Please let me know
6mon 19d ago by piefed.blahaj.zone/u/LadyButterfly in microblogmemes from piefed.cdn.blahaj.zone
Before children and during the pandemic I did, but with one simple change, home office instead of 3 hours commuting in heavy traffic.
Same.
I have no kids. My employer just told us we had to be in the office 5 days a week now and I don't have time to do anything anymore. I lost a big chunk of my spare time and freedom and I just feel like burning the office down now.
Employer here. Look for an alternative offer to leverage. Tell both parties that home office guarantees in writing will have a lot of weight in your final decision.
Yeah that's what I've been trying to do. But nobody's hiring right now. Or they don't want to pay a decent salary.
Besides, they're already forcing us to wear a suit and tie. To be in a cubicle office as IT consultants. To communicate with each other via MS Teams...
But how else will your superior feel powerful?
This sounds like hell. I'm sorry to hear this.
Ahhh the before time
Right?? What kind of 90's office hell is this?
And this is coming from the founder who gave his company to his children but still hangs around to terrorize the employees with the threat of getting fired if they don't do as he says.
Sounds bad. What skills are you looking to employ in which rough area?
Employee here. If you need an alternative offer to get reasonable considerations from your employer, just take the alternative offer. The employer clearly doesn't respect you and your current leverage is just a short term tool until they start taking advantage of you again.
Yeah I was assuming their employer wants to keep them. This is how you negotiate change. My employees are all 100% home office if they want and come in regularly by choice.
Did they take your stapler?
If you bike to work, you feed two birds with one scone.
It snowed 10 inches here today. Not really an option everywhere
Then you're getting that upper body & core shovel workout.
Gotta put those snow tires on.
lol have you tried biking in half a foot of snow, even with a fat bike? that shit is hard as hell and slow as fuck
I bike in the winter to get groceries and stuff, but it's on mostly plowed surfaces
I was just kidding, I grew up in snowy winters.
An offroad motorcycle though...
An offroad motorcycle though…
There more pleasant ways for a suicide, no?
Biking through unplowed snow sucks, but it's hardly impossible. The worst part about it is having to deal with traffic at the same time
TIL it doesn't snow in Netherlands and Denmark /s
Snows very little in the Netherlands these days.
Both of those countries have very mild winters, and the snow storms that are common on the US east coast are completely absent from that part of Europe.
Oulu, Finland on the other hand has a 12% bicycle mode share in winter with plenty of snowfall. Only around half the people cycling stop doing so in Winter.
Commendable toughness! I definitely wouldn't want to do that.
Literally my dad these days.
Yeah, just starting to bike to work one day is often impossible, just like starting to commute by car would be for someone who lives car-free.
It's a lifestyle you have to make possible. For me it was always a high priority in life, cause it turns wasted time in traffic into exercise, fun, and, depending on weather, a bit of adventure every day. I've never even considered a home or work place that didn't allow for a bike commute. Which means I didn't take the highest-paying job I was offered, and didn't rent the cheapest place per square meter. But I also don't have a car payment or gas expenses and I arrive awake and relaxed both at work and at home.
if you're in a city, then it's still possible, your local government just says 'fuck you' to non-drivers
but yeah not much you can do if you're rural in that situation
of course, half of drivers can't drive in more than 2 in of snow anyways
I'm planning on doing some winter cycling today since the plows are catching up now!
But I get it, winter cycling requires more gear and more pre-planning that winter driving, you need to invest in better gear that isn't just whatever hat and gloves are the cheapest at the store, and it makes paved roads more like biking on gravel/sand so you have to put more work in, plus you show up at your destination just as sweaty as summer biking except now you have a bunch of snow gear to wash because it's all sweaty and gross too and is that melted snow or sweat or snot from my runny nose that I feel on this wet scarf I just covered my face in?!
Edit to add: OH AND THE WIND! Those fall/winter winds are hell on accoustic bicycles. I've needed to pedal down a steep hill with a trailer filled with 100lbs of kids and kids school stuff behind me because the wind was so strong that gravity alone wouldn't propel me down the hill!
come on. do it!
its not really 10 inches :-)
Seriously this must be what it's like to sleep with men, I was promised 10 inches but only got about 6! At least that's better than when we're promised 6-8" and only get about 4"
That's a great opportunity to go by ski, if the distance is reasonable.
Break out the xc skis!
angry sentiment. the people having nothing better to do than shouting "biking! is the best thing in the world. everybody should do it" for one misses that not everybody wants to do it (and being pressured to do sth causes an understandable and hefty backlash) and that more important, it's ableist because it assumes everybody is physically healthy enough to even bike in any weather.
for example, my throat reliably hurts every time i bike in temperatures of below 5°C. that's not because i'm really disabled, but because cold, icy wind + sensitive throat = sore throat. that sucks.
and that's besides the point that my coworkers wouldn't really appreciate to smell my sweat for 6 hours (we have no shower in office). and i also don't want to be in sweat-sticky clothes all day long.
Your reply is ableist because it's hard for dyslexics to read.
If you can't ride a bicycle, then find some other synergistic way to save time.
It's only really feasible if your fitness activities are also your hobbies and you have friends who share said hobbies. For example, rock climbing, running.
Simple solution.
You have to make work side project too and gym what you for for fun / hobby.
Too bad if the only thing you hate more than exercise is the job.
I combined work and gym and I'm now doing back breaking labour. 10/10 would recommend
This guy understands capitalism.
I think you need to reassess your understanding of the definition of the word "simple".
It's simple, but it might not be easy
Except that it's not? Why would you force yourself to make working out your hobby? That's very limiting. Your side project can't always be your job either. In some cases doing that might even take all the fun out of it.
