After accounting for downtime, context switching time, recovery time, maintenance time, leisure, chores, only about 3-4 hours a day are available to “do stuff.” Assuming 8h sleep, wakefulness is only about 25% efficient relative to any active life mission. Worse than IC engines.
Conversation
Replying to
I suspect a cartoonishly optimized life could hit maybe 60-70% for very tightly scoped life missions, like number theory or piano playing.
3
1
40
But 3-4h is still better than the effectively 0 hours median in pre-modern life. Life that’s basically all chores and it was a weird thing for life to have a purpose beyond “surviving.”
2
2
46
When I do put in a 6-10 hour day, I typically have to take a light or rest day the next day to catch up on all the overhead debt. 5 days of 8 hour days (very rare) and I definitely need the whole weekend off to recover. Maybe that’s how weekends started. 5 days is my max streak.
2
1
36
Show replies
Replying to
And that's assuming that you actually *do* direct those hours to high-value tasks... Way too easy to actively or passively end-up doing low-value things there too.
5
Replying to
From reading How Artists Work, and things by various writers, I think people have about 4 good hours a day.
8





