Catharsis
catch u on the flip scythe
One night per year. Of course someone would have to actually make the toys but I'd just use elf slavery for that obviously.
What would your ideal # of hours worked each week be?
- Thread starter Narz
- Start date
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
Let's say 4 hours a week. Or however many hours I want. That would be ideal, if not realistic.
I suppose that's realistic if I own my own online business and do whatever I want. So okay my answer is 1-4 hours a week. That does not include chores.
I suppose that's realistic if I own my own online business and do whatever I want. So okay my answer is 1-4 hours a week. That does not include chores.
Mise
isle of lucy
16 hours I think. 2 hours a day is basically all the "real work" I do right now.
Manfred Belheim
Moaner Lisa
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zero
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Realistically? Sixteen sounds good. Four hours a day, four days a week. Enough to keep you busy without keeping you busy, enough to anchor the rest of the week without forcing you to organise every little thing around it.
Ideally? The zero-hours thing, like Lex said. Something about revolution and smashing clocks, you can all probably fill the rest in yourselves at this point.
Ideally? The zero-hours thing, like Lex said. Something about revolution and smashing clocks, you can all probably fill the rest in yourselves at this point.
Lexicus
Deity
Damn. You're dreaming bigger than I ever have, I think.
GoodSarmatian
Jokerfied Western Male
- Joined
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The strange thing is that I sometimes have 4-hour shifts and I hate them. I feel like I'm already almost done when I come in and time seems to slow down to a crawl.
If I could work 16 hours a week I would prefer to have one single 16-hour day.
Sure, my productivity would drop off drastically halfway through, and in my experience I get more than half the work done in the first 3 hours in a normal 8 hour day, but what do I care ? It's not like I get a share of the profits.
If I could work 16 hours a week I would prefer to have one single 16-hour day.
Sure, my productivity would drop off drastically halfway through, and in my experience I get more than half the work done in the first 3 hours in a normal 8 hour day, but what do I care ? It's not like I get a share of the profits.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
You joke, but it's apparently something that happened during the Paris Commune: gangs of workmen went round the city smashing the clocks in workshops, to symbolise the fact they were no longer slaves to the working day. And also, presumably, because smashing things is fun and the default state of any Parisian is at least moderately drunk.
Lexicus
Deity
Nah, I was actually being serious.
Traitorfish
The Tighnahulish Kid
Okay, well, you get the hammers, I'll find some clocks.
Mise
isle of lucy
Incidentally, in considering an "ideal" life, I took "work" to mean "things that I consider work", rather than "things someone would pay me to do". 16 hours includes things like housework, childcare (if any), personal grooming, and non-fun exercise. An ideal life would consist of me spending 2 hours a day doing those things, plus any paid work I'd need to do, and 14 hours a day doing things I find more fulfilling.
Borachio
Way past lunacy
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- 26,698
You couldn't possibly consider the things that you now label as "work" as "more fulfilling" in themselves?
It would take a shift in consciousness, I suppose, but mightn't that be doable? And maybe preferable to just writing off a section of your life as drudgery?
Not that I know how, I should add. But I like the idea of it in theory.
I have a nagging feeling that to see Work as something to be endured or tolerated because one has no choice surely isn't the optimal approach.
It would take a shift in consciousness, I suppose, but mightn't that be doable? And maybe preferable to just writing off a section of your life as drudgery?
Not that I know how, I should add. But I like the idea of it in theory.
I have a nagging feeling that to see Work as something to be endured or tolerated because one has no choice surely isn't the optimal approach.
Mise
isle of lucy
I don't find housework fulfilling, no, but I'm sure I would be able to convince myself that my life was fulfilled by doing things that I currently merely endure. We are very good at convincing ourselves of things after all.
But I don't think that's quite what you meant, right?
I think (and I assume this is your point, also) that a good life would entail an acceptance that we can't spend all of our time doing fulfilling things, and must endure at least some level of drudgery or boredom, for that is humankind's lot ever since Adam ate the proverbial apple. A great deal of art, religion, philosophy, advertising and propaganda is dedicated to teaching us the beauty and wonder in these mundane necessities of life, so that we might appreciate them in their own right, even as a great deal of engineering, science and personal effort work to avoid them.
Ferocitus
Deity
It really depends on your age, your special circumstances, and most of all on
what you regard as "work".
I first left home at 14 and didn't work for the next 4 years. Back then in
Australia you could get away with telling the unemployment office that you were
only interested in lion-taming jobs, and then go surfing for the rest of the
fortnight. If the circus looked like it was coming to town, it was time to move
to the next beach. Circuses can't hide, and they are easy to out-run.
At 18 I did a year of Uni but spent most of the time in the bar. I hated lectures.
19 - 25, I worked for 6 years as a civil servant, 35 hours per week, and hated
it. I spent most of my lunchtimes at the pub, and looked for any excuse to take
a "sickie".
25 - 30: unemployed again. Woohoo!
After my wife had our son I stayed home while she went off to get a law degree
after finishing post-grad anthropology.
At age 32, I was invited to work with the professor of applied maths at the
university. I worked about 80-100 hours per week, 364 days per year, mostly from
home. I didn't take a sick day for the next 18 years. (I did take 6 months off with
HepC I contracted about 25 years earlier, but that just meant I worked a bit slower.)
I "retired" at about age 55 and continued working about 12-15 hours per day.
I gave away all the programs I wrote for free, and survived quite comfortably on
contracts and donations from appreciative users of my codes.
