I've gotten to a point in my life where I feel as if there aren't enough hours in the day. Or perhaps there aren't enough hours where I can be productive - meaning I can't run full throttle every waking hour.
At the bowling alley we sometimes measure the utilization of the lanes - how many hours out of each day they are being bowled on. Of course lanes never are utilized 100% of the time since there's always some gaps between bowling parties. Likewise, as a person I find it hard to stay productive all the time. Unlike bowling alleys, people fatigue physically and mentally and need 'down-time' to recover.
Years ago when I was attending college there were nights where I was studying for big pin-alignment tests where I'd eventually get so tired I'd decide to just go to bed rather than force myself to stay up studying the intricacies of the 7-10 split. I found that tired studying was hardly better than no study at all. So today when I'm going through the course of the day I find sometimes it's better to stop for awhile and then come back later rather than just sludge through it.
As far as wastes of time go there some tasks while necessary are annoying in the fact that they take up time that you could be doing better things with. I'm talking about things like washing dishes, cleaning, doing laundry, buying groceries - basically any task that could be done by someone with a grade-school education.
Now understand I'm not saying I'm too good to do these things, but if I was rich, I'd definitely pay other people to do those tasks. Would it cost less for me to do my own laundry? Almost certainly, but that's not factoring in the value of my time. Let's say I can make $20/hr working at the bowling alley and doing 2 loads of laundry takes me 1.5 including drying and folding time. If the cost of getting my laundry done is less than $30 then it's a better value for me.
I'm not yet at that point in life where I can pay people to clean for me, but I wish I could.
What else would I pay people to do?
- wash dishes
- cook
- buy groceries
- car maintenance
- laundry
- house cleaning
- lawn/yard maintenance
- household supply shopping
- running errands (post office, etc)
There would be certain things that I would always do myself regardless of how rich I was.
- taking care of the kids/pets
- buying any non-consumables (clothes, furniture, electronics, etc)
- paying the bills
- hmm...I guess there really isn't that much to put on this list
The funny thing is it sounds like I desire to be a kid again - where mom and dad did all those things for me! I guess being rich is like being a baby again in some ways!
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I love that picture at the beginning of the post - he looks like a baby sumo wrestler.
It all comes down to priorities. For me, sleep is a priority because I can barely function without at least 8 hours of sleep. Other priorities include work and going to bed early on work nights, personal hygiene, keeping my living space and car clean, keeping in touch with friends, family, and business contacts - and making sure I don't forget to do a favor for someone I promised them that I'd do. Eating and saving money are also priorities.
Non-priorities include anything one can wait to do. Procrastination, I think, can be a good thing. It doesn't mean you're lazy, it just means you prioritize your time. I'd agree that balancing work with chores is a hard task, and that getting help doing them would be awesome. Take preparing food to eat for dinner. If prepared dinners could be hand-delivered to me at my doorstep (like Meals-On-Wheels, or Pizza Hut) inexpensively, I would surely take advantage of that service. Any kind of time-saver like this becomes useful to people living with little spare time. For me, being in the center of a highly commercial area is appealing since you don't have to travel far to do laundry, get groceries, etc.
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