Simple–easy to understand or do; not difficult
Emphasis is mine
When I was younger, I worked a physical job and went rock climbing frequently. I did bike to work too¹, and I was in pretty darn good shape. I made most of my hobbies athletic for like a decade, and kept that shape.
Plenty of time left for sufficient sleep. Not that I got sufficient sleep, but that was just hubris, I could've if I wanted to.
General LPT: Do athletic hobbies.
¹ Because I was a badass. My commute was a painted-line bike lane on the side of a 3-lane highway. I get the frustration with constantly being told to "just bike" when it simply isn't practical for the average person, at least around me.
Most of the people I know who do this consistently / longer-term are young adults and/or on drugs. Not like street drugs, but some combo of legally prescribed stimulant/anti-depressant/performance enhancing/hormone/weight-loss stuff. Modern medicine has the answers (for some).
A common scenario I'm seeing is that folks in their 30s, 40s, and 50s are being diagnosed with things like ADHD for the first time, and suddenly once they're on the proper stimulants, they can full throttle, always be doing something. I'm also seeing this a lot with folks who go on GLP-1 drugs. They lose a bunch of weight in a short amount of time and suddenly feel a lot better, mentally and physically. The other thing I see going on is people getting on hormone replacement or starting performance enhancing drugs a bit later in life, seems to be a real motivating factor for them since they're suddenly feeling 20 years younger.
So, maybe the answer is be young and if you can't be young, do drugs?
guess that's where many go wrong.. be young and do drugs
The adults are gonna be alright
I still think the 40-hour work week is inherently tied to the idea of the american nuclear family. The answer is that there simply isn't the time to do any of these things unless one person is doing the 40-hours a week office job and the other is doing the 40-hours a week "taking care of shit with the house/kids" job.
For a serious answer, it requires a level of strict discipline and adherence to schedule that makes any reward you get from it feel hollow
So, I knew people who do all those things. Work long days, go to the gym, have their hobbies... What they also did is:
- have aspouse who does all their chores
- Never do anything with said spouse
- Wonder why their second marriage is failing
Although a lot of them also claimed to only need 5 hours of sleep.
That grindset "I only need x hours" is horseshit, everyone who does this thinks they're some kind of rare genetic anomaly when in reality they've simply gotten used to being sleep-deprived all the time
My ex is one who claimed she only needed a five hour sleep and yet she still slept on eight to nine hour nights all the time. She always laughed when I said I have sleep problems and I need seven hours of sleep. She is ex for reason.
As someone who is used to sleep-deprivation, I can second that.
168 hours in a week
Minus 56 for sleep is 112
Minus 40 hour work week is 72
Minus half hour commute 5 days a week is 67
67
Minus 65 hours doomscrolling in bed is 2
How tf am I supposed to have hobbies and health with only 2 hours of free time every week?
So, no laundry, eating, bathing, shitting, anything like that? What's your secret?
(In fairness shitting can be combined with either the 40hrs/work if you're smart, or with the 56hr/sleep if you're not, but then the no bathing or laundry becomes a bigger issue..)
I do multitask by doomscrolling on the toilet, at work, or even on the toilet at work sometimes. It does buy a few more hours for doomscrolling in bed
He works at a water park so both are combined with the 40hrs/work
Winter must be ROUGH.
Not if he lives near the equator. They got water parks year round.
Source: Used to live by one...
Come on ! People act like laudry hasn't evolved since the 19th century. It takes 1h a week max. Bathing : 2h a week Eating/cooking at home : 15h a week Cleaning the house : 2h a week You are still left with 47h a week left for gym, side projects and socializing. If you don't have kids, life is really not that hard !
spend less on candles
"no"
You actually don't have those 2 hours left. It's a half hour commute 1 way. Meaning an hour a day for 5 days not 30 mins for 5 days. Looks like you may need to cutt out 30 mins of doomscrolling.
Nm. You did the math right, I just read it wrong without checking your working.
People that do these things generally have a ton of energy, are incredibly disciplined, do things quickly, and to a pretty large amount, box-checkers and/or future-borrowers.
If you're a 45-60 minute showerer, you're going to have trade-offs
If you have threesomes during the week, you're going to have trade-offs
If you are the type of person who needs to actually feel peaceful the majority of the time, trade-offs
The ADHD person needs more hours in the day. For everyone else, there's half-assing it.
Priorities are everything. There isn't enough time to get everything in life. A lot of us have fallen con to the box-checker's quantity and compare ourselves to that. It may take some self work, but figuring out what actually makes you happy and what makes that sustainable is a pretty big, but worthwhile challenge. I'm in my 30s and still working on it, for what it's worth. Different people figure this stuff out at different rates, and my hypothesis is that your availability of resources and birth privileges are big factors in the time it takes to figure that out.
In other words, stop worrying about what makes other people happy, and focus on what makes you happy. There may be overlap, but there also may not be. We're all different and that's okay.
Preach! :)
As someone who needs to actually feel peaceful while I have 45-60 minute threesomes in the shower during the week, I'm all set.
5:30 - get up, get dressed, make the bed
5:45 - go for a walk with my wife and our cat
6:15 - shower, coffee, lemmy, household chores
7:30 - ride bicycle to work
8:30 - work starts
5pm - ride back home
6pm - cook and eat dinner
7pm - household chores
8pm - 1h free time
9pm - go to bed
So I manage to not fall behind on the household, shopping, sleep, me-time or exercise during the week.
I can carve out up to 4 hours for some special evening event once in a while.
Weekends are filled with side projects, visiting family and activities with friends.