The reason I could do that was I worked from home with my wife (of 37 years)
in the same room, and I got to spend a lot of time with my son. Whatever you do,
don't miss out on seeing your kids grow up, and don't spend more time working
than being with people you love and share a life with. (Just IMO, of course.)
Now at age 61, I wish I could work 25 hours per day until the day I die.
Civ is my break from "work", which is itself just another game. And now my work
and Civ are starting to converge.
what you regard as "work".
I first left home at 14 and didn't work for the next 4 years. Back then in
Australia you could get away with telling the unemployment office that you were
only interested in lion-taming jobs, and then go surfing for the rest of the
fortnight. If the circus looked like it was coming to town, it was time to move
to the next beach. Circuses can't hide, and they are easy to out-run.
At 18 I did a year of Uni but spent most of the time in the bar. I hated lectures.
19 - 25, I worked for 6 years as a civil servant, 35 hours per week, and hated
it. I spent most of my lunchtimes at the pub, and looked for any excuse to take
a "sickie".
25 - 30: unemployed again. Woohoo!
After my wife had our son I stayed home while she went off to get a law degree
after finishing post-grad anthropology.
At age 32, I was invited to work with the professor of applied maths at the
university. I worked about 80-100 hours per week, 364 days per year, mostly from
home. I didn't take a sick day for the next 18 years. (I did take 6 months off with
HepC I contracted about 25 years earlier, but that just meant I worked a bit slower.)
I "retired" at about age 55 and continued working about 12-15 hours per day.
I gave away all the programs I wrote for free, and survived quite comfortably on
contracts and donations from appreciative users of my codes.
The reason I could do that was I worked from home with my wife (of 37 years)
in the same room, and I got to spend a lot of time with my son. Whatever you do,
don't miss out on seeing your kids grow up, and don't spend more time working
than being with people you love and share a life with. (Just IMO, of course.)
Now at age 61, I wish I could work 25 hours per day until the day I die.
Civ is my break from "work", which is itself just another game. And now my work
and Civ are starting to converge.
Live trash can
Warlord
Anything would be fine as long as I were happy with life (metaphysically and spiritually speaking) and not alienated by the work.
But working and constructing without sense is detrimental to the planet so this needs fixing.
But working and constructing without sense is detrimental to the planet so this needs fixing.
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Mise
isle of lucy
Apols for the random bump but I just listened to a BBC Radio 4 segment on "work" that was relevant. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07tzrwk
Two main points as they relate to this thread:
1) Economists traditionally define "work" as anything you could pay someone else to do without defeating the purpose. E.g. housework could be done by someone else at a cost, so is "work"; but whilst you could pay someone to go to a concert for you, that would defeat the purpose, so is "not work".
2) The way we think about "work" has changed, such that the above is less and less useful as a definition. We might consider these days social/family obligations to be work, or "meditation classes" to be work. "Sorry I'm busy that day, I have a meditation class", or "no I can't that weekend, my in-laws are having a bbq".
Less related to this thread but still of interest is that work as defined in (1) has NOT increased over time, but work as we perceive it HAS increased over time. We now do more things that we consider work, even though we don't actually do that much more stuff than we used to. We just perceive more things to be work now than in the past.
Two main points as they relate to this thread:
1) Economists traditionally define "work" as anything you could pay someone else to do without defeating the purpose. E.g. housework could be done by someone else at a cost, so is "work"; but whilst you could pay someone to go to a concert for you, that would defeat the purpose, so is "not work".
2) The way we think about "work" has changed, such that the above is less and less useful as a definition. We might consider these days social/family obligations to be work, or "meditation classes" to be work. "Sorry I'm busy that day, I have a meditation class", or "no I can't that weekend, my in-laws are having a bbq".
Less related to this thread but still of interest is that work as defined in (1) has NOT increased over time, but work as we perceive it HAS increased over time. We now do more things that we consider work, even though we don't actually do that much more stuff than we used to. We just perceive more things to be work now than in the past.
Ryika
Lazy Wannabe Artista
- Joined
- Aug 30, 2013
- Messages
- 9,393
Depends on the work you do I guess.
For most jobs, I would say less than 10 hours, but being self-employed as an artist? Would easily accept a 60+ hour week.
Well... I say that, but then I could be practicing in my free time to arrive at the point where it's a realistic goal, and what do I do instead? I make meaningless post on meaningless discussion boards.
For most jobs, I would say less than 10 hours, but being self-employed as an artist? Would easily accept a 60+ hour week.
Well... I say that, but then I could be practicing in my free time to arrive at the point where it's a realistic goal, and what do I do instead? I make meaningless post on meaningless discussion boards.
warpus
Sommerswerd asked me to change this
40 a week sounds great I guess.
I can work as much as I want nowadays but somehow never work less than 60. Though in all fairness I do plenty of personal stuff during my work hours - perks of having no patrón
Why not stop doing personal stuff at work and go home early and do it there instead? So instead of 60 work hours you could do 40, and still get the exact amount of stuff done.
I have meetings at crazy hours sometimes (often) so I just hang out in the office until late. I could videocall from home, but have better resources at the office, and access to employees who can do stuff that I might need doing.
The hours are long but I don't mind that much, as I can set my own pace and do whatever I want basically. I also take a lot of vacations - I'm in Italy right now
I definitely plan on slowing down and cutting hours at some point, but it feels kind of ridiculous talking about slowing down when I'm still in my early 30's.
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