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How did we get so busy?

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91–100 of 148 posts

Re: How did we get so busy?

#91

Hi, I've been a lurker here for some time now. I rarely ever comment on stories because, well, I have better things to do. But now, I really need to broaden my perspective. I just don't get it. *Disclaimer : I am young (23), broke but happy. This past year, I spent four months in Asia travelling. I rock-climbed for a while, tried bungee, canyon swing, diving, trekking and the motorcycle. I was able to afford all that…

I don't work 80 hours a week, but my expenses are way above $20k a year. Why? Because the things I want and value cost a lot more than that. I don't want to spend 4 months in Asia travelling, I want to live in a house I love, near to all my family and friends, and bring up my children here. Travel will never be anything more to me than a brief distraction, not a lifestyle.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#92

Reminds me of this article, which was also here on HN ages ago: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/30/the-busy-tra... "Busyness" is a social defense against other people making us do things we don't really want to do and a mechanism for coping with feeling guilty about things we know we should do, but don't. My intuition is that people have had to project themselves as busier and busier over the last couple…

Came here to post this. I think this is the key bit: It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. There was an…

"To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if someone asks you 'Hey, can you give me a hand?' you can say, 'Sorry, got these sacks.'" - Jack Handey

Re: How did we get so busy?

#93
post #83
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works a 40 hr/week job and a 20 hr/week job, (and the extra hours associated with learning various things that apply to each) while also having 3 kids, sometimes people are actually busy. I coach little league, too.

I feel your pain, especially when people say that others pretend to be busy for various reasons. They must single. I'm the father of a single infant and co founder of a startup, with no family nearby to support us. Choosing to be busy or not sounds like a nice choice to have.

Kids, startup, and distant location were all choices.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#94
I like this idea:

Change your language. Instead of saying "I don't have time" try saying "it's not a priority," and see how that feels. Often, that's a perfectly adequate explanation. I have time to iron my sheets, I just don't want to. But other things are harder. Try it: "I'm not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it's not a priority." "I don't go to the doctor because my health is not a priority." If these phrases don't sit well, that's the point. Changing our language reminds us that time is a choice. If we don't like how we're spending an hour, we can choose differently.

src: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405297020335870...

Re: How did we get so busy?

#95
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel your pain, especially when people say that others pretend to be busy for various reasons. They must single. I'm the father of a single infant and co founder of a startup, with no family nearby to support us. Choosing to be busy or not sounds like a nice choice to have.

Kids, startup, and distant location were all choices.

well, everything is a choice if we start going that route. the idea is to differentiate the intention behind the choice. if the intention (conscious or not) is to hide behind being busy then it's a problem. if you're actually pursuing something other than pretending due to fear or similar limiting reasons, it's not

Re: How did we get so busy?

#96
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Came here to post this. I think this is the key bit: It’s almost always people whose lamented busyness is purely self-imposed: work and obligations they’ve taken on voluntarily, classes and activities they’ve “encouraged” their kids to participate in. They’re busy because of their own ambition or drive or anxiety, because they’re addicted to busyness and dread what they might have to face in its absence. There was an…

"To me, it's a good idea to always carry two sacks of something when you walk around. That way, if someone asks you 'Hey, can you give me a hand?' you can say, 'Sorry, got these sacks.'" - Jack Handey

How else would he fight that pun?

Re: How did we get so busy?

#97
I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned one of the key components of busy-ness for the average worker: unemployment. Labor force participation is down even though productivity for the average worker is historically way up. Owners of capital get can more done with fewer workers today than ever before for many different kinds of businesses, so it is not surprising that people work harder and are busier while more folks are finding themselves unable to find work in traditional ways.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#98
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marx seems superflous--it's more (likely) the red-queen effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Queen_hypothesis

How is working longer hours an evolutionary trait towards survival?

In our current societal structure, longer hours = more money = more attractive mate or an easier life

Re: How did we get so busy?

#99
post #83
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who works a 40 hr/week job and a 20 hr/week job, (and the extra hours associated with learning various things that apply to each) while also having 3 kids, sometimes people are actually busy. I coach little league, too.

I feel your pain, especially when people say that others pretend to be busy for various reasons. They must single. I'm the father of a single infant and co founder of a startup, with no family nearby to support us. Choosing to be busy or not sounds like a nice choice to have.

You chose to be busy when you fathered a child and co-founded a start up.

edit. the guy below me/above me said it before me.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#100
post #87
post #25

We do have a lot more leisure, but it is distributed at the tails of our lifespan, the times of lowest productivity. We sure don't start full-time work at the age that kids on the farm do. And even a century ago, most kids outside of big cities did live on a farm. On the other side of a career, many of us will spend a decade or two in retirement and good health. But inbetween... well, the typical young upper-middle-c…

> We do have a lot more leisure, but it is distributed at the tails of our lifespan, the times of lowest productivity. That's fine, for retirement. But this viewpoint presupposes that kids' education is not productive , if not immediately and directly, but eventually and indirectly (eventually as adults, indirectly as productive members of society, which is more than being trained to do some specific job). Kids spend…

"The only thing which might be said is unproductive with kids' childhood is the long summer breaks"

That assumes that schooling is relevant to a kids future. My 4th grader already operates at a numeracy and literacy level higher than adults "are supposed to". You're not supposed to be able to calculate percentages and figure out word problems, that will ruin the employment of tax preparers. You're not supposed to be able to read Harry Potter, you're supposed to watch TV. Achievement at or above a 4th grade level is strongly discouraged on a mass cultural level, although obviously not here on HN. Vocational training is useless because he won't be in the workforce for a decade or more making "training" useless, and according to labor force participation rates the odds are reasonable he will not be a participant in the labor force anyway, especially as trends continue, making vocational "education" useless. Depressingly, there are a lot of white collar jobs that boil down to adult day care, fundamentally, where lack of productivity is probably a net societal gain!

So... the true cost is free day care (aka school) is not available in the summer. On the other hand educational costs aka property taxes are microscopically lower. Obviously we are not going to permit teachers to experience a 30% boost in standard of living were we to expand their workload into the summer, so labor costs will not change but obviously energy costs to keep the lights on, and probably air conditioning, would increase, along with internet bandwidth use at the school, cleaning chemicals used, trash bags filled, etc etc.

The reason why kids "need" ever more and more years of education for ever simpler jobs (on a societal average...), is to keep them out of the labor force, to reduce competition. Otherwise, if bright teens put all the adults out of work, the adults wouldn't be able to afford children, which breaks the cycle in about a generation. You need to keep the adults employed in their breeding years long enough to squirt out the next generations kids, no need for much more, and keeping younger adults / teens out of the workforce is a social engineering technology to accomplish that. Its quite possible as existing trends continue that we'll naturally assume no one would ever hire a supermarket cashier or waitress without a PHD in something, perhaps philosophy. That would serve a useful purpose of keeping as many people in (profitable) schools as possible, maximization of student loan income, etc.

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