Riding a bicycle to work was the game changer for me. It adds 2h of daily exercise and time to reflect during my commute.
I'd say there's some differences between biking and gym in terms of whole body strength and flexibility, but it's good exercise. Definitely more productive than driving.
I think one point that can still be made is that this schedule means your average day (averaging over weekends) contains 7 hours of work/commute and only 3.5 hours of hobbies/activities.
A move to a 30 hour work week would mean that you would only spend 5.5-6 hours a day working and get 5 hours an average day for hobbies/activities.
there’s some differences between biking and gym in terms of whole body strength and flexibility
Why you gotta dunk on cardio like that?! Seriously if there's one thing my recent focus on cardio has taught me it's that more folks who focus on strength need to spend time on cardio. Seriously it greatly reduces your recovery time and gets to where you just need to take micro breaks to recover enough for the next rep/set and can therefore lift longer and more frequently meaning you can get more reps and sets in the same amount of time. Last year I had a few sessions with a trainer because I wanted to work on some upper body strength and the trainer was visibly weirded out by my recovery time, where I'd only need 30-60 seconds between sets and they actually said "hey you can rest longer" and I'm just like "nah I'm good now let's go!" (It was also funny when doing some leg exercises seeing how I could do 4x as much weight pushing with my legs as I could lifting with my legs) Anyways I'd literally finish the 1 hour session in just 45 minutes thanks to the quick recovery times
You bother to waste time making the bed, but not showering before going to bed? Bizarre.
I don't even shower every day. Hope that doesn't break your mind.
Do you ever skip making the bed?
I've skipped making the bed for the last 30 years. I'm never in the bedroom unless I'm in bed, so having it be in any other state beyond "able to lay down on" is pointless.
100%
I think I heard something once about something being better even when you make the bed three seconds before you lay down in it
^solid source right there
Only when I've overslept and am in a big hurry. Then I'm out the door 5 minutes after waking up.
But otherwise, it takes just a minute, and transforms how the room looks.
A messy living space affects your mental state.
How? Is your bed in your living room? When you go to bed you mess it up, wouldn't that affect your mental state?
making the bed is nice because it removes moisture and therefore smell from the bedsheets, so it's fresh when you want to use it again in the evening :P
edit: important:
by "making the bed" i do not mean to put the blanket down in an orderly, square pattern or sth. i mean to shake it thoroughly once (maybe also do that outside the window) so the moisture from sweat that accumulates in it during the nighttime can be transported away with the wind. then it's clean and smells really fresh when you want to use it again in the evening.
She buys the groceries, that is your trick.
Not really, we take turns with shopping and cooking.
oh
Also, as a society, we spend far too much time working to live and it’s bullshit.
It's so messed up how normalised that got.
"So wait we work for half our waking day?"
"Yes, but you also get two whole days off per week"
"Woah that sounds almost too good to be true."
We had to fight tooth and nail for even that.
But fr I think the biggest error was that we didn't demand working hours be cut in half during women's liberation. The idea that one person can spend half their time working for pay to provide for themselves and a kid or two, so two people can provide for a full family together and have time to split the domestic labor is key.
I'm pretty close to getting all these done most days but the only reason it's possible for me is because I work from home and make enough money to be slowly getting ahead.
I'm in a similar boat. Its definitely a luxury that comes from making decent money at a job that respects your personal time.
But also it does require some amount of focus on improving your own lifestyle because many people spend so much time scrambling to get their finances in order when the world is setup to separate one from their money that by the time you have your finances in order you can be too exhausted to try to do anything with yourself
That's a good point and I can't take credit for having my finances in order. My partner is amazing and much better at budgeting than I am. I think that is another big factor for me. Having a supportive partner to encourage and grow with makes a night and day difference. I'm lucky and grateful but also work hard to have a better life.
Not while also being a parent. Most of my hobbies and leisure / friend time has taken a giant shit since I became a dad.
I found a good friend group of families with similarly aged children within walking distance of my home. We meet up maybe once a week at one of the local restaurants with patio space and let the kids play while we catch up. That space of 2-3 hours does triple duty: catching up with friends, getting the kids out of the house to do high energy activities with friends, and feeding everyone for dinner on a weeknight.
Having that kind of social group is key. My parents had church, but I'm not religious, so it was important to at least find a way to replicate that social sense of community somehow when I had kids.
Not with two kids I ain't doing all those, no.
Each day, I am just happy to have survived and have like 1 hour time to sit on the couch before going to bed at 9 pm.
🫂 Hoping things turn around soon/eventually.
You don't have to do everything every day
Yes exactly. Hobbies can be enjoyed once a week or two weeks or even once a month! Or they can be practiced more frequently but for less time. 20 minutes a day practicing a musical instrument can do a lot for your learning in so little time. The hard part is sticking to it!
Yes, if part of your job involves physical activity and there's never overtime and it's not high stress and you have a short commute.
So, not my life right now, but that has been the case in the past.
Yes, but as you age you don't need as much socializing and you have established good friendships so you can jump right in.
But I do track everything for fun (like a diary). Last Sunday to Saturday i reached:At 7hrs 4min of excercise last week, 45.3 hrs sleep,, 1260 grams of protein, 7 pieces of nicotine gum, 28oz of whiskey (4oz/day), etc...
Highlights: Had a pr at the gym, squatted 410lbs. Baddthings: Had gym fail at ju jitsu, spit my mouth guard onto my bros face. Sorry C! Also argued w my sister over text
as you age you don’t need as much socializing and you have established good friendships
That's quite an assumption to make. Why would you need less socializing as you age? Relocating to another city might mean having to start over with your social group.
