, I just infinite-scroll reddit for at least an hour before I can even leave the bed.
I reckon something happens at the physical level that triggers a tiny bit of adrenaline in the afternoon, so I get sharper. If I skip lunch, for example, I get sharper sooner - the body is actually slightly starved of resources, why am I feeling better? There must be something in me that goes “body tired -> let’s power it up”, probably some sort of small-scale adrenaline deployment.
Note that coffee can take 2 hours to actually work its magic, depending on one’s metabolism and tolerance, so drinking more of that won’t necessarily help your mornings. The only thing that helps me is doing something I actually care about.
Please look into this, GP.
I recently took a trip to the beach and spent a half hour or so outside in the transition between full light and darkness. It was surprising how tired I was feeling as early as it was. Let yourself experience the transition to night and then limit your light exposure.
In this article the problem is being overworked. The solution isn't to remove that little bit of extra pleasure from your life so you can sleep better and be an even better, harder worker, but to find a better balance.
If you have this problem is very likely because you have a major part of your life you don't feel like you have control over: maybe your jobs is awful, maybe your marriage is awful, maybe you just feel too stressed about the world.
Treating the symptom and not the root cause will not yield the results you are looking for even if you succeed.
The biggest thing I do to overcome that is to take a day off and don't do anything productive at all (easy if it happens to fall on a weekend, more effective if I do it on a weekday). This breaks the first step -- less productive does not mean spend more time working, it means taking time off to recover.
For me it's about "reminding myself I don't have to do things". That voice in my head telling me how vital it is I get all the things done is just one voice. All I need to do is work well enough to ensure me and my family are fed, clothed and have somewhere to sleep.
So I guess if you can build in some sort of "hard stop" a little before you want to fall asleep that might work, but I haven't really found anything since.
Even when you find/trade your time, it's not the same time.
The only things that are legally available here are ritalin and modafinil (only if you have narcolepsy). I tried 5mg of ritalin 2 or 3 times, it made me work and think faster and with more focus, but it also felt jittery and I'm not sure it was all that pleasurable.
So based on that and on worries about causing more long-term damage I haven't tried to take it longer. Maybe I should try combining it with something that's supposed to be fun, but I don't know how I feel about doing this without some kind of a plan. E.g. combining with games that are challenging I would be worried about lowering my frustration tolerance.
They may be good for a short term boost, but they do not provide any long-term gain.
I have ADHD, but never any depression. (But I have friends with those combinations.)
Your reaction to Ritalin matches mine to caffeine or dexamphetamine: the dose I get jittery at is lower than the dose were I see positive effects. Luckily, Ritalin/methylphenidate works fairly well for me with rather manageable side-effects.
By the way, I bet you have other options!:
Caffeine is universally available. But has a bad side effect profile.
You can get adrafinil over-the-counter, which is a chemical precursor to modafinil. See eg https://www.gwern.net/Modafinil
Nicotine is a wonder drug, too. Nicotine patches are available over-the-counter. See https://www.gwern.net/Nicotine (Please don't confuse nicotine with smoking. Smoking is still bad for you.)
I am taking methylphenidate, but for long term effects, I am actually seriously considering switching to nicotine patches:
Nicotine protects your brain against parkinson's, which runs in my family.
But in any case, from what you describe, it doesn't necessarily sound like your depression is linked to something that stimulants can help with in the first place?
I would suggest seeking professional mental health help. I'd also suggest meditation and a bit of self discovery. If it wasn't 2020 I'd also suggest travelling, break the pattern find some perspective.
Life is too short, find some help, get to the root of your problem. Life lesson for me that I am still trying to embody is happiness is a choice. It's really true. When I dig deep I realize that I actually like to wallow in unhappiness, it gives me an identity. This is obviously not healthy but realizing that is the first, incredibly difficult step. Shaking myself out of a black hole spiral is so hard. But forcing yourself to go for a walk, see some friends, basically break out of whatever negative thoughts you have an choosing to do something positive is key.
You aren't alone feeling this way. Be kind to yourself.
