So... a multitude of thoughts (I slept on it before speaking this time)
First: "Leisure work" is at least sometimes "Attempting to make a dream job out of a hobby". It's the Millennial/Zoomer "Success by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". This means that the "free time" being spent on "Leisure work" is actually the same as "putting in the extra hours to get that promotion" of 20-50 years ago, just in a new avenue.
Second: I would second that most people are terrible at time tracking, but one should likely distinguish between "Hours at work" and "hours spent working". Something I learned shortly after getting my first office job is that people spend a lot less time working than raw numbers would imply. My father once explained to me that if you get "4 hours of productive work a day" you're doing great. I kinda suspect that over estimates may come as a result of "how much time does your brain have work on the mind" being compared with "time spent working/at work".
Third: I can reliably do 2-3 things at once today in a way that wasn't possible 40 years ago. Do chores and enjoy a book? Yeah, that wasn't a thing in 1980. But today, I can easily throw some wireless headphones on and listen to the latest Dakota Krout book while folding laundry and walking the dog. It's not unheard of for someone to "play a game, have a conversation, and watch a show" all at the same time.
So we have a few conflicting notions about time. Arguably we are busier (doing more) each day that people were in the past. And today's young people are also looking for ways to advance their careers just like those in the past (but in different ways because the old avenues no longer exist). So... nice post. I think there's more going on, but I think that it isn't a single post topic.
Part of it is we feel busier too. Doing a slightly bigger slice of an infinitely large pie seems like it's highly stress inducing..same goes for multitasking I feel, or it does now anyway.
I'm not sure that we actually feel busier. I think we like to signal that, because status, but partially I think that things are "approximately the same as ever" but our narratives have changed around that. I think this is a generally understated thing: the stories we tell ourselves dictate how we feel about something, regardless of the facts of the thing. This applies all over: time, politics, justice, games, history, etc.
The education bit is probably misinterpreted. Those numbers in the 60s or 80s, mean completely different things due to the rarity of higher education and its quality.
People are horrible at time tracking (that much we agree), but I think scientists are equally horrible, or rather, the subjects aren't there, and if you do get people to track time you're selecting for some pretty weird people and causing a lot of behavior change due to the increased monitoring.
Even if people could reliably track time, the conceptual apparatus we have changes, and people classify work and leisure differently. Do people spend more time on childcare or do people think of more activities as childcare?
Gosiping has turned into "therapy to improve my mental health", modernity loves to pathologise. Once actual business starts to disappear, the concept gets resued.
Finally, to me personally, it seems that "work" time is often much "easier" than "leisure" time. Leisure tends to be physically engaging (hiking, swimming, diving, riding, driving, travelling, rangling) or high-bandwidth social interactions. Work is just writing code, can't hurt myself, won't get tired doing it, won't put myself at risk of death, won't get into an awkward situation I can't escape. But maybe I'm odd in rennouncing all forms of media... still, do try to think of leisure but take out fantasy books, movies, music and games (at least the consuming of), does it suddenly not seem like a field more daunting than work.
I've recently been caught among many tortoises, and it certainly seems like an intensive task to guard one while on a walk through a busy city, I'd much rather work on a blog post when tired than have to do that.
I actually cut off a part of it :) scientists are bad but much less bad - they thought they worked 42 hours but worked 39.
I feel it's more that a) we just have so many more options choosing is taxing, b) options like writing a blog post, though leisure, is closer to work than, say, hiking, c) we also do that staccato.
But I 100% believe you need to leash that tortoise and go for a walk. Personally the second coolest part writing this was finding the leashed tortoise photo!
If you like fantasy novels, you should try the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson. Also, try https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ - it is a great old site. If you look up your favourite authors and scroll to the bottom you can see which authors they recommend. It is also useful to see whether you might have missed any of their works. It's a favourite amongst older British Librarians.
I recently went through the rigmarole of applying for the free version (for over 75s) UK's State Mandated BBC TV License. It was for my mother and was typical of the type of laborious bureaucracy one expects of anything related to government. I would tentatively suggest that there are all manner of similar inanities which frivolously spend our precious time.
Years ago Toyota completed a works study on screen usage. They banned all of their employees from using a screen for more the five hours a day. Apparently, excessive screen use causes stress, depression, anxiety and feelings of being overworked. Ever feel like logging into your online world has become like a chore? Of course, we would go into withdrawal without it. I recently had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows 10. It was sheer torture for around 18 hours. Initially, I couldn't get past my bios- thankfully YouTube through my firestick came to the rescue.
I built this PC in 2012. I have been patently waiting for the 4 ghz processors to come down in price for four years. Imagine my despair at the recent realisation that to build the same specs as my 2012 model, would actually cost me more money today than it did nine years ago!
Personally, the most annoying thing that comes from the self-imposed leisure-work is how difficult it makes it to meet people when I want to. I am too young to be sending out Calendly invites!
So... a multitude of thoughts (I slept on it before speaking this time)
First: "Leisure work" is at least sometimes "Attempting to make a dream job out of a hobby". It's the Millennial/Zoomer "Success by pulling yourself up by your bootstraps". This means that the "free time" being spent on "Leisure work" is actually the same as "putting in the extra hours to get that promotion" of 20-50 years ago, just in a new avenue.
