Why are Adults so busy?

The numbers seemed very high to me so I created a list on my own and thought I'd share it (single, no kids, full time job).

1. Work: 40 hours

2. Cooking: 3 h (who the hell cooks three times a day?)

3. Laundry: 0.5 h (once a week)

4. Cleaning: 1 h (and I am very clean, I just avoid producing dirt)

5. Buying stuff: .5 h (I try to avoid buying too much stuff I don't really need)

6. Bills: 0 h (they a are paid automatically from my account)

7. Small errands: 1 h

8. Transport: 4 h (I ride my bicycle to work, so one could count that as exercise)

9. Staying healthy: 4 h (in addition to the bicycling to and from work)

10. Finances: 0 h (I have no idea how anyone can spend so much time on this. I just live by the simple rule: don't get into debt and move some of your income automatically on a saving account)

11. Taxes: 0 h (automated in Germany)

12. Responsibility for Yourself: 0 h (weird point)

13. Responsibility for your dependents: 0 h (I'm not responsible for anyone and visiting my family is fun)

14. Being sick: 0 h

15. One time errands: 2 h (I have to do some irregular stuff)

16. Long term planning: 1h (because I'm actively thinking about it at the moment)

1. Attire and Grooming: 3.5 h (half an hour every morning, 3 minutes in the evening)

2. Sleep: 49 h

3. Eating: 1.5 h (breakfast and lunch is included in work time)

Overall: 109 h

Free time: 49 h

I think it all comes down to priorities and you current life situation. But one can influence most of these things and you have to decide what is really important in your life. For me, it's free time.

Free time is a dangerous thing, so urban adults must be kept entertained during their free time.

How much time do you spend taking care of kids? That's the real time sink of adulthood (not just childcare itself, but also all the extra strain it generates in terms of household work, cleaning, etc).

10 years ago I had all the time in the world, even though I was an adult - a single, childless adult.

> It says adults are busy because they have too much stuff to do (duh..) But "why" is still a good question,

The article says that adults work, commute, clean, cook, take care of their dependent and so on... they don't do that to justify their existence but because it has to be done, unless you're rich enough to find other people doing these things for you...

> we start to believe that we are not by default worthy of living a good, joyful, care-free, abundant life.. unless it is "deserved".

That may be your own personal motivation, but it is far from a generalization or even shared by many people.

For instance, people do work to make a living. For some people, making a living means paying the rent and put food on the table. For others, it means affording luxuries and materialist goals. Most people do need to work to cover these expenses, and the higher they cost the harder they need to work for them. This is the norm.

Then there are also other motivations. Some people decide to become entrepreneurs not because they seek riches, but because they believe they are able to create something new, something that no one else can provide, and believe that they have an obligation to be a source of progress and push the world forward in their own personal way.