
What Americans Actually Do All Day Long - hooande
http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2012/08/29/160244277/what-americans-actually-do-all-day-long-in-2-graphics
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BrainScraps
If you liked that, you'll love this:

[http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080...](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/07/31/business/20080801-metrics-
graphic.html)

Divided by age range, gender, ethnicity...

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simantel
This is amazing! Much more data-dense than the NPR piece.

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samstave
Get up

Check email on phone / check HN / check reddit

Shower/get baby ready

check email / check HN / check reddit

prep backpack, get things needed for work

bike to bart (music)

check HN / check reddit (music)

arrive at embarcaderro

go to starbucks - order "large hot water" {free} - insert teabag supplied by
office (restock once a week) [mighty leaf green tea tropical]

walk to client site

work / email / work / HN / reddit / meetings / work / email / txt / call wife
/ eat / HN / reddit / etc

wrap up

walk to bart

email / HN / reddit

arrive to home station

bike home

family time

dinner

family time

work / HN / reddit

family time

email / HN / reddit

sleep

rinse/repeat

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alexfoo
Parenthood rocks.

Apart from the obvious point that it is mind-bogglingly fantastic in itself
(far more rewarding than all of this computer stuff) it had a profound effect
on my work life balance.

Gone are stupid hours at work; I changed my work hours to fit nursery drop-
off/collection times and even dropped to a 4 day week so I could spend quality
time with my daughter rather than her going to nursery for an extra day. My
productivity has improved (both subjectively and measured objectively during
formal job reviews/appraisals) which I put down to being more focused during
the limited hours I am at work to do my job as I know that I can't just do it
later.

Outside hours, I can only access work (including email) if I bring my laptop
home, and I now only do that for one weekend a month when I volunteer to be on
call.

And now that she's nearly 3 I spend a lot of the time I would have been
checking banal stuff on the Internet with play time and bonkers discussions
with someone soaking up everything that's going on around her and developing
her reasoning and understanding of it.

It's been long enough that I really have no idea what I used to do with all of
my spare time before I became a father. Wouldn't change it for the world
though, as I said, parenthood rocks.

P.S. It just keeps getting better and better too.

P.P.S. I reserve the right to change this when she becomes a mardy 11 year
old.

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timjahn
"It's been long enough that I really have no idea what I used to do with all
of my spare time before I became a father. "

My little guy just turned two and I echo all your thoughts here, but this one
is especially true.

What the hell did we do with all our time before??

Here's to parenthood. :)

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taybin
Sometimes I feel like the only software engineer with a wife and child. Nice
to know the field isn't entirely 20-somethings.

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timjahn
Agreed. We need to start a band or something. ;)

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samstave
We can call it "My child's angel investor"

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yummyfajitas
For anyone who is interested, the microdata is here:

<http://www.bls.gov/tus/datafiles_2011.htm>

Most of the questions people are asking can be answered with about 20 minutes
of work and a little pandas-fu (or excel, if you are that sort of person).

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hessenwolf
If anybody gets a chance, a graph that isn't a spiral of circles would make
for a slightly easier comparison. Seriously, a spiral of circles?

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ChuckMcM
Clearly they take a weekly total and divide by 7. 7:48 of 'religious' time is
just about 55minutes a week so I'm guessing an hour of church a week.

Would be interesting to do the multi-variable analysis across different
factors like education, location, etc.

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majormajor
If these numbers were the result of dividing by 7, that would put the
working/commuting number at 64 hours a week instead of 46.

40 minutes of non-weekend volunteering/religious activity sounds perfectly
reasonable to me. I haven't seen the church part as much on the coast, but
back in Texas there were a lot of people I knew who went to at least an hour's
worth of in-week religious service.

~~~
ChuckMcM
I agree, with your observations, in California people might work 50 hrs a week
and commute 15 hrs (90 minutes each way) Which is why it would be interesting
to compare Texas vs Arkansas vs California vs Montana vs college degree vs no
degree vs rich vs poor etc etc.

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samg_
"The numbers are, of course, averages. So parents may spend much more time,
say, caring for children, while people without children will spend no time at
all."

Stuffed at the bottom, of course. Averages lie!

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dpres
Just counted...

I wrote 169,020 lines of code in 9,691.25 hrs over 4 yrs from 2007-11 for a
part-time job while going to school.

That's 17.44 lines per hour or 0.29 lines per minute, not including code
written for school or leisure!

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neilkelty
Where's exercise contained? I don't mean that I'm surprised it barely
registers, but what category is it under?

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nhebb
"Playing sports" - under the Leisure details - is probably the catchall
category for exercise.

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Tycho
I'd like to see what the difference in time spent 'grooming' is between the
sexes, or alternatively what the breakdown is between basic things like
showering, teeth-brushing and more advanced activities.

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mintyice
6 minutes of Education is pretty sad.

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ChrisBaldwin
Statistics are just statistics. Nothing is sad about 6 minutes when the
"average" American isn't in school.

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Super_luigi
the data is for "average American with a full-time job". This assumes that
they have already completed their education. 6 min/day is about 36.5 hours of
education, which seems quite a bit for a professional

~~~
ChrisBaldwin
6 minutes a day is impressive for a professional assuming it is not related to
work.

Also, for some professionals, working at their job provides education for
performing their job better. They should have split working and commuting from
each other, or at least provided a split of the data.

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iSnow
How do Americans procreate?

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jschuur
Looks like they don't list activities < 5 mins.

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corkill
I would like to see the biggest chunk "work" broken down into what most people
are actually doing. Time spent on social media, checking email, phone etc.

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andyjohnson0
It would be interesting to know how much of the "leisure" time is spent
watching television. My guess is almost all.

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k2enemy
TV: 1hr 35min

There is a second graphic with a breakdown of "leisure" and "cooking,
cleaning, etc"

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andyjohnson0
Thanks for correcting me. I missed the second graphic.

I still find it depressing that TV takes ~50% of an "average" person's
leisure/discretionary time. 94 minutes per work-day is just over 407 hours per
year, and weekends will add more.

Edit: Changed to exclude weekends. Assume 260 work days per year.

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michaelochurch
Holy fuck those numbers are depressing.