Second: I would second that most people are terrible at time tracking, but one should likely distinguish between "Hours at work" and "hours spent working". Something I learned shortly after getting my first office job is that people spend a lot less time working than raw numbers would imply. My father once explained to me that if you get "4 hours of productive work a day" you're doing great. I kinda suspect that over estimates may come as a result of "how much time does your brain have work on the mind" being compared with "time spent working/at work".
Third: I can reliably do 2-3 things at once today in a way that wasn't possible 40 years ago. Do chores and enjoy a book? Yeah, that wasn't a thing in 1980. But today, I can easily throw some wireless headphones on and listen to the latest Dakota Krout book while folding laundry and walking the dog. It's not unheard of for someone to "play a game, have a conversation, and watch a show" all at the same time.
So we have a few conflicting notions about time. Arguably we are busier (doing more) each day that people were in the past. And today's young people are also looking for ways to advance their careers just like those in the past (but in different ways because the old avenues no longer exist). So... nice post. I think there's more going on, but I think that it isn't a single post topic.
Part of it is we feel busier too. Doing a slightly bigger slice of an infinitely large pie seems like it's highly stress inducing..same goes for multitasking I feel, or it does now anyway.
I'm not sure that we actually feel busier. I think we like to signal that, because status, but partially I think that things are "approximately the same as ever" but our narratives have changed around that. I think this is a generally understated thing: the stories we tell ourselves dictate how we feel about something, regardless of the facts of the thing. This applies all over: time, politics, justice, games, history, etc.
The education bit is probably misinterpreted. Those numbers in the 60s or 80s, mean completely different things due to the rarity of higher education and its quality.
People are horrible at time tracking (that much we agree), but I think scientists are equally horrible, or rather, the subjects aren't there, and if you do get people to track time you're selecting for some pretty weird people and causing a lot of behavior change due to the increased monitoring.
Even if people could reliably track time, the conceptual apparatus we have changes, and people classify work and leisure differently. Do people spend more time on childcare or do people think of more activities as childcare?
Gosiping has turned into "therapy to improve my mental health", modernity loves to pathologise. Once actual business starts to disappear, the concept gets resued.
Finally, to me personally, it seems that "work" time is often much "easier" than "leisure" time. Leisure tends to be physically engaging (hiking, swimming, diving, riding, driving, travelling, rangling) or high-bandwidth social interactions. Work is just writing code, can't hurt myself, won't get tired doing it, won't put myself at risk of death, won't get into an awkward situation I can't escape. But maybe I'm odd in rennouncing all forms of media... still, do try to think of leisure but take out fantasy books, movies, music and games (at least the consuming of), does it suddenly not seem like a field more daunting than work.
I've recently been caught among many tortoises, and it certainly seems like an intensive task to guard one while on a walk through a busy city, I'd much rather work on a blog post when tired than have to do that.
I actually cut off a part of it :) scientists are bad but much less bad - they thought they worked 42 hours but worked 39.
I feel it's more that a) we just have so many more options choosing is taxing, b) options like writing a blog post, though leisure, is closer to work than, say, hiking, c) we also do that staccato.
But I 100% believe you need to leash that tortoise and go for a walk. Personally the second coolest part writing this was finding the leashed tortoise photo!
I agree that blogpost writing is closer to work than hiking, but it's also way easier than hiking.
I.e. the issue is probably less decision paralysis but more so falling into options that are too easy due them always being handy.
If you like fantasy novels, you should try the Mistborn Series by Brandon Sanderson. Also, try https://www.fantasticfiction.com/ - it is a great old site. If you look up your favourite authors and scroll to the bottom you can see which authors they recommend. It is also useful to see whether you might have missed any of their works. It's a favourite amongst older British Librarians.
I do and I really like them! Sanderson is a beast ...
I recently went through the rigmarole of applying for the free version (for over 75s) UK's State Mandated BBC TV License. It was for my mother and was typical of the type of laborious bureaucracy one expects of anything related to government. I would tentatively suggest that there are all manner of similar inanities which frivolously spend our precious time.
Years ago Toyota completed a works study on screen usage. They banned all of their employees from using a screen for more the five hours a day. Apparently, excessive screen use causes stress, depression, anxiety and feelings of being overworked. Ever feel like logging into your online world has become like a chore? Of course, we would go into withdrawal without it. I recently had to reformat my hard drive and reinstall Windows 10. It was sheer torture for around 18 hours. Initially, I couldn't get past my bios- thankfully YouTube through my firestick came to the rescue.
It is quite useful for technical help...
Oh man I haven't installed an OS in a decade.! Sthing I did for fun now sounds like painful leisure ...
I built this PC in 2012. I have been patently waiting for the 4 ghz processors to come down in price for four years. Imagine my despair at the recent realisation that to build the same specs as my 2012 model, would actually cost me more money today than it did nine years ago!
The world has gone crazy!
Personally, the most annoying thing that comes from the self-imposed leisure-work is how difficult it makes it to meet people when I want to. I am too young to be sending out Calendly invites!
It's not difficult, just annoying to prioritise. Maybe some pomodoro?