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The Busy Person’s Lies

nytimes.com

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Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#41

Post by Jtsummers »

lacampbell wrote: post #34
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

I did an analysis on my own time once, ignoring the breakdown of my work day and just focusing on overall time available: 1130-0000 - prepare for bed, relax 0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) 0600-0700 - stuff (shower, shave, personal email) 0700-1630 - work + lunch + commutes So I had 7 hours each day I was "leaving on the table". Most of it was spent on TV or video games, possibly socializing. I felt exhausted from work s…

0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) I must admit I am always a bit jealous of people like you who can function on 6 hours sleep every day. After 3 days of that I am wreck.

I will admit, I am very lucky in that regard. Just comparing against the recommended amount of sleep, I get an extra 14 hours a week. And I can actually function quite well on less, but not sustained (and never deliberately try to reach that state, but bouts of insomnia have forced me to learn this).

I do tend to sleep in on the weekends though ("sleep" isn't quite right, more like lazily stay in bed until 0900 or so while drifting in and out).

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#42

Post by Jtsummers »

lacampbell wrote: post #35
pc86 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not all work is (or needs to be) "intellectually productive." I see statements like this on HN a lot, particularly from developers (myself included), but most of them cringe at the thought of having 2-4 hours of administrative work every day.

What sort of work would you class as administrative?

Meta-tasks around projects. Communicating/coordinating with other people. In big-corp land, mandatory training and time spent on time tracking (a bit ironic). Dealing with git screw-ups by people new to it.

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#43

Post by rconti »

JPKab wrote: post #9

The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.

Wow, no kidding. I have ZERO kids, and am well aware of the couple hours of free time I have in the evenings before bed. I make sure I get enough sleep most of the time.

That said, free days on the beach? Midday naps or sleeping all morning on a hotel room while traveling? I sleep less on business trips, and can't fathom just sitting around the beach all day.

I'm not saying my life is harder than hers, it's almost certainly not -- I'm just saying if I had 1 kid, let alone 4, it would put that to shame.

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#44

Post by jacalata »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #36
cmdrfred wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from poverty. There is a big difference between poor and working poor. The poor get handouts, the working poor get fines because they can't afford Obamacare. Then people wonder why the poor don't struggle their way to working poor.

Whoever downvoted this comment doesn't understand it at all. The working poor are a revenue source. By keeping people indebted, they remain predictable consumers and fixed-income assets, like a human bond. The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work. If the minimum wage was a li…

> the poor get handouts, the working poor get fines

> many Walmart employees are on food stamps.

Are you implying that Walmart employees are not 'working poor', or is the first sentence a dramatic over-generalization that doesn't contribute to the conversation?

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#45

Post by chrisfosterelli »

Jtsummers wrote: post #19

I did an analysis on my own time once, ignoring the breakdown of my work day and just focusing on overall time available: 1130-0000 - prepare for bed, relax 0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) 0600-0700 - stuff (shower, shave, personal email) 0700-1630 - work + lunch + commutes So I had 7 hours each day I was "leaving on the table". Most of it was spent on TV or video games, possibly socializing. I felt exhausted from work s…

One of the things I learned a while ago is that there is really no point in complaining about being busy -- because "busy" is so subjective and virtually everyone views themselves as "busy" until they start tracking their time like you did.

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#46

Post by sten »

Jtsummers wrote: post #41
lacampbell wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) I must admit I am always a bit jealous of people like you who can function on 6 hours sleep every day. After 3 days of that I am wreck.

I will admit, I am very lucky in that regard. Just comparing against the recommended amount of sleep, I get an extra 14 hours a week. And I can actually function quite well on less, but not sustained (and never deliberately try to reach that state, but bouts of insomnia have forced me to learn this). I do tend to sleep in on the weekends though ("sleep" isn't quite right, more like lazily stay in bed until 0900 or so…

I do this. Almost exactly. Asleep at 11 pm, up at 5:30. Lazy on weekends.

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#47

Post by Jtsummers »

cmdrfred wrote: post #32
zeveb wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hence the utility of having some people in a family specialise in staying in the zone, and others specialise in handling child-based interrupts, not entirely different from having one CPU devoted to main processing tasks and other processing units handling ancillary tasks. During the nuclear-family era, the idea was that dad would specialise in in-zone work and mom would specialise in interrupt servicing, but both be…

Prior to that children were vastly more independent as well.

Contemporary (starting in the 50s at least) suburban living styles makes letting your kids be that independent very difficult. Not just the hyperbolic fear that some have about child safety, but just what they can do locally without needing a parent or older sibling to drive them.

Setting aside rural/country living where your neighbors were miles away, urban (large or small city) living was more centered around local shops, parks, and other environments. Now they live in a sea of houses, and have to travel way outside it to get to other activities or free space like woods and parks for play.

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#48

Post by bodyfour »

apsec112 wrote: post #18
JPKab wrote: post #9

The author is clearly well into the upper-middle class financially, talking about nannies and "solo beach days" on both coasts. Wow, how out of touch is the typical New York Times writer these days. Poor and working class people have truly busy lives compared to professionals. We should all remember that.

I think it depends a lot on the specifics. Of course, there are certainly lots of Americans who are both poorer than the author and work harder. But in the US, the very poorest people tend to be those who don't work at all, or only work part-time. People who live their whole life in a small town with one or two big employers, which move away when the economy crashes; people whose skills go out-of-date, and can't affo…

The historical trends of leisure-time vs income are very interesting. Lots of different economic forces at work there -- http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21600989...

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#49

Post by rm_-rf_slash »

jacalata wrote: post #44
rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whoever downvoted this comment doesn't understand it at all. The working poor are a revenue source. By keeping people indebted, they remain predictable consumers and fixed-income assets, like a human bond. The impoverished are effectively trapped by the welfare system itself, because it reduces benefits as incomes rise at a faster rate than can be made up by the equivalent amount of work. If the minimum wage was a li…

> the poor get handouts, the working poor get fines > many Walmart employees are on food stamps. Are you implying that Walmart employees are not 'working poor', or is the first sentence a dramatic over-generalization that doesn't contribute to the conversation?

Minimum wage Walmart employees are often working poor.

Poverty depends on perspective. Most Revolution-Era Americans were living in what we today would call extreme poverty. But you can have a tv and a smartphone today and still be quite poor, because of the difference in consumer cost between things we need and things we don't need.

www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/news/wonk/wp/2016/08/17/the-stuff-we-really-need-is-getting-more-expensive-other-stuff-is-getting-cheaper

Re: The Busy Person’s Lies

#50

Post by Jtsummers »

chrisfosterelli wrote: post #45
Jtsummers wrote: post #19

I did an analysis on my own time once, ignoring the breakdown of my work day and just focusing on overall time available: 1130-0000 - prepare for bed, relax 0000-0600 - sleep (roughly) 0600-0700 - stuff (shower, shave, personal email) 0700-1630 - work + lunch + commutes So I had 7 hours each day I was "leaving on the table". Most of it was spent on TV or video games, possibly socializing. I felt exhausted from work s…

One of the things I learned a while ago is that there is really no point in complaining about being busy -- because "busy" is so subjective and virtually everyone views themselves as "busy" until they start tracking their time like you did.

I had the same realization with respect to money some time ago, which partially motivated analyzing my time budget. Budgeting of resources is crucial to understanding what you have and don't have (and need and don't need). It's difficult to do when you're feeling stressed/pressured, however. Which leads to a downward spiral for many people (or a "just hanging in there" loop).
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