Well to bring up developmental theory...Young men in early adulthood often need far more social contact because that stage of life is about exploration, building identity, and expanding networks.
By midlife, most men have shifted into a stage of consolidation where priorities narrow, relationships deepen, and the need for frequent socializing drops.
Sure I could put in citations, but its Sunday and I'm relaxing....So here's a quote from Aristotle instead:
The aim of the wise is not to secure more friends, but to find enough good ones.
Nice squat brother!
I love you, let's run away together.
and you have established good friendships so you can jump right in.
Think again! An opioid epidemic has hit your town, all your friends OD'd or moved to attempt getting clean, or the one who moved for school. The one that's left is moving 5hr away for a girl he met 6mo ago. You're also a male in an age bracket known for having a hard time making meaningful connections, superficial ones come and go like the tides.
What do I win, and can I return it for store credit?
A victim card and being ignored. You can be the victim or the victor, not both
Nice try, it's lonliness.
Have fun being a prick!
I've since made up w my sister. That is all
You're not suppose to go to the gym every single day in most cases. The "average" resistance trainer might spend 3 hours total per week in the gym. (I.E. 3 days a week. 1 hour each session) Maybe more maybe less. Maybe a lot less. I only go once a week when I'm cutting. But that's just me. Granted his isn't including de-load weeks or full rest days. Which you absolutely need unless you're Achilles himself, and look what that got him.
If you're going to the gym "every day" for basic cardio. I would highly suggest investing in a home treadmill or similar instead. There are also a ton of stationary cardio exercises you can also look into or research online. Otherwise, most people can usually find some smaller, no bells and whistles, used treadmills/elipticals for fairly cheap if you look around and/or get lucky. Hell, I see people giving away cheap stationary bikes for free all the time. Depends on what you're looking for and what your goals are.
the trick, i'd imagine, is to be rich enough that you don't have to deal with doing your own chores or errands (let the servants get groceries and cook and clean and drive you places).
I really don't think that's possible if you're neurodivergent and unmedicated. There are too many bees buzzing in our heads to be that productive.
Not all types of neurodivergence fit that description or require medication.
It's also completely unrelated to the question. It's like me asking "how can people run 42km" and some rando saying "it's impossible if you have no legs".
I'm not big on side projects, but I've made fitness into my fun, so those blocks get partially combined.
I actually think that's kind of key when it comes to fitness - you need to find an activity you actually find enjoyable, otherwise you're always going to be struggling to keep it up. I used to force myself to go running many years ago even though I hated it, and that predictably didn't go very well. Then I re-discovered biking, which takes very little mental effort for me to want to actively go out and do, since I like doing it so much. I've since started to find running actually fun, but it was a bit pointless there for a while
of course, the rich
Those people don't have the 8 hours in the office
or the chores
You’re right. They “work” 24hrs a day.
I think it's all about priorities and as another guy said here at least a rough schedule/routine.
My hobby is being active (drumming multiple hours per day), then you can save the gym (I do some climbing now and then though). Commuting with bicycle to work also helps, work less (I do 25h/week which is max for me, I rather spend less money and live in a community than having to work more to finance myself, life does have too much interesting to offer than to spend all your time with working).
I also like to eat stuff like Huel (the savory stuff) which saves me time of cooking/buying groceries (and I have a rather high protein intake which is good for drumming, as fast/strong muscles/tendons are quite important (and it noticebly helps with growing muscles, I didn't want to believe until then how important high-protein intake is when being active)).
I basically don't play any video games (ironically I'm quickly bored), do some open source programming instead (so side-projects?), try to avoid "wasting" time on e.g. social media.
You don’t have kids obviously.
I know a new father whose wife and kid recently had to go out of town for a few days. You know how Goku trains with like 250 lbs of weighted clothes? Having a kid is like that but with time management
It's pretty easy if you're not on social media and don't invest time into things that aren't aligning with your goals. I.e. I eat very basic food, I moved close to my work, I do chores while winding down for the day, etc.
But you are on social media! You're here!
Yea, I hit up Lemmy a couple times a day while eating/etc (i.e. right now I'm getting some takeout before my flight and killing time). But unless my night has fallen apart and I have no motivation to work, you won't catch me doomscrolling the front page :p
I think they're more referring to people who are chronically online. If you spend HOURS on lemmy or reddit or twitter or whatever that's a problem ;)
You.... you do chores..... WHILE winding down.....?
Picking up around the house or putting dishes away and such can be mindless and relaxing. Its more about doing something that takes no mental energy.
I'm so anal about my dishes being perfectly clean though D,X
I was too until I had kids. Well I still care but its a losing battle! I swear, we doubled the people in the house but somehow quadrupled the dirty dishes.
I feel like this is pretty normal no? Gym in the morning go to work, come home potter round with projects, cook dinner socialise and lazy out for the rest of the night. On weekends you can spend all day on hobbies then go out at night.
I have similar experience. Only possible because I'm child-free. If you add a dependant in the mix I'm cooked.
I was going to say that the big thing missing in the OP is parental responsibilities. Good luck!
Yeah I'd also consider the after work childcare duties to be partially social and fun. I say partial because stuff like getting them organised is annoying but hanging out with them is fun.
I'd totally understand if parents said they were to overwhelmed to find time for their side projects and hobbies but they should* be able to find time for exercise, fun, social and a good nights sleep(once the kids aren't young).
Yes but my commute is 10-15 minutes by bicycle, and my kids are all adults now.
I prioritize making time for sleep, exercise and sex in my day, and let everything else work around those. So some of my exercise comes from commuting but I do also do yoga about 4 hours a week and try to lift weights at least once.
