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.
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.
Literally my dad these days.
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
Simple–easy to understand or do; not difficult
Emphasis is mine
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.
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…)
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…
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