I've had both Ritalin and modafinil. They're different.
They both don't have much of a low at low doses. And in any case, you wouldn't be getting a high from either any more after a few days of using them, tolerances to the high build very quickly.
My original comment was a bit flippant. I was obliquely hinting at perhaps treating an underlying ADHD, because that's sometimes cause for depression and something that's relatively easy to rule out (or treat) with eg some over-the-counter nicotine patches.
Etc.
Lots of things that can't really be changed.
Underlying ADHD can sometimes cause depression and other weird comorbid things. If you treat the ADHD, the depression might get better. (I've seen it happen to friends.)
Yes, in the very short term, stimulants also make you happy directly. But that effect is fleeting and subject to building a very quick tolerance.
Are you suggesting they do their own things in the morning instead? They would still be sleep deprived, plus the issue is that they actually would have trouble forcing themselves to go to bed earlier as they procrastinate.
When i finish everything (work, home, cook food, eat, cleanup, random household tasks,...) it's usually 8 in the evening, maybe 9. If i want to do something (hobby, personal project....), I start at 9, and work until "too late".
If you go to sleep early, and wake up at (eg.) 5 in the morning, start work at 8, you have (eg.) 1 hour to get ready and commute + 2 hours of free time.
If anything "goes wrong" in my project, i have to debug, retry, fix, cut and cut again (and it's still too short),... doing this in the morning,it means, that you interrupt your pleasure-work at the moment where you're most productive (and where the thing you're doing is most "fun"/fulfiling). I can always go to sleep an hour later, or two, or five... most people are not that flexible with their jobs.
This is just my personal experience and opinion though.
The early bird schedule didn't reveal an untapped reserve of morning energy. It didn't shift my late night energy burst into the morning. In fact, it didn't shift the productivity burst at all -- it eliminated it. This wasn't for lack of sunlight and exercise; getting up early to run outside was the entire point. It wasn't for lack of cold showers, which were remarkably pleasant after suffering in the heat. It wasn't due to a poor diet, or meal scheduling, which I experimented with.
To hear the early birds talk about it, these exercises should have transformed me into a superior moral being of hyper-optimized productivity, overflowing with perfection in every aspect of spirituality and performance. That isn't what happened. Not in part, not in whole. The net effect was small and negative. I traded high-energy night hours for low-energy morning hours. It was worth it to access the daily temperature minimum, but I wasn't able to make the morning schedule work for me, despite having every intent and incentive to do so. When the constraint lifted, I moved back to my regular schedule and recaptured its benefits.
Night owls: try the early bird schedule, there are enough people who report benefits from switching that you owe it a solid try.
Early birds: tips and anecdotes are fine, but frame them in terms of what works for you. Cut the sanctimonious bullshit. It isn't helpful, it isn't appreciated, and it isn't appropriate.
That's... a night owl now?
What worked for me was putting my time and energy towards things which I feel improve the world.
Also, what's the equivalent in other languages? In English, wouldn't we say 'self-sabotage'?
The revenge and retaliatory terms are more subversive than negative.
The retaliation is against losing control of your own time. The revenge is against your corporate-master, your boss, the pointy-haired boss, the Communist political officer, "the Man", late stage capitalism - whatever you want to call it I don't think the sentiment is limited to China and communism, etc. and that's why this article struck a chord enough for it to get onto hnews.
That said, the subversive nature of the wording is very very Chinese. Not just Communist Chinese, but this type of subversive back-talk has been alive for many many generations since the imperial days, where you had to talk in circles in order to not be executed.
China has a culture of "labor" as the symbol of one's personal worth, and this ties into the Maoist/Communist ideal of empowering _labor_. In America, "idleness" might be the _reward_ of labor, or even a _kind_ of labor: thinking, imagining, talking, creating ideas themselves: "idle" labor. In America, physical labor is respected, but probably more _rewarded_ is one's talent for idle labor, especially nowadays. In China, the labor is its own reward, and idleness is "evil" - maybe nobody believes that anymore, but they go along with it. Furthermore, China knows that ideas are easy to steal, but labor isn't.
