I do seasonal jobs when I’m not working on my artwork, but yes.
The trick to it is to make everything you do a routine. Get up at the same time, eat a fatty/oily breakfast, shower, work, eat, work out, shower, make your personal time count, go to sleep at the same time every single day. You should plan an hour to get up and ready for work, you should plan an hour to get home and an hour to get to sleep, so assuming 8 hours work and sleep that leaves 5 hours for workout, dinner, and hobbies.
Only downside is that external forces’ disruption of the schedule can cause feelings of rage.
One thing that helps me is making sure the fun thing I’m doing 2/5 things at once. Fun and Excercise is skiing. (I’m having issues finding a off-season activity. I’m getting too old for my old standby Judo. It’s just not fun anymore, too much of me aches for days.)
My side project and life thing is spending time with my kid converting a Motorola Razr 40 Ultra into a slider physical keyboard phone. I have to buy a new cable for it, we broke it. But we learned things.
My job is a pretty sweet gig, and so I can spend down time reading and playing games. I beat Silksong at work. I read all of discworld and cosmere at work.
I guess you can but you won’t have time for personal relationships or a family I guess. Gotta be quite focused.
For most of the last 5 years I’ve been cycling 2 or 3 hours a day and spending about 45 minutes a day at the gym and I still have plenty of time for fun and socializing and whatnot while also getting 8 hours a day of sleep. This is possible for two reasons: 1) I semi-retired from my job as a programmer and I’m now a school bus driver, which takes about 4.5 hours a day (it helps that I live a half-mile from the bus lot, otherwise the job involves twice as much commuting as a normal job); and 2) I don’t watch movies or television. For my money, #2 is the biggie – spending hours a day watching movies and TV shows is such a massive time sink. I’m not judging people who do it since I just stopped enjoying it years ago, not because I’m consciously avoiding something I like in order to free up time.
Unfortunately, two months ago my parents’ health took a nosedive and my father died and now I’m a nearly full-time caregiver for my mother. I haven’t ridden my bike or been to the gym during this entire stretch. So if it makes anyone feel better, I’m no longer in the category of insanely fit older dude myself. But it is possible, at least.
I’m gonna guess that working only half a full time job while (I’m gonna assume) having some money from a programming job saved up played more of a part than you may think, but I’m sure not watching movies also helps.
Meanwhile people working 8+ hours in a physically demanding job just to be able to afford rent and maybe enough food for the week who then still have to take care of general life stuff are a lot less likely to have the money, time, or energy to do much else.
Out of curiosity, did you
cycling 2 or 3 hours a day and spending about 45 minutes a day at the gym and I still have plenty of time for fun and socializing and whatnot while also getting 8 hours a day of sleep
While you had a job as listed in the pic (8hrs/day)? I’m betting time was a major factor in why you only started 5y ago.
My “real” job had a schedule from about 4 AM to 11 AM because I was managing a team of coders in India and this allowed me to overlap with them somewhat. I would then ride 25-50 miles in the afternoon and hit the gym in the evening before going to bed around 10 PM. I had less time for sleep and fucking around but otherwise it was similar. Towards the end of that job my company was bought by a west coast tech giant and then I had nothing at all to do for six months, so exercising was obviously even easier.
Well damn hell yeah, that seems like it all worked out!
I really don’t think that’s possible if you’re neurodivergent and unmedicated. There are too many bees buzzing in our heads to be that productive.
Not all types of neurodivergence fit that description or require medication.
It’s also completely unrelated to the question. It’s like me asking “how can people run 42km” and some rando saying “it’s impossible if you have no legs”.
For me, the math here ain’t mathing. Work + commute + lunch = only 9 hours? Nah bro. I don’t live at work. Stuffing your face in 15min is bad enough.
Don’t anglos count lunch break as work? “Working 9 to 5” is just 8 hours, so either you skip lunch or you count it as work time.
Around here we don’t, and my job for example has a mandatory 1-hour lunch break, so 9 hours are all taken up from clock-in to clock-out, nevermind commute.
