The reason people go from work to nothing on retirement is because work fills up the nearly all of the productive hours of a person's life. If it were to take, let's say 4 days, or six hours a day, people would be so bored, they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering. And then on retirement, people would still have their hobbies and passion projects they had been working on their entire life.

That is the biggest rock in the bucket. Smaller rocks include social media use, diet, exercise, whether the person is in a toxic home environment, mental health, or has children.

I have ADHD and I often struggle with having the energy to do anything outside of work. So I try to optimise my life to give me the most energy that I can have. I eat really healthy; high protein, high fibre, low saturated fat. I try to keep my social media use low, using ScreenZen. I meditate. I do resistance exercise a few times a week.

But even still, I find that my mind is exhausted part of a way through a workday, usually by 14:00-15:00. Maybe that's because I'm a software engineer.

I don't know how to fix it. But I'd really appreciate an extra day a week off, even at the cost of some remuneration. I love my work, but I don't want it to feel like it's the only thing I have going.

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Aurornis an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> The reason people go from work to nothing on retirement is because work fills up the nearly all of the productive hours of a person's life. If it were to take, let's say 4 days, or six hours a day, people would be so bored, they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering.

I don't buy this construction of the workday where spending 50% of your awake hours at work leaves people so exhausted they can't do anything else with their lives, but if we changed that to 38% of their waking hours they'd be so bored that they be starting businesses and volunteering all over. That's not even consistent with your own experience of being exhausted halfway through the work day. Two extra hours per day isn't going to translate to launching a new business or volunteer effort.

You hinted at the real problem: Most people don't have the time management skills and motivation that they think they do. Remove a couple hours of work per week from most people's lives and those hours will get redistributed to mostly leisure time. Some of it more productive than other options (socializing with the community, working on hobbies).

	▲	CSSer 17 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Are you considering jobs that are extraordinarily demanding? What if you're an ER Doctor? Or an Air Traffic Controller? Or someone getting started in their career in their early 20s, when most of us possess the unique combination of a lack of life experience that would prevent exploitation and ambition? For these jobs, I can easily sympathize with the idea that after a workday they're too tired to develop personally. Moreover, it's a manager's job to sap every ounce of productivity out of a person. Modern technology increasingly makes this possible. Even seemingly mundane jobs like working in a call center can be so orchestrated that using the bathroom makes them fall behind. And productivity has done nothing but rise for decades! I also don't see how your final paragraph really refutes rather than just restates their opinion. Hobbies produce projects and business ventures all the time. Someone also has to find some way or another to socialize with the community. Volunteering is a great way to do that.

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jandrewrogers 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> they would be making projects, business ventures, or volunteering

This is not what actually happens in practice. There is no sudden outbreak of productive activity because people have more free time. If this was going to occur there would be mountains of empirical evidence for it by now because this situation isn't rare.

I know many people with a lot of free time. In the vast majority of cases, people spend their free time in almost exactly the same way they spent their free time when they had less of it. Binging on social media, television, or games? Now they just do more of it for longer. The people that volunteer more were already doing it, and they are in the small minority.

People should probably work less but the idea that this will generate productive activity is a rationalization against all evidence.

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spartanatreyu an hour ago | parent | next [-]

> There is no sudden outbreak of productive activity because people have more free time.

I can't recall which studies they were, but I was under the impression that with a sudden expansion of free time, the earliest productivity gains don't occur until months later at the earliest.

I think the effect came up in long-term UBI trial participants, and those that acquired sudden wealth from inheritance / lottery / stocks / etc...

There tends to be a decompression stage after leaving work environment that didn't suit the person, then a deconstruction / rebuilding / searching stage afterwards.

I think it's also common for large lottery winners to become depressed because they have trouble searching for what to do afterwards.

	▲	Aurornis an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> I think the effect came up in long-term UBI trial participants, The failure of UBI trials to show these effects has been one of the noteworthy developments in the UBI topic in recent years. There were several studies that tried really hard to demonstrate that UBI would increase the rate of business creation and similar metrics. The last one I remember reading was trying to show that the long-term cash recipients reported a marginally higher rate of thinking about maybe starting a business, but they weren't actually doing it.

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koolba 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

This has been my experience as well. My stock advice to people who want to save money is to simply work more. Not because the marginal hours will be meaningfully worth it, but because it stops them from spending money by default.

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globalnode 5 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

i think people trying to argue that we would be more productive is a symptom of the productivity disease. where all we value is productivity and thats the only way we can justify more non-work time. i personally just think we should all have more time to do what we want, whether that is being productive on personal projects, talking to people, playing games, or doing nothing. happier people right? why should 10% of the richest people enslave the rest of us.

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incompatible an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It's hard for me to even contemplate having "nothing to do." I haven't had paid work for many, many years, yet I don't feel like I have any spare time at all.

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PacificSpecific 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I've been doing a 4 day work week and it certainly helps quite a bit. I worry I have gotten too used to it now though.

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andai an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Also ADHD here, I have the same problem.

The only way I can get anything meaningful done outside of work is to do it before work.

Those first few hours of the day are precious, as far as energy goes. Or attention, or will.

On a related note, I put Q2 of Eisenhower Matrix (important but not urgent, i.e. the stuff you want to get done "someday" but keep putting off indefinitely... i.e. your hopes and dreams) at the front of the day, because Q1 (urgent and important) basically forces you to do it and requires no special attention.

To put it bluntly, the long term stuff needs to be scheduled and consistently acted upon, or the default outcome will be very depressing.

I schedule it first thing, every morning.

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tayo42 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Ever try waking up early and doing your work stuff before work?

	▲	devilsdata 13 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Yes. I get my gym and novel writing done before work. But I lose steam at work very early. No bueno.