Other than a "thank god I'm not Chinese", I'm not sure what other discussions one could have without going onto politics and being considered and anti-chinese.
I love chinese and japanese culture, but their particular work ethic is total nightmare and wrong on every level and needs to disappear as soon as possible.
EDIT: I'm currently sleep deprived (of course...) so I'm sorry if this comes out harsher than needed.
2ND EDIT: Other than that, this is not even a work ethic/culture problem, is that many current working practices are not suitable for human survival beyond basic functions. It doesn't change if you're chinese or not.
"Many young Chinese workers prioritise leisure time over sleep after long work days – even though they know it’s unhealthy."
It's clear even from this formulation that what's really been prioritised (and really unhealthy) is the long work day.
I mean there's workarounds like the gig economy, but for most people things are still pretty good.
It does work for workers in many sectors, though. I'm not criticizing working hours regulations, far from it - just saying we should probably do more than that.
If the only way to not be 'mediocre' is to sacrifice one's health, there's something wrong.
Not to be unsympathetic, but it's baffling to me why academics, who are mainly smart, innovative people, don't band together across disciplines to reshape their environment and wrest control out of the hands of the administrators who frequently make their life a misery.
That matches my experience in academia. The prof in charge of our lab worked a lot because he was obsessed with the work and wanted to succeed, not because someone was cracking a whip.
Yes, but why? Most academics I know are miserable and worn ragged by this endless competition. I'm asking why they don't construct a more favorable environment for themselves where they are not constantly being played off against each other. Administrators are part of that system, as opposed to being autonomous villains.
It's almost like they're trying to normalize a 6 day/72 hour week for everyone.
Can't tell you how much I look forward to 1) being done with OMSCS, and 2) the pandemic ending and the kids going back to in-person school. Never going to complain about teacher salaries again (not that I really ever did, but still...)
I ended up going through some material and building a trading bot because I never got a chance to take ML4T.
My wife was incredulous that I was doing more coursework after graduating.
The tricky part is making sure you don’t pick up the phone before 10am. Too easy to wander over to HN and write about how much this sleep schedule switch helped.
For me mornings are great for deep work (usually) because my mind isn’t full of other people’s crap yet.
I went back to my usual staying up until 2am or so. Virtually zero chance of getting disrupted then.
The most surprising bit of info is how any of this is surprising.
OF COURSE I sacrifice sleep for leisure. I would be happy to sacrifice work instead, but guess what?
However, the activities described in the article -- "Rao would stay up surfing the internet, reading the news and watching online videos until well after midnight" -- don't sound like the kind of quality "me time" that makes life more worth living.
I say this as someone trapped in a similar cycle. My wife and I are exhausted after both working from home and pandemic parenting/homeschooling every day. By the time the kids are asleep (10:30 for the older one) we "need" some time to veg on the couch, and end up going to bed at 11:30, when really we would have been better off going to bed 45 minutes earlier.
But the "me time" trap makes us somehow believe that the hour or so we spend on our phones is necessary for us, when in fact it's stupid, wasted time, reading about politics or being on Twitter of whatever.
(Ok, we also have been teaching ourselves the piano, and playing chess and stuff, but many nights we still feel like we "deserve" some brain-dead "me time.")
Now, I do agree that social media and other things in the digital world can be actually addictive and psychologically harmful, but given the aforementioned state of mental exhaustion I'm totally not surprised that people should get hooked on things that are designed to continuously give your brain small rewards with minimum effort spent on your part.
I'm sure some people would love to spend their "me time" in the daylight, outside, or even being "productive" and learning new hobbies or practicing current ones. Unfortunately we have to prove value to society so we can get money for food and shelter.
Actually, the "no benefit at all" is the entire point.
Seems that my hunch is at least somewhat correct, that I just want more "me time". I feel a bit bad in that I don't have a tough 12hr schedule like some but still exhibit this behavior. I think its partially due to the fact that a lot of other things I do outside of work, my mind doesn't perceive as restful/me-time. Ex. I enjoy running, but exercise still feels like an obligation more than a privilege. Combine that with other social/communal obligations and certain errands and a lot of my non-work time ends up being for fulfilling the demands of some other authority concept.
