I did something similar (also inspired by Buster Benson): https://days.sonnet.io
Aaand, here's another one I like: https://days.rory.codes
My Life in Weeks
101–110 of 272 posts
Re: My Life in Weeks
#102So much of our life is consumed by work. Seeing your lifespan laid bare like this, there's a perverse instinct to optimize what remains. Have to be more productive, more efficient. But it's a bit like seeing you're bleeding out and deciding to optimize your blood donation schedule, isn't it?
> Have to be more productive, more efficient Most people on their deathbed would counsel you to focus on relationships rather than productivity.
That’s the conventional wisdom but I think it’s worth challenging it. Or at least, if by “productivity” you mean “work” (I think there’s an important distinction there).
There is nothing wrong with your work being the focus of your life. Many people derive great pleasure and satisfaction from, and make a positive impact on the world with, their work. Life without relationships would be a hell of loneliness, but life without work would be a hell of boredom and meaninglessness. (I’m aware that much work is drudgery, I refer mainly to the kind of work one can derive joy from, which I suspect many of us on HN have in our lives.)
The question “is it okay to work all the time” is explored rather well here:
https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/search-engine/id161425...
Re: My Life in Weeks
#103So much of our life is consumed by work. Seeing your lifespan laid bare like this, there's a perverse instinct to optimize what remains. Have to be more productive, more efficient. But it's a bit like seeing you're bleeding out and deciding to optimize your blood donation schedule, isn't it?
The older I get the more I realize that the most effective and productive things I can do are not at all what seem to be productive or effective on the surface. One of the most mentally and physically crippling things I’ve ever done was work too hard, for too long. I worked and earned more money than I thought I ever could but… All I truly got out of it was a lesson. To never do it again. I would have earned enough b…
Did you ever start that non-tech business?
Re: My Life in Weeks
#104So much of our life is consumed by work. Seeing your lifespan laid bare like this, there's a perverse instinct to optimize what remains. Have to be more productive, more efficient. But it's a bit like seeing you're bleeding out and deciding to optimize your blood donation schedule, isn't it?
In this Lex Fiedman video, they talk about how life is short, and a visualization as a spreadsheet is shown that makes one very concerned:
Pieter Levels: Programming, Viral AI Startups, and Digital Nomad Life | Lex Fridman Podcast #440 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFtjKbXKqbg [ironically, the podcast is very long - over 3 hours - speaking of not wasting time, but after initial annoyance I'm glad I watched it all.]
The positive insight that can come out of that is use every week and don't waste it, and and if you can, move your long-term dreams closer to the here and now.
I made a version of that spreadsheet for "the rest of my life" to hand it into my office as a reminder. (Even if I will live until 90, it fits my laptop screen without scrolling...)
Re: My Life in Weeks
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Finding work that gives one enjoyment and purpose should be an important priority.
Like others replying to this comment, I disagree because there is much work that needs to be done which cannot truly provide purpose to most people. However ... I do believe that any job should provide dignity and "purpose" in the narrower sense of something the person doing it believes needs to be done. Any job done full time (however a culture defines that) should also make a reasonable lower middle class life poss…
I think you mean that there are a lot of jobs that while serving a good purpose, aren’t necessarily enjoyed by many. I’m not sure how much that has to be the case. In any case, we should strive to maximize the jobs that are both sufficiently enjoyable and purposeful.
The problem I see today is that there is a lot of “bullshit” work being done that doesn’t really serve any good purpose, or even makes things worse in the world, and not enough people rejecting that state of affairs.
I agree about dignity and compensation.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The first ~1000 are spent in the the very limited tutorial area. I think it's kinda strange that you're saying up to age 19 is "the very limited tutorial area", as if it doesn't count. Up to age 3 or 4, before you have stable memory, perhaps I could understand, but I'm well, well into middle age and I think of some of the time between say 10-19 as the most vivid in terms of my memories, friends, direction of my lif…
I have almost no <20 memories and I'm barely 40.
That's weird to me. I'm in my mid thirties and I feel the bulk of my memories are in the 13-23 range and everything's been a quick blur since then.
In fact when I started a dream diary for a personal experiment, I'm in highschool in most of them - literally, as the dreams take place in the building.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#107I once did the math to figure out, how much space would be required to track my entire life.
I thought, I would want to know a couple of things: my location and my activity for every second of my life. Since I generally live relative to the surface of the Earth, my location could be stored in a GPS coord. And since the number of activities I engage in are not that big, I could probably store them as indexes into a map and a 32 bit int would probably give me a sufficient number of unique activities. I doubt I would exhaust that index space no matter how many unique activities I engaged in.
The math is pretty simple from there. Number of seconds in your expected lifetime multiplied by the size of data you want to store per second. Also consider how much of that is compressible (like an ideal 8 hours per day of sleep). Pretty sobering when I think about it.
Re: My Life in Weeks
#108What strikes me is the empty spaces where we don't recognize what we did, or didn't do anything memorable. I made an app to try to address this about a decade ago which I called Bucket52, the idea being that every week you put one memorable thing in it. Trying to do this just for a year was surprisingly difficult.
For me I just want to remember what's gone on in my life better, even if it's sometimes mundane. I've tried short-form daily journaling, but I've only made it around 3 months before I start skipping days and stop doing it altogether. When it comes to doing something new/memorable, I'd be fine with aspiring for just one thing per month (with the assumption that sometimes/often I'd end up with more than that). I think…
I started this in 2015 and I'm still keeping up with it. Maybe it will work for you.
https://medium.com/@markracette/make-every-day-matter-9ac6db...
Re: My Life in Weeks
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The first ~1000 are spent in the the very limited tutorial area. I think it's kinda strange that you're saying up to age 19 is "the very limited tutorial area", as if it doesn't count. Up to age 3 or 4, before you have stable memory, perhaps I could understand, but I'm well, well into middle age and I think of some of the time between say 10-19 as the most vivid in terms of my memories, friends, direction of my lif…
I have almost no <20 memories and I'm barely 40.
Maybe trauma blocked memories?
Re: My Life in Weeks
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
> The first ~1000 are spent in the the very limited tutorial area. I think it's kinda strange that you're saying up to age 19 is "the very limited tutorial area", as if it doesn't count. Up to age 3 or 4, before you have stable memory, perhaps I could understand, but I'm well, well into middle age and I think of some of the time between say 10-19 as the most vivid in terms of my memories, friends, direction of my lif…
I have almost no <20 memories and I'm barely 40.
It will be back later, when you’ve left behind more than you can anticipate ahead. Just give it time.