When my kids were young, NO it is impossible to do alone. Even if you do have carpool help and aftercare and all, it's hard. There were years I had to get up at 5 and run to get exercise and other years it was the gym at 22:00 after a night class. But I have always found that it works better if you make your priorities (exercise needs to be one of those) and make a commitment to do those.
I usually have had jobs that were more than the 40 hours, and am NOT a work hard play hard person at all. But if you have one of those 8 hour a day jobs and sleep for 7.5 hours and take half an hour on each end of that to get ready and (critically important) don't have some hours long commute, there's plenty of time in the day. I remember when I first got a job that ended at 1700 and having time to cook, feed everyone and go to yoga, or hustle to the 1730 Jazzercise class after work and then still have time to make supper after, instead of feeling so terribly rushed all the time.
Now my day is: wake up around 7, leave for work around 9 after a nice leisurely morning. Work 9:30 to 6:30 (18:30) ride home and get ready for yoga, go exercise and come home and make supper by 9 (21:00), eat and have a Pokemon go walk or read or listen to music, (I cook, my husband takes care of the dishes after) then get ready for bed and try to sleep 23-7, sometimes this is midnight to 7 but I do need a solid 7 hours, too much sleep is migraine trigger unfortunately but I sleep well and soundly for that 7 and wake up pretty naturally. It feels like a balanced life.
ETA: I forgot to add, we do the grocery shopping Friday evenings, at a complex that has restaurants and bars and a Ben & Jerry's, go out for one drink or a restaurant meal then get groceries then go home, so we can treat it like a night out not just an errand. And most weekends are free of work, though we do each have busy seasons with 7 day weeks for a few weeks - during his busy season I do more of the cleaning and we get more takeout meals, during mine we get more takeout or he or the kids will cook. And we outsource the cleaning and have some essentials on auto-ship. I know that work and exercise aren't the only things you have to do in a week! But we don't do them on weekdays usually.
Yes. But no kids and the gym is next to the office.
I so wish my work had a gym. It would be a good use for my lunch breaks.
As it is, I "cozy cardio" at my desk and get a few hours in each day. Not a substitute for proper exercise, but it does seem to make me less antsy and better able to focus.
Kinda, but only because I have 0 commute (job that allows to wfh as much as I want), I don't care about fitness all that much at the moment (I go to the gym maybe twice a week for 1.5h each, followed by like an hour in the sauna every time) and because my side project is also my hobby. I also don't like socializing with anyone but my partner, so it's all quite efficient.
Personally, I manage to do so only because I genuinely can't afford the life and fun.
For most of the last 5 years I've been cycling 2 or 3 hours a day and spending about 45 minutes a day at the gym and I still have plenty of time for fun and socializing and whatnot while also getting 8 hours a day of sleep. This is possible for two reasons: 1) I semi-retired from my job as a programmer and I'm now a school bus driver, which takes about 4.5 hours a day (it helps that I live a half-mile from the bus lot, otherwise the job involves twice as much commuting as a normal job); and 2) I don't watch movies or television. For my money, #2 is the biggie -- spending hours a day watching movies and TV shows is such a massive time sink. I'm not judging people who do it since I just stopped enjoying it years ago, not because I'm consciously avoiding something I like in order to free up time.
Unfortunately, two months ago my parents' health took a nosedive and my father died and now I'm a nearly full-time caregiver for my mother. I haven't ridden my bike or been to the gym during this entire stretch. So if it makes anyone feel better, I'm no longer in the category of insanely fit older dude myself. But it is possible, at least.
I'm gonna guess that working only half a full time job while (I'm gonna assume) having some money from a programming job saved up played more of a part than you may think, but I'm sure not watching movies also helps.
Meanwhile people working 8+ hours in a physically demanding job just to be able to afford rent and maybe enough food for the week who then still have to take care of general life stuff are a lot less likely to have the money, time, or energy to do much else.
Out of curiosity, did you
cycling 2 or 3 hours a day and spending about 45 minutes a day at the gym and I still have plenty of time for fun and socializing and whatnot while also getting 8 hours a day of sleep
While you had a job as listed in the pic (8hrs/day)? I'm betting time was a major factor in why you only started 5y ago.
My "real" job had a schedule from about 4 AM to 11 AM because I was managing a team of coders in India and this allowed me to overlap with them somewhat. I would then ride 25-50 miles in the afternoon and hit the gym in the evening before going to bed around 10 PM. I had less time for sleep and fucking around but otherwise it was similar. Towards the end of that job my company was bought by a west coast tech giant and then I had nothing at all to do for six months, so exercising was obviously even easier.
Well damn hell yeah, that seems like it all worked out!
The trick is not trying to force them into every single day. You do some stuff on your free time and some during the weekend
15 minute a day fitness program. Designed to be done with no equipment except a stopwatch.
https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf
Actual exercises are in the back of the book.
I only need 5-6 hours of sleep to feel rested and sharp, so that helps
There have been lots of studies regarding this and unfortunately no, that's not enough. 7 is basically the minimum.
k buddy, good luck.
I do seasonal jobs when I'm not working on my artwork, but yes.
The trick to it is to make everything you do a routine. Get up at the same time, eat a fatty/oily breakfast, shower, work, eat, work out, shower, make your personal time count, go to sleep at the same time every single day. You should plan an hour to get up and ready for work, you should plan an hour to get home and an hour to get to sleep, so assuming 8 hours work and sleep that leaves 5 hours for workout, dinner, and hobbies.
Only downside is that external forces' disruption of the schedule can cause feelings of rage.