Then, I've let my hobbies wane over the years (especially in terms of what I can do inside during Covid) so the easiest thing I go to is just scrolling on my phone. Which feels like its for me but is ultimately really draining.
Trying a couple approaches to this. 1.) Anything BUT mindless browsing. Seriously, no guilt even if it's just a show on Netflix, buying one item at the store even though I "should" just batch shop, whatever as long as its self directed. 2.) Eek out that time and make it a priority, while still prioritizing sleep. Allow certain tasks that I "should" get done today to push out.
I have to admit, I'm like the young Chinese
I'd get home exhausted ... but I honestly couldn't sleep unless I did some 'non work' a game or something at home away from work. I didn't feel stressed by work or anything, it was a great job with great people.... I just felt driven to do something ELSE no matter how tired I was.
I routinely stay up too late just to have some quiet, waking conscious alone time after a full day of work and time with the kids (which are now hopelessly intertwined).
That was my thought as well. After the wife and kid (not so young now) get to bed is when I actually get quiet time to myself, which I need to unwind from the day.
It's actually gotten much worse due to WFH. My daily commute (via transit) provided some of that quiet time to gear up in the morning and unwind in the evening.
The piece seems to imply it's a wrong choice, because it would be better to just go to sleep. Maybe in many cases it is. For me, that's not the case, because if I don't get some "me time", I just can't sleep well. I'd rather go to bed at 1:30 and sleep well than go at 12 and spend two hours rolling in the bed because I'm still thinking about work and haven't had time to "unwind" my mind. So I don't think it's a bad decision, and it doesn't feel like "revenge" either, just some needed personal upkeep time (like sleeping itself).
Of course, I know it would be best to remove the stress, so as to have time both for myself and sleep and not have to choose the lesser of two evils... easier said than done, though.
I've tested this also by not sleeping, and my code becomes worse and I need to rewrite a lot of it anyway.
In fairness, I do try to go to bed on time, but my issue is that I sometimes only sleep 5 to 6 hours. My body just won't sleep, so I make up for it during work time.
It is what it is.
However, X could be a wide range of things. To use an extreme example, I could neglect fixing my furnace during personal time, and thus I can do it on my employer's dime so that I don't die of carbon monoxide poisoning while WFH (I would be unproductive if I am dead)...
I would be less productive at work if I were stressing out about a personal item that I would normally handle during "personal time". I've had fantastic employees have horrible weeks / months because they refused to take a few days off to deal with personal items.
As an employer, I would definitely say it is in my best long term interest to have an employee who is happy and doesn't have problems at home. If that means someone I'm paying 6 figures needs every Friday off for a few months then so be it. Or in this case, taking a nap whenever they need to, provided it's not a 4 hour nap everyday at 1 PM.
Which is why people are working so much in the first place! There are payments to be made, on a strict schedule. You could lose your home and burn bridges if you don't keep up. Quite a few people actually do lose their homes and burn bridges. It's common to think of this as being their fault for being lazy.
But this whole arrangement is unsustainable for the people and for the planet.
And this is the whole point of Thomas Piketty's famous book a few years back that caused a big stir but is all but ignored by political and economic leaders in the US.
There are very good reasons why cultures before banned usury. Sure, rent and debt are powerful economic tools, but with great power comes great responsibility, and I'm still waiting for the lawmakers and business leaders where I live (the US) to go ahead and exercise that responsibility by creating sensible countermeasures to protect people from exploitation.
As non hourly, exempt workers, it’s generally assumed the time is flexible, in the same way you aren’t paid for overtime.
It is much quicker to just pause work for an hour, fix the problem and then get back to it. I'm not trapped in an office twiddling my thumbs while having to put off the problem for later.
I also find this makes me much more amenable to dealing with work problems on non-work hours. You aren't leeching my life problem solving time during the entire work day, so I don't have to be as protective of it when I'm on personal time.
