
Why “I don’t have time” is a lie - hackernewsreadr
https://blogofjake.com/2020/07/06/why-i-dont-have-time-is-a-lie/
======
cortesoft
This person clearly doesn't have young children. I don't choose when I wake
up, I have to wake up when the 1 year old wakes up. With no daycare because of
COVID, I am juggling parenting and work from the moment I get up until I crash
after they fall asleep.

It is literally non-stop. Finding time for the bathroom is a struggle. I get
zero work done. I am typing this out while waiting for my four year old to
finish going to the bathroom.

And now I have to go.

~~~
igotsideas
This is my current life and can verify that we have 0 minutes for other
things. However, if you’re POS parent, then sure there is time.

~~~
ramraj07
I'm in no way supporting the outrageouslu peurile post, but do you think an
argument can be made that children seem to take more effort from their parents
than needed? The reasons could be still external, but I'm still curious if you
can do a good job as a parent without fully dedicating your time.

Full disclosure: am an armchair childless philosopher

~~~
LoSboccacc
the affirmation than a children take up all your time is exceedingly simple to
be shown false:

if a children takes 100% of your time no exceptions, what twins' parent would
do?

it's clear that there's some psychological mechanism at play that transform
single child parents into helicopter parents at a great conversation rate, to
the point they have to oversee every minute of their children's lives without
even realising that's happening

having multiple children quickly teaches you that yes, children can survive
some time on their own, but multiple children is a rare sight these days

~~~
cortesoft
The issue is that with very young children, you ALWAYS have to be supervising
them (if they aren’t sleeping)... you can do other things a bit, but you
always have to keep one eye on them. It is impossible to do real focus work.

With two kids (or more), you can watch them both at the same time. It isn’t
like you are always actively doing something for the kids, it is just you are
always watching.

~~~
LoSboccacc
no? you just need to have safe spaces, it's not like they going anywhere
anyway.

~~~
Hates_
Yes. Even though our 17-month old has run of the place in a safe space, it
only takes 5-10 minutes of no attention for him to come running up and trying
to pull me somewhere. As above, this makes any sort of focus impossible.

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ISL
<checks age of author>

age = two years out of college.

I'm pushing 40. The competition for my time between doing a great job as a
husband, colleague, son, family member, scientist, and human has never been
greater. Indeed, at 24, I couldn't have perceived the competition between
goals on which I place maximum weight.

It is possible not to have enough time to do things well. I care very much.

~~~
Eric_WVGG
The author has clearly never heard of decision fatigue.

The mind is a muscle and while it can be strengthened, like any muscle it has
limits. As one grows more experienced and gets a better understanding of their
mental faculties, they come to realize — subconsciously or not — that they are
only good for so much thinking in a day. Thus extreme measures like the Steve
Jobs-ian "uniform" and chugging soylent instead of wasting five precious
minutes every day pondering what to have for lunch.

I've been immersed in "startup culture" for just over a decade now, and if I
have one acute observation, it's the shift from "never not working" as an
ethos to obsessing over not burning out. There is an entire genre of people
thinking very hard about mind-hacks to avoid it (yes, irony alert). Looking
forward to when this dude slams into the wall.

(I'm guilty of the "uniform" strategy, incidentally, went to H&M and bought 20
identical black t-shirts and 10 white button-up dress shirts, best decision
ever)

((second best decision was scheduling all meetings for the second half of the
afternoon))

~~~
awinder
I’ve noticed the same sort of switchover, although there’s the crazy outliers
I think it’s mostly come from a good place & I’m happy to see it. Anyone that
has to go through burnout knows that A) it sucks and B) there was now no time
efficiency to what you were doing, because you are now ~0% effective.
Basically it feels like the industry just read the operating manual on the
human brain and realized collectively it wasn’t sustainable.

------
burkaman
This seems like an incredibly unhealthy outlook on life. First of all, it
completely ignores the concept of necessity. Some people need to go to a
dialysis clinic several times a week, or they'll die. That takes time. Some
people have to take their kids to school every day. Some people have to
commute two hours to and from work because they can't afford to live closer.
"Everyone has the same amount of time in a day" is a useless statement,
because everyone does not have the same amount of obligations.

It's very important to be able to accept that sometimes you can't do what you
want to do, no matter how much you want it. It's important to be able to
understand that, for example, "choosing" to sleep 5 hours a night so you can
grind harder might be a really stupid and unhealthy idea, even if you really
want it.

It's true that many people talk about wanting things that they aren't really
willing to work for, but that's ok! Relaxation is good for you, you shouldn't
spend every waking second working through some prioritized list of life goals.

Finally, this is kind of petty, but running several miles without water does
not make you "truly thirsty". It's not even abnormal, running 5-10 miles
without water is fine, maybe slightly uncomfortable if you didn't hydrate a
lot that day.

~~~
lopmotr
There's nothing fundamentally different between necessity and want. Not even
staying alive. Most people die because of choices they make. Just not always
so soon after making those choices. But it's still a choice. People also
regularly make choices that risk their lives because they don't mind a small
chance of dying to get something they want.

Spending time commuting to work is obviously a much simpler choice. They want
the things they can get from the money they earn more than they want those 2
hours free for another activity.