No, all this at once is not possible with any worthwhile kind of focus
The closest I came to cracking this was buying a used treadmill, a steam deck, and some third party joycons that were a little more ergonomic. Play games while walking. Lost 20lbs playing BG3 and another 10 beating Hades. Then life happened and that routine fell apart. But it worked pretty well. Just need to get back into it. Obviously not feasible for many due to the initial expensive or space requirements.
For me, the math here ain't mathing. Work + commute + lunch = only 9 hours? Nah bro. I don't live at work. Stuffing your face in 15min is bad enough.
Don't anglos count lunch break as work? "Working 9 to 5" is just 8 hours, so either you skip lunch or you count it as work time.
Around here we don't, and my job for example has a mandatory 1-hour lunch break, so 9 hours are all taken up from clock-in to clock-out, nevermind commute.
I've never had a 9-to-5 that was actually 9 to 5. It always starts at 7:30 or 8.
That got tossed out awhile ago.
Yeah that's how it works in the UK. I work 9.30-6 with a 1 hour dinner break.
Y'all are getting an hour for your meal break? I've never had a job that gave us more than 30 minutes...
My first job had 2 hours, not great since you always got back home late. Previous job was flexible, so I could take either 30 minutes or 1 hour, I preferred 30 minutes, as, again, it allowed me to leave earlier. Now I'm forced to take 1 hour, but at least I've flexible work hours, so I can clock in between 8 and 9, and leave when my 8 hours are up.
I guess you can but you won't have time for personal relationships or a family I guess. Gotta be quite focused.
I'm doing all of those things but not actually having any fun....
I did.
Work + commute + lunch 9 hours. Sleep 8 hours.
Work out about one hour lifting weights or grocery store + meal prep on rest days.
1 hours spent on breakfast, shower, dinner etc.
Total 19 hours which left me with 5 for hobbies on weekdays. Laundry, cleaning, etc was done an hour or two on Saturday.
A 9 hour lunch. Wow.
You've got to squeeze in time for yourself, even if it's just a little.
Take some me time. Vanish into the woods for a decade.
With a kid and full time job (home office though), I would need to reduce sleep to get any time for side projects, gym or hobbies. I am not sure it would be wise.
With a kid, your most enjoyable hobby would be getting a good night's sleep. If you ever got to do it.
I don’t know what I did in my life to deserve her, but among other things, she is a sound sleeper
Absolutely possible. I'm quite happy.
Married and have a 6 year old. I lift 4 hours a week, do probably 50 or so miles on the peleton, game probably 10 hours a week, and I get to race my cars probably 5 times a year.
In bed by 8 or 9, up at 5 or 6. I have my stressful moments but overall it's good.
Don't you feel trapped sometimes?
If I have such a static routine everything starts to feel pointless to me. I feel the urge to break out, and just yell fuck it all, and walk away from everything.
I really need quite an amount of time that is not planned, and where I do whatever my mind wants in that moment. Otherwise I feel like an explosion is building up inside me.
And in turn that destroys every fitness, healthy eating or similar routine I have tried to encompass.
It seems impossible to create a life for myself with healthy routines, that also feels like actually living.
Maybe routines just don’t work for you 🤷♂️ seems completely fine, no? Enjoy being creative and exciting, I bet you‘re an interesting person.
OP says they have a 6yr old, that alone structures life a lot.
Other than the occasional my wife and kid for whatever reason are driving me crazy and wanting to abandon them for a few days, no not really.
For me, I have weekend adventures to break the monotony. Some weekends I go run in a 5k, some I go to cool exhibitions or make a trip to another city to explore some museums, and some I'm just chilling at home with family
Seasons also help. When your thing is going for a bike ride most evenings, it gets a lot harder when the cold wind, snow and early darkness make that not enough fun to brave, so you're forced to shift to winter activities instead
Hi! I am a less structured person living with a much more organized/routine husband.
Habit > Routine as far as exercise. Or anything but it works best for exercise because if you can force yourself to do it for the 6 weeks it takes to become a habit, you feel so much better it is self sustaining. I have always, always found everything works better when I set aside time for exercise, or effortful physical work. And really, if you just wander during your unstructured time, out in the world, move your body not sit still, that will do a lot.
The notion of going to bed that early makes me tremendously sad.
I have to when I'm working
*The notion of choosing to go to bed that early makes me tremendously sad.
I just rode 10 miles and have an hour and a half of video game time before work.
It's fantastic.
Going to bed early means you can get up early! If you go to bed at 9 and get up at 5 you've got 3 more hours to do stuff in the morning than someone who goes to bed at midnight and gets up at 8. Also most people are most productive in the mornings so that can work better for those people too for getting their obligations completed
"You get less steak, sure, but you get more cardboard!" 😆
Do you start work early then?
When I show up to work at 9, I work 8 hours + 1 hour lunch break, meaning I’m done at 6. If I go to the gym afterwards, I‘m home by 9, without having had dinner.
I can start when I feel like it, usually in-between 8-9. I'll clock out by 4, nobody in US tech (where I am) is actually working 40.
Damn, thanks for the intel - and congrats, I‘m genuinely jealous of your schedule!
wait until you try to start a business on top
the easiest part would then be to cut everything off, maybe everyone off too
I run my own company. Do hobbies on the side. Started a side hustle doing woodworking, spend time with my kids and girl, go on trips, relax, and get plenty of sleep. I just don't do everything in one day.
wow, that's inspiring.
I agree that it is a balancing act that one must master. But when one doesn't yet have their footing in something, it feels like that initial workload is greater then the balance that comes in upholding the hustle in the future.
Just some thoughts from experience, maybe my weakness is thinking this way. Excuses are a coping mechanism that I'm trying to cut out of my life rn.
