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.
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).
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
TIL it doesn’t snow in Netherlands and Denmark /s
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.
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.
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?
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.
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?
of course, the rich
Those people don’t have the 8 hours in the office
You’re right. They “work” 24hrs a day.
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 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.
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.