~~~
burkaman
I don't think this is a useful point. Responding to someone who says "I don't
have time" with "Not true, you could adjust your priorities and die" is not
helpful.

------
markwaldron
This post reeks of privilege.

There are people who quite literally _do not have time_. They are born into a
world where they know nothing other than having a lack of time. They grow up
in a household where their parent(s) work multiple jobs to keep food on the
table and the lights on. They aren't contemplating taking gap years to travel
or learn a new language.

While everyone has 24 hours in a day, not everyone can dictate what they do
during them. Free time is a luxury.

~~~
burkaman
The very next post in the blog is about how the author is taking a "gap year"
and how wonderful that is: [https://blogofjake.com/2020/07/06/great-year-for-
a-gap-year/](https://blogofjake.com/2020/07/06/great-year-for-a-gap-year/)

Why doesn't everyone do this? If you feel like you don't have time to achieve
your goals, just take a whole year off and do whatever you want!

Almost every post on this blog makes me angry, it's really an impressive
achievement.

------
ramraj07
What a load of "I'm 14 and this is deep" material. It's 2020 and people still
preach this Jerry Seinfeld/The Secret stuff.

Who here doesn't want money? Or a satisfying career? It's not just a dopamine
hit from instagram that makes you waste time there, it's that people are
emotional being with far more complex motivations (or lake thereof) than just
"not wanting it bad enough." Have you considered the possibility that perhaps
people are intimidated by the fear of failure, of feeling they are not
deserving or good enough, and hence are afraid to attempt it? Have you
considered that they are probably lying to you and themselves because of other
fundamental fears they don't want to confront? Have you considered that these
reasons can also often be attributed to systemic discrimination, both real and
emotional both deliberate and unintentonal, due to race/gender/class?

If you're right, no one browsing instagram should be unhappy since they're
doing what they truly want. If you posit that they're just not reconciling
their true wants correctly, and that's why theyre still slightly thirsty for
other goals, why won't that be an explanation for the other alternative:
people have logical wants that are stymied by emotional blocks (fear, lack of
overall motivation, etc).

I suppose by extension poor people just don't want to not be poor bad enough,
or homeless people don't want to be not homeless enough?

The thought process you have probably works for some people who can fully
divorce their emotions from their goals, and glad it works for you if it does.
For the vast majority, such atttiudes are nothing more than a bunch of
dopamine-hit-filled "motivational" Ted talks which they can never apply in
their own life.

------
cameronh90
This has to be parody, surely? Many, many people work multiple physical labour
jobs to make ends meet, some have kids to support, other people have health
issues which limit their productive hours. Even sleep, different people have
different biological needs - which vary over their lifetime.

Sure there are choices in there, but it's ignorant to suggest that everyone's
starting out from the same place, and to call them liars for that is mean
spirited.

The central premise - that everyone has 24hr and anyone saying they don't have
the time is lying because we all have 24hr - seems to be willfully
misunderstanding people. When someone says they don't have time, they're not
saying their day is only 18hrs long, they're saying they don't have time after
all the other more important things they do.

------
mrslave
Someone close to me struggled with addiction. I was more supportive than most,
making an effort to spend some one-on-one time, and having difficult
conversations about his treatment. (In hindsight I still wish I did more.) In
spite of all my professional experience (where knowing and reassessing
priorities is a constant) the most powerful impact on my ability to prioritize
in my personal life was a phrase from his study:

> What do you want to do? And what are you prepared to give up in order to do
> it?

This hit me like the proverbial freight train. Every time I have to consider
my inability to meet a priority in my personal life, I now always consider it
in the frame of what I can lose. Indeed, letting go of things I previously
prioritized - but are unimportant - is more joy than most of the pain needed
to fulfill many of the difficult tasks in my life.

Perhaps I also do this in my professional life too. On difficult projects in
the past I enjoyed the disapproving glances in the morning stand-up when I say
"didn't do it" to 2 tickets only to be able to say "done, merged, and closed"
to 1. Doing a little bit of each, in some circumstances, would have murdered
productivity. If they didn't like which one they should have said which was
more important.

I also appreciate what ISL said about the author's age. Time has also helped
me to appreciate that everything exists in a context, and a person's age is a
very important frame for understanding others.

------
nine_k
As one of my friends said, there are always too many "vitally important"
things to do. The only way to free up space for another "vitally important"
thing is to push out one of the currently present things. The vital importance
of many things is mis-perceived.

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bedobi
Glad to see comments recognizing this trash for what it is, what is it doing
on the front page?

------
pmoriarty
By far the best essay on this subject that I've read is Seneca's _" On the
Shortness of Life"_:

[https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-
life.pd...](https://tripinsurancestore.com/4/on-the-shortness-of-life.pdf)

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senectus1
christ what a load of crap.

doesn't even take into account that other resources equal time multiplier.

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throwaway045z
Sad this was flagged. If an accident happened, and your right hand were
severed, would you still claim you were "too busy" to deal with it? You
wouldn't respond with "Oh you don't understand, I have kids!" or some ad
hominem on leisure time among unemployed Gen Z.

In reality, you have a mental list of things you care about. It's fair to say
the things you spent time on you cared about more than the things you didn't.

One thing you cared about more: reading hacker news.