No I definitely agree that when you're first starting it's much more difficult to balance things I know 6 years ago when I first started I definitely didn't have the work-life balance I do now but that's the goal and that's the reason we run a business is to get that work-life balance and be able to master it. At this point in time unless I have clients that are demanding my time I usually tell them what my schedule is what I have available and build in my time for everything else with my family with my vacations with my hobbies. Like for example I'm starting to take Fridays off now so I can work on my woodworking business that I'd like to start so that way I have more time at home and time with my family because they actually do that with me.
I DMd you
My wife, i don’t know where she gets the energy. Up by 6, does her work, hits the gym, goes out with her friends, i don’t get it
Urgh, social people. Hate those sexy bastards
I sit in a cave all day wrapped in a cloak cursing the light, i married my opposite
Doing cardio regularly immensely increased my surplus energy.
Now I'm back to sitting on my ass though
It’s possible for me but my workouts are short and I do them at home since I have some weights. Also since I work nights, my weekdays I don’t really see my kids since they’re at school so I have a lot of free time available during the day for hobbies. If I worked days it would be impossible.
Wfh means I have more tim. Gym equipment at home means more convenience. So I can usually manage fitness and work plus healthy meals every day. Joined a book club so I read more and that meets online so it's very convenient too.
I don't do side projects and I got permission to use time in work to do learning, but it's really hard to save that time as there's always someone important to do in work.
Having kids means all this stuff at home doesn't require a babysitter, which would fuck it all up sometimes.
So definitely not doing everything I could or i want, keep evening time as unscheduled as I can cause I need that freedom. I also recognize that different life stages come with different challenges and opportunities.
Me.
OP where did you share this image from? Curious to know which app generates images with this much whitespace all the time. It's starting to become very annoying for some inexplicable reason.
I prefer them that way I prefer squares to rectangles
So you mean you did this on purpose in an image editing software?
No I find them this way
Ah okay. I hate that it takes up so much space among other items in my feed while scrolling lol. I guess that's the main point of it, really, the whitespace that is. To make you pause and so it's visible on screen for longer. 😅
I get that, you can block me if it's too annoying
Working double shifts for that sweet sweet high deductible health plan or an hour per day at planet fitness, so hard to decide
If only there were more than one day a week…. Le sigh.
Yeah.
There are 168 hours in a week.
I sleep about 7.5 hours, but am usually in bed for 8 hours. Let's just call that 56 hours.
I work about 45 hours per week. My commute takes me about 15 minutes each way, so that's a minimum of 2.5 hours per week of biking (this also serves as light cardio). More realistically, I do about half the pickups and dropoffs for my school age kids, so each one of those adds about 45 minutes, so that's another 3.75 hours. That's a total of 50.25 hours on work stuff.
I sneak in about 3 or 4 workouts per week during my lunch break, adding about an hour to each workday that I do that. On days I don't work out, I might run errands or eat lunch with friends. So let's just call that 5.
Let's add 7 hours to our morning routines, where I generally have to wake up an hour before actually leaving the home. And another 7 hours for my kids bedtime routines.
That leaves just under 43 hours per week of everything else. I'm generally able to fit in social activities like meeting up with friends two or three times per week (10 hours), cooking and meal prep (10 hours, may overlap with social activities like when I'm hosting a BBQ), miscellaneous chores (5 hours), a decent chunk of TV, movies, or reading (10-20 hours per week depending on what sports season it is), other kid activities (10-20 hours per week, may overlap with other social activities).
So the ordinary workweeks are a bit tight but doable. Vacation/holiday weeks tend to give a bit more time, but also tend to add on the parenting responsibilities.
And if I'm feeling time pressure, there's always places to get a bit more time: outsourcing some of the cooking and cleaning (not necessarily by hiring someone to come to the home but simply by eating out so that someone else cooks and washes dishes).
I also have kids. IMO, the way you're accounting for hours doesn't reflect the boom/bust cycle of the 5 day work and school week.
A day in my work week is:
- wakeup around 6:15, feed kids, get their stuff ready for school and my stuff ready for work
- three days a week two neighbor kids come over at 7:30 so their parents can get to work on time
- I get the kids on the bus two days a week and work from home starting at 8:30 or drive into the office the remaining three days and get there around 8. Although I drive to work, I am able to sneak some exercise having walking conversations with coworkers thanks to being in a large building
- if I went into the office, leave my desk at 4 and get home around 4:45. If I worked from home the kids get off the bus around 3:45 but I'll still need to finish up my work day
- cook dinner, referee a heard of wild kids when they swarm through our house, get our kids to do their homework
- most days tend to have a kid activity thrown in the mix: baseball practice, swimming lessons, robotics club, etc that needs to somehow fit in with homework and dinner
- bath time around 7:00, story time runs till 8
- the kids are usually asleep by 8:30, which gives me 2.5 hours of time monday-friday that's work and kid free before I have to go to bed. I can't be too loud or I'll wake the kids up. Combine this with having been up for 14.5 hours and I'm not very inclined to do what used to be my main hobby, making things and tinkering, due to noise and/or mental energy levels. My wife is fine with me sneaking out a day or two a week for a bit, but I don't do that very often due to proximity to friends and many other friends having their own kids and routines
Things will probably calm down some when our kids are a touch older, but right now the week days are very hectic.
My kids are younger than yours, which has some advantages (no homework, not really any extracurricular activities, longer sleep) and disadvantages (not really able to feed or clothe themselves, need parent help for bathing, still need some assistance on brushing teeth, need to be read to instead of being able to read on their own).
