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The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny thing I noticed: when you start a family and have kids, you are forced to get better and better at the _skill_ of context switching quickly. You learn how to be productive with twelve 15-minute slots divided by interruptions instead of a contiguous 3 hours. Being able to do this is a skill like any other. I no longer buy the whole "in/out of the zone" thing as if it is some fundamental law of nature.
I just constantly find myself out of the zone with a family/kids around.
During the nuclear-family era, the idea was that dad would specialise in in-zone work and mom would specialise in interrupt servicing, but both before and after I think it was rather more fluid.
I did an analysis on my own time once, ignoring the breakdown of my work day and just focusing on overall time available: 1130-0000 - prepare for bed, relax 0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) 0600-0700 - stuff (shower, shave, personal email) 0700-1630 - work + lunch + commutes So I had 7 hours each day I was "leaving on the table". Most of it was spent on TV or video games, possibly socializing. I felt exhausted from work s…
The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.
I think it depends a lot on the specifics. Of course, there are certainly lots of Americans who are both poorer than the author and work harder. But in the US, the very poorest people tend to be those who don't work at all, or only work part-time. People who live their whole life in a small town with one or two big employers, which move away when the economy crashes; people whose skills go out-of-date, and can't affo…
The story seems to be that most people are under the delusion of being busier than they actually are, and if they just paid closer attention they would realize this. To me the far more interesting question is, why do we feel so busy? I've made the observation to my family on numerous occasions that the most stressful and exhausting work days for me are the least productive, those days when I'm just sitting at the com…
I did an analysis on my own time once, ignoring the breakdown of my work day and just focusing on overall time available: 1130-0000 - prepare for bed, relax 0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) 0600-0700 - stuff (shower, shave, personal email) 0700-1630 - work + lunch + commutes So I had 7 hours each day I was "leaving on the table". Most of it was spent on TV or video games, possibly socializing. I felt exhausted from work s…
I can't squeeze more than 4-6 hours of intellectually productive hours out of a day. I may delude myself into thinking I can do more, but it's not sustainable.
I see statements like this on HN a lot, particularly from developers (myself included), but most of them cringe at the thought of having 2-4 hours of administrative work every day.
The story seems to be that most people are under the delusion of being busier than they actually are, and if they just paid closer attention they would realize this. To me the far more interesting question is, why do we feel so busy? I've made the observation to my family on numerous occasions that the most stressful and exhausting work days for me are the least productive, those days when I'm just sitting at the com…
Positive/negative reinforcement? You enjoy being productive, and generally don't enjoy anxiety/stress (after a threshold). I'm not certain there's much a differentiation between undesirable stress and the sensation of being "too busy." My N=1 says they're identical and I've noticed it myself, that when I want to express how I feel about being too stressed, my mind tends towards the same vocabulary I used when I am too busy, regardless of how time consuming the stress is.
The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.
“To me, ‘busy’ implies that the person is out of control of their life.” – Derek Sivers
"I have found that for women especially, it is the best antidote to the pernicious narrative that professional success requires harsh sacrifices at home."
and
"... a narrative of craziness, the sort professional women in particular tell one another as we compete in the Misery Olympics,"