one thing i've learned over the years is that everyone isn't really as busy as they say they are.
everyone is afraid of not sounding busy.
Why are Adults so busy?
301–310 of 485 posts
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 2. Cooking: 3 h (who the hell cooks three times a day?) People who enjoy cooking, and people who actually care for their health.
Time spent cooking isn't a factor when determining the health of the meal. I make five medium sized breakfast burrito's on Sunday night and refrigerate them. One every morning. That's a whole wheat wrap, a couple eggs, green peppers, and chopped onions. This takes me about a half hour on Sunday including cleanup and 5 seconds to grab one out of the fridge each morning. I supplement it with a granola bar. I won't clai…
I once spent a few months alternating between cooking up a batch of "the concoction" on a weekend afternoon, and eating nothing but that over the next two weeks.
If it tasted better, I might still be doing it. It's actually the same sort of thing prisons feed to problem inmates to punish misbehavior, except they call it "nutriloaf", and put more actual food in it.
Mine was mostly eggs, coconut oil, and chia seed. It looked horrible, but it barely tasted like anything at all. I might tweak my recipe and try it again some day, but the family won't even look in its general direction, so somebody still has to actually cook meals.
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#303When I look at my 4 yr old son, what really strikes me is the way he lives in the moment. He does not care about the future one single bit. He does what he wants to do (or has to do) and that is his entire world at that moment. No worries, no planning, no "I have to save some energy because I still have to do X in 2 hours and then Y, and when am I finally going to finish Z?" He just goes until he drops. When he comes…
Your son lives in the now because that is all he can do . It's not a preference. If everybody were to live in the now, we wouldn't even have agriculture. Of course it's good to relax, but this line of thinking seems pernicious. It's great that adults are constantly harried by life's demands.
Agreed, with conditions. It is still possible to live in the moment and still have all of the tools that the higher brain functions give you, i.e. planning, forecasting.
The key is to plan in the present, then do the next thing and the next thing, each time in the present. Living like this requires adult versions of faith, agility and resourcefulness.
Even with planning, there can still be time for: "when you are hungry, eat. When you are tired, sleep". Not everything needs to be planned. Big things do, but not everything does. Know when to deploy the higher functions and when not to.
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
Any tips on not obsessing over how detailed/well-planned your notes need to be? For me, note-taking just ends up being something else to worry about. Particularly when it comes to work.
I chose a system with super fast capture and sort, and I have reminders scheduled to view and re-sort everything I've captured at specific intervals. This is working for me, for the first time ever.
Which system did you choose?
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#305Well this is clearly written by someone without committments and children. Young adults used to be having children. With young kids around, the laundry and responsibility for dependents figures become hours daily, not weekly. When they're a bit older there's less cleaning but now you're running them around more and ensuring they meet their commitments. With more gadgets, chemicals and domestic appliances we've just i…
What used to be a trigger for inventing a game, building a den, or making something new with lego is far more filled with minutes on YT. This hurts to read because it really nails it. This very thing has been on my mind quite a bit lately after watching my older kids now as young adults. We managed to keep them away from much of this simply because we never thought it necessary, but apparently not to the extent I wis…
To be fair to yourself, kids often disappoint their parents, but this is more on the parents.
An anecdote: My dad was driven nuts by how much time I wasted as a kid and teen on gaming, and how it seemed that I had few productive interests,never built anything, and stopped projects as soon as I got bored.. He wanted me to be obsessed with something, but few teens are obsessed with anything but not being lonely, social interactions more generally, and just following a random walk exploration. Dad never won those fights to make me serious then. But you know what? As an adult, I am quite different. I am now a post doctoral fellow conducting cutting edge neuroscience, having completed numberous complex, long-term research programmes that have required obsession, grit, and a determination to perfect his craft.
If your kids can avoid the usual pitfalls (e.g. a serious drug addiction) Im sure all your efforts will come into fruition when they are ready to committ themselves.
Today I buy my son Rasberry Pie's, laptops with GameMaker installed, etc hoping he too will find an obsessio. But he too resists i.e. stops as soon as he is bored.
