What would you do with 52 hours a week of discretionary time? (2023) (njbrown.com)

Sort of not getting the point of this? We have free time, we can split it into 10 minutes blocks, and I guess make good use of it?

So Arnold Schwarzenegger's book Be Useful (pretty fun to listen to the audiobook, of course 1/2 of the appeal is just the accent) also has this sort approach to time management. This seems like a potentially useful lens to see time cycles with, but it really seems to have value if you are fairly brutal with the application. After all, 10-minute blocks leave no time for screwing around! 20 minutes for boiled chicken! 30 minutes for a new language! 10 minutes responding to real estate investment offers!

Not how I choose to live my life, to be frank... And I def don't need hyper-optimization to avoid TikTok or Reels (Just never installed them and deleted accounts on some vampire platforms... That's all it took).

I'm not convinced I have enough energy to do 16 hours a day of stuff that I am proud of.

I have that almost, my schedule is mostly 10 AM to 3 PM, three days a week. It's worked well but sometimes I have trouble filling the time.

sometimes I have a month of free time and I just end up working anyway because I get bored.

I concluded years ago that I'm not time-constrained, I'm energy-constrained. I couldn't explain it in terms of neurochemistry, but it's clear empirically that for me at least, willpower or mental focus is a resource which can be depleted, and work takes most of it. To me, the best way to use those 52 hours is not achieving things but caring for myself/restoring willpower, which means some blend of socialization, exercise, and relaxation.

Wasting time is absolutely glorious. Don't let anyone tell you that you can't or shouldn't.

Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it "I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you any different"

(That being said if Tik Tok is making you sad delete that shit right away. Wasting time is glorious but feeling depressed sucks.)

[dead]

I suppose that article is written by someone who doesn't have:

- young kids

- chores to do

- a house/yard to maintain

- hackernews to read

?

Am I the only one thinking this urge to optimize our time is just anxiety? I'd argue not spending time worried about time usage would make one use better its time.

I'm not referring to the article per se, but to this kind of articles in general.

On this article: why school is considered not discretionary time? Also commute and meals are somewhat discarded. While cooking, or helping, read a poem or a short story; while commuting, read a book, listed to some good music. This way, discretionary time becomes 100%.

About 26 hours with my family, 6 hours of exercise, 10 hours cooking and house chores, and 10 hours playing games or something else relaxing.

It's not that hard to think about the things you want to prioritize and roughly schedule them, or to pick from that list of priorities depending on your energy/motivation levels at any given time.

The Factory must grow.

Nothing planned. That's the point.

Feels written by someone youthfull and single.

“I am single and don’t have kids”

>His greatest achievement was watching 7,000,000 Instagram Reels.

There is nothing intrinsically wrong about this.

For an article that claims to advocate making good use of your time… this feels like a waste of my time. It’s a lot of words to just end up at “carpe diem” and has big “thanks I’m cured” energy to boot.

Consider spending those 52(38) hours not worrying about scolding people about how they spend their own discretionary time.

[dead]

[dead]