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Ask HN: How does one do it all?

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Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#11

Post by koalakeeper »

100000% seconding the recommendation for Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals. You sound overwhelmed–just focus on what you need to do today. My litmus test: If you spent everyday like today, what would your life be like in a year? That way I make sure to not skimp on two big things:

•Health: exercise, eating well, sleep •Something that will expand my life over time: learning and satisfying a non work-related curiosity; doing something social 1-2x a week

Set limits on: •Things that annoy you and steal your time; say no to energy vampires, social media, etc •Occasionally I'll try to address an inefficiency (for me, it's meal prep), but make sure that it's not my main focus.

No one does it all. It only looks that way because people only post their highlight reels on the internet, and no character on TV spends time realistically. Most of life is commuting and chores and errands, the unsexy stuff of maintenance. Since this can't be avoided, don't act like it's a waste of your life. It IS a lot of life.

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#12

Post by AnimalMuppet »

As others have said, you can't. And that's all right. You don't need to have it all.

You need to decide what you need to have, not what everyone else says you need to have. You need to go after that. (And then you need to learn to live without the things you "have" to have, because you may not be able to get even that much.)

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#13

Post by codingdave »

You won't have time for it all. And when it is all over, nobody wishes they had spent more time working. So find the balance - do the work you need to do. But then put it away and do the activities that will leave you on your deathbed (hopefully old) saying, "Yeah, that was a good life."

If you keep that perspective when making all your choices... well, you'll still make mistakes - mistakes are part of youth. But they will be made with good intent and hopefully keep you growing and living in a good direction.

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#14

Post by codingdave »

PaulHoule wrote: post #8

If your life was a play it would have multiple acts. Every 7 years or so you will have some major upheaval in your routine, so you aren't stuck with the choices you make right now. For instance I went through a phase of playing video games heavily and now I've almost entirely quit. I had a time when I worked a lot on side projects, then I quit (except for work I've been doing on a committee.) Last year I started a se…

So you used to do side projects, quit that, but you toss in a line at the end that sure sounds like you are fishing for interest in a new side project. Are you sure you've quit doing side projects?

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#16

Post by MarcelOlsz »

There's only 24 hours in a day, so I try to kind of create a gradient of things important to me and try to weave one into the other. Each activity I do should somehow compliment something I already know, or fill in a need somewhere else, leading to a compounding effect. Example: I'm a pianist, so instead of picking up electronic music and getting lost in analog stuff, I'd pick up something like a clarinet, which works towards my goal of creating the sound I am after (helping me launch my album quicker), and doesn't require relearning multiple fields. This is the "density" factor of an activity I consider. Then I figure out where on the gradient between founder and career and hobby it falls on. The further the activity is towards hobby, and the less dense it is, the less time I will spend on it. The reason is at this point in my life founder/career trajectory is more important to me, to be able to afford the space and time to fully enter the hobby realm, at which point the hobbies are no longer hobbies, but become what I love doing, and cease to be either a career or a hobby.

Right now I am doing:

1) Leetcode in the mornings. On my (founder -> career -> hobby) continuum, this falls firmly on career, as it doesn't help me as a founder (except tangentially), and I don't code for fun (not a hobby). I will spend only a little time on this every day, 30m-1hr.

2) Language study - I am deeply interested in language. I am also studying math.

3) Math study - relearning my highschool math so I can get into a good university (sort of a backup plan if my MVP's fail)

4) My MVP - since the leetcode, language, and math all sort of work into each other on a loose level, I consider these small tasks I have to accomplish daily but with minimal time dedicated to each, such that I am still making progress in them, but with the bulk of my progress on my MVP.

When all of these wrap up, they will compliment each other very well. Once the MVP is launched, I plan to use that money to go back to school for math, where the Russian will help me. The MVP will also help me establish my skills in the public domain, helping me land a career, in which case the leetcode will also come through.

When I am done wrapping up the founder/career portion of my life, I will drift further towards hobby, trying to replace one with the other (replace career with hobby, hobby becoming the main thing I do), and then these hobby activities will take up a larger portion of my day.

I try to arrange all of my interests this way so I don't waste my own time on things that don't matter and don't help me. I focus on what fulfills me most, and place it last in the gradient, as a point to move towards.

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#17

Post by PaulHoule »

codingdave wrote: post #14
PaulHoule wrote: post #8

If your life was a play it would have multiple acts. Every 7 years or so you will have some major upheaval in your routine, so you aren't stuck with the choices you make right now. For instance I went through a phase of playing video games heavily and now I've almost entirely quit. I had a time when I worked a lot on side projects, then I quit (except for work I've been doing on a committee.) Last year I started a se…

So you used to do side projects, quit that, but you toss in a line at the end that sure sounds like you are fishing for interest in a new side project. Are you sure you've quit doing side projects?

I think you read it wrong.

I have three side projects right now that are like Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. The first one is reaching a point where it is "done" enough I can think about the other two. Then effort goes into the next two.

I started the first of those projects a year ago without really understanding what I was getting into. The hiatus started circa 2013 or so and ended last year.

Re: Ask HN: How does one do it all?

#19

Post by searchingalways »

An impossible task. One I also am tempted to try and do.

“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; a time to seek, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away; a time to tear, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak; a time to love, and a time to hate; a time for war, and a time for peace. What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the children of man to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already has been; and God seeks what has been driven away. Moreover, I saw under the sun that in the place of justice, even there was wickedness, and in the place of righteousness, even there was wickedness. I said in my heart, God will judge the righteous and the wicked, for there is a time for every matter and for every work. I said in my heart with regard to the children of man that God is testing them that they may see that they themselves are but beasts. For what happens to the children of man and what happens to the beasts is the same; as one dies, so dies the other. They all have the same breath, and man has no advantage over the beasts, for all is vanity. All go to one place. All are from the dust, and to dust all return. Who knows whether the spirit of man goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes down into the earth? So I saw that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot. Who can bring him to see what will be after him?” ‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭3:1-22‬ ‭ESV‬‬ https://bible.com/bible/59/ecc.3.1-22.ESV

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