

I did the math. I’m on pace to waste 33 yrs of my life. - imrane
https://medium.com/coffee-time-1/9f00fc22f521

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delluminatus
I think that the author dramatically underestimates the difficulty of learning
a foreign language, which undermines his perspective statement. I would go so
far as to say that it's absolutely impossible for anyone but a savant to
become conversationally fluent in a foreign language with 30 hours of work
which is what his timeline suggests (and the very article he links as support
seems to agree with my assessment).

With that out of the way, I find that my daily productivity isn't limited by
available time so much as available willpower (which we currently believe can
be exhausted in the same way that muscles are exhausted [0]). I think a more
effective way to improve your productivity is to ask not how much time you're
wasting, but _why_ you're wasting that time.

[0]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_depletion)

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sokoloff
Article> Obviously, things like commuting are not recoverable but certainly I
can scale back my random articles, Facebook and television watching.

Commuting time is not obviously unrecoverable. You could move closer to work.
Doesn't work in all cases, and doesn't happen overnight, but if you're
interested in tightly managing your total time on earth, and you're commuting
more than 30 minutes a day, you've got to look at that wedge of time as in
play.

(Someone could argue that the 30 should be 20, or even 15. Fair enough.)

~~~
_random_
There are other options. My commute to one end is 40 minutes, of which 20
minutes are walking (obviously not a waste). The other 20 minutes on a train
is reading articles.

~~~
delluminatus
Depending on your perspective, walking can be a waste. It's better than
driving because it provides fitness benefits, but it's much worse than actual
aerobic (or anaerobic) training.

For instance, you would be better off driving for 5 minutes after spending 15
minutes doing interval training or some other kind of intensive exercise.

~~~
_random_
I wouldn't dismiss walking as an inferior form of exercise. It is just
different.

