Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How much free time do you have?

erikrood.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 226 posts

Re: How much free time do you have?

#61

Post by em-bee »

plants wrote: post #5

Really depressing. Between work, long commute, gym, and part-time grad school, I have 18 free hours a week out of 168. Makes me wonder what the hell I am doing when I have other hobbies that I would love to be pursuing. Most of the time I simply don't have the mental energy to pursue much of anything in my 18 free hours. Sometimes I just need to turn my brain off. I find myself to lash out in weird ways when I am par…

i got similar numbers and thought, wow, 16 hours is actually quite a lot of time. that's two work days worth.

seriously how much time do you spend on your hobbies? i have several casual hobbies that only take a few hours a week each. if i'd spend 2 hours each day on a hobby i'd call that intensive and i'd think that spending that much time is unusual unless it's maybe a music instrument you are learning.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#62

Post by lmitchell »

qwerty2020 wrote: post #45
forthwall wrote: post #32

I don't really consider sleeping, eating or fitness wasted time really, you basically need it and most I personally find it enjoyable and excluding sleeping, it's practically a use of free time. I think would love some checkbox that signifies a "waste" in a sense. Also, your application doesn't seem to like accidental space-bars being pressed in inputs. Causes NaN and its hard to figure out why. Regardless pretty coo…

Author here - I find a lot of those mentioned personally enjoyable too, but what I was essentially trying to do was quantify my own 'must do' activities (e.g. if I don't sleep ~8hrs/night things go downhill fast, etc) regardless of whether or not I enjoy them. From there, I view the remaining time as truly open, not requiring working, or general meat sack maintenance. Categorization can definitely go either way thoug…

> Part of the message, aside from just quantifying how limited time is, would be to find enjoyment where you can in your 'mandatory' activities too as they'll represent the bulk of your life.

I wish I could give this comment more upvotes. I'm slowly learning this lesson in my personal life - I wish I could learn it faster, but the goddamn brain is just too much more insistent than the body..

Re: How much free time do you have?

#63

Post by em-bee »

justAlittleCom wrote: post #46

what is "free time"? I consider doing most of those things on my "free time". When I go excercise, I have no obligation do to so, I do it on my "free time". If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my kids". I dont like this pessimistic perception of time, and it's not mine. The only non free time I have, is the one I "owe" to my employer. And this time, I freely give it to him, and If I…

i like your perspective on this. made me think. i'd just like to add that for an introvert free time can be considered alone time. you can get that at night after the kids are asleep if you can get it at all.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#65

Post by AdieuToLogic »

noobly wrote: post #58
h2odragon wrote: post #34

Nice thought provoking presentation. I once billed 150 hours in a 7 day period, and they were honest hours, too. Since then I've stopped working and raised a daughter; and parenting was harder work than the insane "i have no life" schedule I used to push. Bit over a decade into the family thing, it's certainly more rewarding. Other people would find other choices rewarding and that's great too. We're all too apt to f…

>150 hours in a 7 day period Doing what? Just curious. I could only image doing something like that if the job was extremely lax - like a toll booth operator in a slow town, or something.

>> 150 hours in a 7 day period

> Doing what? Just curious.

I can't speak for the GP (as I am not they), but can say I pulled a 118 hour work week once doing s/w development. Four 20 hour days for one client and the other 38 for another.

Suffice to say it was not a fun week.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#66

Post by ido »

ianai wrote: post #40
plants wrote: post #5

Really depressing. Between work, long commute, gym, and part-time grad school, I have 18 free hours a week out of 168. Makes me wonder what the hell I am doing when I have other hobbies that I would love to be pursuing. Most of the time I simply don't have the mental energy to pursue much of anything in my 18 free hours. Sometimes I just need to turn my brain off. I find myself to lash out in weird ways when I am par…

I’m in the middle of a four day weekend. I’ll probably get absolutely nothing extraordinary done in it. Despite there being plenty of things I could be doing. The 40 hour work week is tyrannical.

Why do you have to "get something extraordinary done" on your time off? You don't have to be productive any waking moment.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#67

Post by em-bee »

dingaling wrote: post #60
justAlittleCom wrote: post #46

what is "free time"? I consider doing most of those things on my "free time". When I go excercise, I have no obligation do to so, I do it on my "free time". If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my kids". I dont like this pessimistic perception of time, and it's not mine. The only non free time I have, is the one I "owe" to my employer. And this time, I freely give it to him, and If I…

> If I had kid, I'd consider spending time with them as "free time with my kids" It's really not, though. Before parenthood I had all these romantic 'Swallows and Amazons' ideas about lazy summer days on riverbanks and meadows. In reality time with young kids is about mundane things like making meals, doing homework, playing what they want to play, trying to coax them to help with chores that you need to get done, fi…

it gets easier as the kids get older. it also helps to have interesting hobbies yourself that you can involve your kids in.

so instead of asking: how am i going to entertain this bunch on rainy weekends, ask: what hobby might i like to pick up that i can get my kids interested in.

i have been struggling with that too. i am considering things like learning an instrument, programming, playing board-games.

i found a simplified version of DnD, made it even easier and combined it with using lego to build the environment (including treasure boxes)

and when it's not raining there are plenty of outdoor activities to choose from.

Re: How much free time do you have?

#68

Post by em-bee »

closeparen wrote: post #24
tristanstcyr wrote: post #11

I don't know if that's how free time works once you have kids. "Parental duties" takes the free time. You get some time when the kids sleep.

Kids from elementary school onward have homework, friends, books, games, TV, etc occupying several hours of most nights. It’s not like they’re interacting with both parents continuously for every moment between work/school and sleep.

for a first grader in a country where schools are very intensive, it takes 100% parental involvement for every minute of homework. have more than one kid, and both parents are busy...

Re: How much free time do you have?

#69

Post by em-bee »

KirinDave wrote: post #48
qwerty2020 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Author here - I would consider my lifestyle intentionally laid back, yes (to the capacity I'm able to at least) :) However, it's just a 4 day standard weight lifting routine (1 hr/day) but includes total time door to door (changing, commuting, lifting, commuting back). I enjoy this though, so aside from the mood/longevity benefits would do it anyways.

I have a 4 year old and I foster rescue dogs. I dimly remember a time in my life where what you're describing was possible, but these days I'm just happy if I can do an okay job at work and still find time to hit the machines in my house. It is definitely a difference in our attitudes towards this activity that you don't call that "free" time.

fostering rescue dogs is where you invest your free time in. it's a worthwhile use of your time, and you probably wouldn't do it if you didn't get something out of it.
Post reply on HN