C'est la vie
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you include sleeping as a responsibility.
Absolutely. I definitely would not do if I didn't have to !
It distorts the statistics a bit, though. You could have 75% of your waking hours be free time and still calculate that you're spending half your time on 'responsibilities'.
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#307Dirty Little Secret, They're not. The Average American Adult Spends 5.5 hrs a day watching video content, this adds up to 38.5 hrs a week. Allowing for 8 hrs of sleep a day, an average of 47 hrs a week working for a full time worker and you're left with 26.5 hrs to fulfill the requirements of adulthood listed in the article. The only mention of TV/media viewing came by way of the time spent to purchase one, never a mention of the amount of time spent on one. http://www.emarketer.com/Article/US-Adults-Spend-55-Hours-wi...
You're not busy if you're watching a day and a half's worth of television every week. It's one of my pet peeves to hear people say their busy when so much time is devoted to a mindless activity.
Imagine what could be accomplished if instead of turning on and tuning out, people choose to devote that time to side projects, gardening, some other creative hobby, or time spent enjoying nature and each others company.
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#308Earlier quoted context omitted.
> from someone older, who was in the 80s There was the same amount of time, but it was allocated differently. There were phone calls. If somebody calls you on the phone, you stop doing what you're doing and talk to them. Apart from that, time was scheduled in larger chunks, with fever context switches. You watch a movie start to finish, not a bunch of 2 minute Youtube videos. You spend an evening printing photos in t…
What wouldn't I give to have such attention span! I can't even watch a movie these days (months? um, years?). Yesterday I alt-tabbed to chrome and opened HN while hearing the movie that I was in the middle of watching. Yes, I have a PC connected to my TV! What is wrong with me?! I want to be able to read a non-technical book fully and I can't and I'm very unhappy about this whole situation.
You can't focus on a task probably because they're all rubbish. The movie you're watching is rubbish, the website on your chrome only mildly interesting and HN the usual predictable progressive groupthink. They're all mildly entertaining: not anywhere near interesting.
Find something more interesting and it will keep you hooked. Book suggestion btw, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_Tailor_Soldier_Spy
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
What used to be a trigger for inventing a game, building a den, or making something new with lego is far more filled with minutes on YT. This hurts to read because it really nails it. This very thing has been on my mind quite a bit lately after watching my older kids now as young adults. We managed to keep them away from much of this simply because we never thought it necessary, but apparently not to the extent I wis…
To be fair to yourself, kids often disappoint their parents, but this is more on the parents. An anecdote: My dad was driven nuts by how much time I wasted as a kid and teen on gaming, and how it seemed that I had few productive interests,never built anything, and stopped projects as soon as I got bored.. He wanted me to be obsessed with something, but few teens are obsessed with anything but not being lonely, social…
I don't mean to be rude, but would you mind sharing the type of financial situation you grew up in?
I don't remember wasting that much time as a teenager, since if I wanted something, I needed to get a job and work for it. If there was any chance of my bettering the type of situation I grew up on, I had to make sure my grades were amazing. I had to deal with someone else's serious drug addiction in the family, and try to make sense of it, while committing to myself. I don't know if you were ever physically abused as a child because of the lack of drive?
I'm just saying, you may have had the privilege to waste time on someone else's dime, and everything still worked out alright. Not everyone has that. Some of us, if we're not willing to fight from the get-go, we're going nowhere.
Anwyays, congratulations on your post doctoral fellowship.
Re: Why are Adults so busy?
#310Well this is clearly written by someone without committments and children. Young adults used to be having children. With young kids around, the laundry and responsibility for dependents figures become hours daily, not weekly. When they're a bit older there's less cleaning but now you're running them around more and ensuring they meet their commitments. With more gadgets, chemicals and domestic appliances we've just i…
With young kids around, the laundry and responsibility for dependents figures become hours daily, not weekly. I started dropping off our laundry at my local laundromat about 6 years ago, it immediately improved my quality of life. Now if only they would put it away for me.
> Now if only they would put it away for me.
Sounds like an opportunity for a startup!
... or so I thought.