Yeah that’s how it works in the UK. I work 9.30-6 with a 1 hour dinner break.
Y’all are getting an hour for your meal break? I’ve never had a job that gave us more than 30 minutes…
My first job had 2 hours, not great since you always got back home late. Previous job was flexible, so I could take either 30 minutes or 1 hour, I preferred 30 minutes, as, again, it allowed me to leave earlier. Now I’m forced to take 1 hour, but at least I’ve flexible work hours, so I can clock in between 8 and 9, and leave when my 8 hours are up.
That got tossed out awhile ago.
I’ve never had a 9-to-5 that was actually 9 to 5. It always starts at 7:30 or 8.
No, all this at once is not possible with any worthwhile kind of focus
I think it’s all about priorities and as another guy said here at least a rough schedule/routine.
My hobby is being active (drumming multiple hours per day), then you can save the gym (I do some climbing now and then though). Commuting with bicycle to work also helps, work less (I do 25h/week which is max for me, I rather spend less money and live in a community than having to work more to finance myself, life does have too much interesting to offer than to spend all your time with working).
I also like to eat stuff like Huel (the savory stuff) which saves me time of cooking/buying groceries (and I have a rather high protein intake which is good for drumming, as fast/strong muscles/tendons are quite important (and it noticebly helps with growing muscles, I didn’t want to believe until then how important high-protein intake is when being active)).
I basically don’t play any video games (ironically I’m quickly bored), do some open source programming instead (so side-projects?), try to avoid “wasting” time on e.g. social media.
I work (4x10 with 30 minute commute), go to the gym 3 days a week, cook healthy meals, maintain relationships with a handful of people, and get 6-7 hours of sleep.
wait until you try to start a business on top
the easiest part would then be to cut everything off, maybe everyone off too
I run my own company. Do hobbies on the side. Started a side hustle doing woodworking, spend time with my kids and girl, go on trips, relax, and get plenty of sleep. I just don’t do everything in one day.
wow, that’s inspiring.
I agree that it is a balancing act that one must master. But when one doesn’t yet have their footing in something, it feels like that initial workload is greater then the balance that comes in upholding the hustle in the future.
Just some thoughts from experience, maybe my weakness is thinking this way. Excuses are a coping mechanism that I’m trying to cut out of my life rn.
No I definitely agree that when you’re first starting it’s much more difficult to balance things I know 6 years ago when I first started I definitely didn’t have the work-life balance I do now but that’s the goal and that’s the reason we run a business is to get that work-life balance and be able to master it. At this point in time unless I have clients that are demanding my time I usually tell them what my schedule is what I have available and build in my time for everything else with my family with my vacations with my hobbies. Like for example I’m starting to take Fridays off now so I can work on my woodworking business that I’d like to start so that way I have more time at home and time with my family because they actually do that with me.
I DMd you
15 minute a day fitness program. Designed to be done with no equipment except a stopwatch.
https://leisureguy.ca/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/rcaf_xbx_5bx_exercise_plans_text.pdf
Actual exercises are in the back of the book.
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.
Wfh means I have more tim. Gym equipment at home means more convenience. So I can usually manage fitness and work plus healthy meals every day. Joined a book club so I read more and that meets online so it’s very convenient too.
I don’t do side projects and I got permission to use time in work to do learning, but it’s really hard to save that time as there’s always someone important to do in work.
Having kids means all this stuff at home doesn’t require a babysitter, which would fuck it all up sometimes.
So definitely not doing everything I could or i want, keep evening time as unscheduled as I can cause I need that freedom. I also recognize that different life stages come with different challenges and opportunities.
The trick is not trying to force them into every single day. You do some stuff on your free time and some during the weekend
It’s possible for me but my workouts are short and I do them at home since I have some weights. Also since I work nights, my weekdays I don’t really see my kids since they’re at school so I have a lot of free time available during the day for hobbies. If I worked days it would be impossible.
