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How did we get so busy?

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Re: How did we get so busy?

#121

Post by AnimalMuppet »

jpatokal wrote: post #45
nlawalker wrote: post #24

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…

It's the fear of silence That gives us away 'Cause when we're alone We have to hear What our aching hearts try to say. - Randy Stonehill

Re: How did we get so busy?

#122

Post by TeMPOraL »

jpb0104 wrote: post #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 thes…

Sometimes "I'm busy" is a way to say "I'm not going to edit your résumé, sweetie, because it's not a priority" without pissing off your SO. We might actually like how we're spending an hour, we just try to control the emotional reactions of others.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#123

Post by gglitch »

josephjrobison wrote: post #120
VonGuard wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I think it's deeper than just being a self-important asshole. It's more about the fact that we are 1000 times more productive, as a species, than we were just 20 years ago, and yet, we all still work just as hard. This, coupled with always being connected means that our work and obligations never end, they just follow us around.

It all comes down to the yuppies (myself included) wanting to get ahead. The dream of becoming a wealthy entrepreneur is what keeps me from being satisfied working 40 hours a week and reading and relaxing after that, for better or for worse! Also the dream of injecting wealth into my larger family for generations to come.

A lot of what's being written in this thread hits home for me, but especially the 'wanting to get ahead' bit - part of the problem is job insecurity, knowing that your present position may not last, and feeling compelled to use leisure time to increase your marketability for future job applications. Even when I'm not actually working on work-related skills, I feel like I should be, which creates anxiety.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#124

Post by wycx »

tim333 wrote: post #111
wycx wrote: post #78

Usury. The only way money is generated is by debt. Debt, by definition is encumbered by interest. Thus, the only way to generate money to cover the interest is to generate more debt, this is a feedback cycle, requiring accelerating borrowing just to stay where you are. I think this is a large part of why we are so busy today. We are always behind the eight ball, at every level.

> The only way money is generated is by debt Huh? There are loads of other ways to make money. Write some software for example. Or if you are the government then print some.

Educate yourself: http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/quarte...

Re: How did we get so busy?

#125

Post by Marcus316 »

charlespwd wrote: post #58
icelancer wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see you don't have kids. If you never have them, you can live like that forever. If you have them, I hope you save your post and look back on it and laugh.

I don't know... Obviously you do. As to whether I should laugh about it or not: That's a different discussion. During that trip I have met lots of different types of people. Relevant to this discussion would be the ones travelling with their kids, and a grown up kid who was raised for a couple years on a sail boat (turned out to become the youngest surgical clinic manager in his home country, was also a lobbyist befo…

I tend to agree with you about 40h/week for work. I have been pretty lucky in life and have never had to work more than 40 regular hours in a week (barring some reasonable on-call time, of course; nothing too exceptional). I have advanced to a point where my compensation is enough to pay for a decent lifestyle for myself, my wife and my two children. Now, my hope is that I can (over time) scale back my work hours rather than increase my compensation.

I don't travel much (I don't have much of an urge to), but I tend to live pretty leisurely, even with two young children, a house to pay for, a number of bills, etc. I don't have every luxury my friends have, but I tend to not need those things (and I do have the luxuries I want to have).

That all being said, I live in Canada and not the US, and some of the descriptions I hear about work-life south of the border gives me chills. I suppose we're not much better up here, really, but I'm happy to say I can personally get by without over-stressing my workload (and, of course, that's probably just because of my personal circumstances and whatever luck has befallen me).

Re: How did we get so busy?

#126

Post by chris_mahan »

Al-Khwarizmi wrote: post #76
chris_mahan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I have a 8 year-old boy, and a wife who takes care of him well. I want him to have a great education, wide knowledge and experience, and be ready to face life well, be kind to others, be equipped to work hard and make good money, be a good husband and a good father. That takes lots of time and money, and is completely worth it.

So you work 80 hours a week, meaning that you have almost no time to enjoy life with your kid... so that he can grow up to be like you and do the same thing, and presumably educate their children to do the same as well. So your ideal of how things should be is to have a saga of people working their asses off, in theory for the good of the next generation, but in practice for nothing because the next generation will w…

Well, I don't "work" 80 hours a week.