I had another tech friend who didn’t drink coffee, but always took a tea nap where he drank some tea, then immediately laid down for 15-20 minutes. By the time the caffeine kicked in, he got up and was ready for the next push of the day.
” Not Amazon Video, not YouTube, not even old-fashioned broadcasters. No, according to the company's chief executive, Reed Hastings, Netflix's biggest competitor is the pesky human need to close your eyes and sleep for a third of the day.”
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/18/netflix-c...
They logically should care about making people watch a minimum amount that ensures they keep paying, but beyond that it's worthless.
It's much harder to do this with a prescribed "bed time" if you're not ready, it's really hard to sleep.
Same here. There's not much "psychology" mystery to it, humans are not robots, we need some fun/me/entertainment/wind-down/-time, not just to sleep, work, and eat.
Note: Before anyone tries to give me advice, my depressive episodes cause primary insomnia. Whatever you think will work, won't. It's been tried.
No. I'd like to avoid my psychiatrist sending me to the ER again.
I've been diagnosed Bipolar 1 by a psychiatrist. Primary insomnia is a known symptom of depressive episodes. Uncommon to be sure, but not unknown.
And to prove it really is primary insomnia, let me walk you through the three different kinds of insomnia I deal with.
1. Anxiety-related insomnia. Rare. My brain is stuck in a feedback loop.
2. Manic insomnia. Occasionally. My brain running overclocked and I don't feel tired. Imagine trying to sleep while doing lines of cocaine.
3. Depression insomnia. Common. My body can sleep but brain cannot sleep. I can lay in bed for eight hours, motionless and thoughtless while being fully conscious of every moment while my body rests. I get up with my body feeling great and my mind exhausted.
Completely off-topic, but I am interested in the science of psychological diagnoses, because a diagnosis is usually a recognition of a cluster of symptoms, and only sometimes is a cause given.
Funnily enough, before you mentioned it, I didn’t know what ‘primary insomnia’ meant. A definition for others: “Traditionally, a distinction has been made between secondary insomnia, which arises due to another condition, and primary insomnia where a patient has problems sleeping but where there is no underlying medical cause. However, this distinction is now considered less important because:” from https://bpac.org.nz/2017/insomnia-1.aspx
Trying to understand causes is an epically hard road, as shown by the slow progress in non-psych medicine over the last century. Especially hard if your own mind is throwing roadblocks in the way (mental tar pit, manic disinformation, delusions, time 110% dedicated to surviving with no spare cycles).
All the best fortune on your journey.
I wish I could say that about myself. Since a few months, I often lie awake for hours waiting for sleep to come along and poof the night away. More often than not, it takes until 3am for me to fall asleep, and I feel as broken as you might expect the next morning.
I don't really have a good handle on what changed, or how to get back into my old sleep cycle. I just know it's annoying as hell.
If they get offended by that advice, the issue is on them, not me.
Also, ironically enough, your comment is actually the unsolicited advice in the thread...
I chose this point to invite this discussion, but could have used one of the many others in the same vein as well. What is a good reaction to someone stating their plight but not actually asking for help?
> I don't really have a good handle on what changed, or how to get back into my old sleep cycle. I just know it's annoying as hell.
In my mind, the only point in saying that is for others to empathize and share their best ideas so that OP can have "a better handle" on things. I think it's only human to respond as I did.
I do think we live in an age where people are sensitive over their interpersonal boundaries to a fault. No man is an island, and people will always give unsolicited advice—the listener can simply just choose to ignore it in which case nobody is really worse off.
Advice is almost invariably provided "as is" and with a suggested grain of salt. I don't see how it's offensive, almost by definition, as there's a distinction between being judgmental of someone and genuinely trying to help.
And for what it's worth, I don't even get offended if people judge me and don't think others should either. It's part of what defines life in a society and judging / peer pressure has a net positive effect lest we remain barbarians.
In such cases, I have devised a strategy. I have developed a fantasy of my own which I keep playing out in my head consciously. I am fast asleep before I know it.