During busy weeks (like when one of us parents is out of town for work or something) we're quick to switch from home cooked meals to takeout or eating out, may hire cleaners, and push off some of the social interactions, but I also recognize that I'm working with a pretty nice buffer in that I'm already hanging out with friends about 10 hours per week.
10 hours worth of hangout time with friends sounds nice. Our kids are 5 and 8, which means they're vaguely more self-sufficient and also means we can go on more adventurous trips, but they still require quite a bit of looking after due to bickering and what not.
One thing that helps me is making sure the fun thing I'm doing 2/5 things at once. Fun and Excercise is skiing. (I'm having issues finding a off-season activity. I'm getting too old for my old standby Judo. It's just not fun anymore, too much of me aches for days.)
My side project and life thing is spending time with my kid converting a Motorola Razr 40 Ultra into a slider physical keyboard phone. I have to buy a new cable for it, we broke it. But we learned things.
My job is a pretty sweet gig, and so I can spend down time reading and playing games. I beat Silksong at work. I read all of discworld and cosmere at work.
I used to work from home and lived close enough to gym, I could go at lunch. That was the best.
Then, I had to walk the dogs. No time for the gym anymore but still lots of exercise.
Now I live in an area far from a gym and it’s dangerous to walk the dogs. We play in the yard a lot, but I’m not getting exercise I need.
It’s totally doable if you have the right job, and live in the right place.
If you have kids or other obligations, it’s just not. There isn’t enough time in a day.
Not possible while working 40hrs+ a week
Its absolutely possible. Its normal for people to have all these things.
Cool go tell it to someone with time
?
It is, but you need to balance your life towards it by minimising the amount of time you waste, which is not to be confused with time spent relaxing.
If you can cycle to work, or work on a hobby/side projects while on public transit to work, that time is no longer wasted.
If you have hobbies near where you live or where you work, you'll be spending less time going to or from your hobbies and more time doing them.
If you need to/are prescribed them, take stimulants, anti-depressants, or sleeping pills, because otherwise you'll take longer not doing things and have less energy for the things you actually want to do.
No time to sleep, gotta cram in some of those "extracurricular activities" to prove to future employers that I will do work for free.
not me. I started to priotize down time where I just don't do anything. I was trying to keep up with all that stuff and it was draining me. of course, working too much was a huge factor (even 8 extra hours in a week is 8 fewer hours for hobbies, plus the impact of the extra mental drain, there's like a time efficiency hit too)
I can keep up with work and like three other things nowadays while getting enough sleep and down time. I just rotate which things week to week. sometimes it's video games, woodworking, gardening, reading, other hobby stuff, home projects, etc. obviously there are weeks where I do more, but that's not the average. and the minimum is two. rec sports keep me engaged with people and getting out of the house regularly instead of "oh it's been rainy for four days and I haven't needed to buy anything so I haven't been outside much in the past 100 hours because I couldn't go for a bike ride"
oh and I don't have kids, just dogs.
You'll for sure have to roll up those categories a bit. You will not have time for Fitness, work, side projects, life, fun, and hobbies - if considered as separate, non-overlapping things that you have to have each day. But how about each week I: Work out a total of 4 hours, have at least two evenings spending time with friends doing something I enjoy, and commit a total of 4 hours on a hobby, side-project, or other solo recreational or artistic activity I enjoy. Work, rest, and family will naturally take up the rest of the time. This doesn't sound so unrealistic to me, or like some crazy hustler grind-set that only the most driven could accomplish.
not me lmao
I work (4x10 with 30 minute commute), go to the gym 3 days a week, cook healthy meals, maintain relationships with a handful of people, and get 6-7 hours of sleep.
I kinda im!
Wake up 8am, start work at 8.15am, work till 17.
Then 1h to 4h of sports (either gym, rope climbing or bouldering), 5 times a week
At that point is 18.30/20, got a solid few hours for hobbies/friends/chill.
As you might have notice I don't cook, and commutes are short when climbing ca. 40 mins biking away, work is at home or if I go to the office I go in my lunch hour (20mins commute), gym is 3mins away and bouldering is 10mins biking
Also, no kids.
I sleep every day at ca. 11.30. Get solid 8h in bed, but only around 7h of sleep sadly. Trying to make it 8!
Possible.. Hmz. Better ways exist to find. ✨
Love, work, friends: pick 2. -- Kenneth Koch 1998-05-18
Kind of. But I mostly only get to do hobbies on weekends and don't always get my full 8 hours
I do all of those things! Not all in one day of course, I spread it out over an entire week.
It absolutely is possible, but you have to be completely honest with yourself and have some discipline. If sitting on the couch and doing nothing is important too you, then you literally have to plan time to sit on the couch and do nothing.
Everything you can possibly do, including doing nothing, because doing nothing is doing something, has to be categorized into important/not important and urgent/not urgent.
Any thing not important and not urgent should be completely eliminated from your life:
Most of us say we don't have time anymore because we miss the aimless free time of our youth. But that time is gone...
Sitting on the couch doing nothing doesn't have the same appeal when there's a timer and more shit to do waiting at the other end of it.
I know. It sucks. But time is the most valuable resource you'll ever have in your life. We all only have a certain amount of time, then we'll cease to exist.
Would you rather spend your life unhappy on the couch because you're stressed out that you don't have enough time to do everything, or would you like to take control of your life and truly value the time you're given?
would you like to take control of your life and truly value the time you’re given?
I'm doing the best I can, but I only have so much energy to expend in a day before my mind and body are shot. Meanwhile shit keeps piling up. I can't just not do all the tedious bullshit my job requires.
I get it.
I'm actively looking for ways to downsize my life at this point.