I work 40 hours a week.

I commute 8 hours a week.

I volunteer (he comes with me sometimes) 2 hours a week.

Lunch breaks: 5 hours.

(so far 50 hours)

Then I do all the routine stuff that needs to be done: Grocery shopping, hardware store, car maintenance, etc.

Then I spend another 15 hours a week working on extra stuff (learning, following the news, doing stuff for clients, coding).

Then there is the social events, the school events, church on Sunday, basketball practice on Tuesday at 7 and games on Saturday at 1 or 2.

Then there is sleep, and making dinner, cleaning the house, etc.

In the end, there is about 10 hours a week for just me and him time (watch movie, play games, go out and explore the world, park, read together, etc)

For me? I'm lucky if I get 2 hours a week for me. I'm even more lucky if they're contiguous.

(No time for TV, you notice, and precious little for computer games.)

Re: How did we get so busy?

#127

Post by robotresearcher »

ricardobeat wrote: post #15
001sky wrote: 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?

Evolution is reactive to current circumstances only, and not toward anything, not even survival. It's absolutely possible to evolve yourself extinct, and it happens all the time.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#128

Post by npsimons »

VonGuard wrote: post #56
NDizzle wrote: 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.

Yeah, I think it's deeper than just being a self-important asshole. It's more about the fact that we are 1000 times more productive, as a species, than we were just 20 years ago, and yet, we all still work just as hard. This, coupled with always being connected means that our work and obligations never end, they just follow us around.

Forget efficiency, forget "self-importance" (to me, those calling others "self-important" are most often the most self-important assholes around), sometimes it's just therapeutic. How many times have we read that a good way to treat depression is to keep busy? If nothing else, it keeps you from thinking about your depression.

Re: How did we get so busy?

#129

Post by Infinitesimus »

jvanloov wrote: post #112
ryan_123 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its just that, he wants his son to have a better life than him. Thats why the toil. He wants to provide him better means, hence the 80 hr weeks. Yes it'd depend on what you want from your life. Priorities are different for all.

The intention is noble. However, chances are that the son looks up to his father, thinks his father's life is normal and how it should be, and will (unconsciously) copy it. If that happens, will he really have the better life that his father worked for and wanted him to have?

Perhaps that ventures into the topic of parenting. Ideally, the parent would/should communicate to the child that the sacrifice is not idea and explain the tradeoffs, cautioning on the dangers of the parent's chosen lifestyle

Re: How did we get so busy?

#130

Post by Infinitesimus »

zackmorris wrote: post #51

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parkinson%27s_law My hunch is that we're so busy because capitalism seeks to find local maxima in the possible space of all profits, and because so many people are involved in it, it works pretty well (as far as hill climbing algorithms go). What keeps me up at night is knowing that there is a higher point that can only be found by going down the descending side of the hill, potentially…

" Lately the best strategy seems to be doing as little as possible and riding the hills as they grow around me"

I am not quite convinced that this solution is universal (which is a claim you didn't make) or practical for a large set of people. What does it translate to in more tangible terms? Refuse to go to school/seek a better job/invest in something more worth one's time in wait for an unexpected propulsion to the top of a hill?

I agree that the hills are rather unstable and various unaccounted for factors can cause the searching algorithm to fail. Most often being that we fail to account for all the other dimensions which also have hills that somehow need attention. One dimension is profits and it is a very popular hill, but all of a sudden you hit a point and realize that there exists a hill in health, and relationship, and personal growth, etc.

What do we do as a response? Stop searching? I doubt it. It might be better to instead, accept the fact that our algorithm will never provide the perfect solution; that to optimize for one dimension (income, for example), we will have to sacrifice optimizations in other dimensions (relationships, leisure etc.) due to a finite resources and constraints outside our control, and in doing that, define priorities.

The priorities need not be final values, but mutable based on environmental conditions. Today, a 60hr week might be a reasonable priority in order to - or at least, in the hopes of being able to - eventually drop that to 20hr weeks and 40 hours with family and other interests.

[btw, great analogy]

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