review QQ, CIV, localSys
academic coaching .. hardly a sink
emailing with friends
recreational reading
blogg on r-ikigai
sticky bposts

k_tectonic

— Current sinks: Right now (2020-2021), I have an unprecedented (excl. bachelor years) amount of spare time but whatever disposable time there is tends to get suck into the “energy sinks” below. See also ##hobbies mid19-21 #Zeng/Fenix. I had better control some of the sinks such as pff. (Liberal use of text highlighting encouraged in this blogpost.)

1. — current sinks, half-ranked by hours
2. [s3] pff, including analysis and selection of asset
3. .. eg: reading books on stock picking .. increase. Need sunshine
4. .. eg: stock picking ..
5. .. eg: FSM .. reduce
6. .. eg: exp recon .. reduce
7. family outing/movie + family discussions + other family time
   1. family movie could provide talking points with boy
8. other blogging .. a hopelessly vague item to be included here, though it does “sink” a lot of time.
9. DramRefresh of non-tech blog/email.
10. frenDialog.. Note email drafting is a sink but more efficient more satisfying than meet-up.
11. curiositySou.. including wikipedia or news reading. Control it but don’t feel ashamed!
12. [s1~s5=strategic value]
13. [c=need to capture absorbency to feel the joy]

So my sinks are not so good, but miles ahead of my cohort, largely due to my awareness. Millions of my cohort waste their spare time without knowing. I think their sinks include videos, drinking + overeating,  sight-seeing/shopping, sports channels, gaming/gambling,,,, but I don’t want to speculate.

Q: What’s in common between:
* comparison-shopping for tiny savings
* curiosity search (see above)
* lots of time spent on FSM, robinhood,,, with small trades, but crucially… without growing insights!

All of these are pleasurable, leisurely, and common well-accepted recreations.
All entail huge cumulative tcost, low ROTI, therefore they are “luxuries ” in terms of tcost.

— I want to create some new sinks and revive some old sinks. Note proposed sinks by definition are enjoyable, engaging,,, If some proposed sink is not, then it require tweaking. Often I hit a stone wall

1. DramRefresh of tech + [s3] wellness + [s4] parenting + Vocab blogs — will make me feel good about my past blogging
2. vocab (Ch/En) .. read new and refresh old
3. recreational reading
4. game with meimei
5. academic coaching with meimei
6. [s5] experiment to establish sustainable lifestyle for yoga, chin-up etc
7. piano

— (irrelevant comparison) sinks of free cash flow — FSM low-risk funds. Perhaps I should consider U.S. index funds as another sink.

— Below is a 2021 email. For this discussion to be meaningful and add any value, I want to be strict with my criteria for a “hobby”. To see which bobby takes up more time /comparatively/, I need more precise criteria about what kind of time spent falls into each “bucket”.

Hi Kevin, You asked what hobbies (兴趣) I have. (Daryl and FenixOne founder also asked me the same question.) I have many. Some are important to me but “light” in terms of time usage, such as workouts, parenting research, and wellness research. Anyway, below I rank my current hobbies (since mid-2019) in terms of time usage from light to heavy.  ▲▼ indicates buy/overbought recommendation.

[s=solitude]
[85=can last till I reach 85, when grandpa complained about lack of hobby]

1. ▲parenting reading and blogging .. Reading is less effective compared to self-reflection on trial-n-error.
   • Note Parenting trial-n-error by itself is too tough to be a “hobby”.
   • Note time with kids is not a personal hobby but part of my job as a parent.
2. [s▼] video and online recreational reading .. often unplanned and without time-limit.  For example, I spent many hours on ▼curiosity searches, or reading ▼Trump.
3. [s▲85] workouts and wellness research… This hobby includes blogging. Healthy food ▼shopping too, which is relaxing but time-consuming. In general shopping trips are no hobby but 20% of food trips are part of this “hobby”.
4. library trips ..  and /experimental/ [s▲85]stay-home reading vacations for recreational reading. Topics are light, including news, ▼show-biz, history… These trips are planned, with a time limit.
   • Whenever I read finance, wellness or serious subjects like career, parenting, the activity falls into the more specific categories below.
5. [s▲] tech learning .. and blogging, interview preparation. Unrelated to work, therefore a “hobby”. Occasionally I do a bit of coding drill. See self-renewal in the blogpost after Fenix IV
6. [s 85] pff .. research, trading, and blogging. This wide-ranging hobby also includes real assets, country-comparison, tax research, retirement, inflation, college funding, home purchase (U.S.), car ownership. Some “chores” are not part of a hobby.
   • I don’t think this hobby is the “heaviest“, as I sometimes tell others.
7. [s▼] “the other” misc blogging, ▼emailing .. to friends on _fun_ topics. This hobby also includes meet-ups and calls (loved ones + friends overseas), which are becoming rare nowadays. I prefer emailing.
   • when the discussion is finance, career, wellness, parenting … then the hours fall into the more specific categories.
8. [s 85] DIY home repairs .. including minor (often surprisingly /rewarding/) improvements. Am a slow, /reluctant/ handyman at home. 51% of the time it is an enjoyable hobby without time pressure. See ## DIY. This hobby also includes home-reorganization, which is 49% a hobby.

I guess one common thread is reading + blogging. Some important areas are hard to achieve personal growth by reading alone [1] and require plenty of trial-n-error, like in stock trading, wellness, and parenting. I remind myself I’m not reading/blogging for fun. Indeed about half of the listed hobbies have a practical target, but I have managed to add fun into the effort and turn them into hobbies. When I don’t hit any target, I would soon feel regretful about the time spent.  See also ##plateauing growth: 江河日下,自强不息

[1] otherwise the bookworms like the tanbin in my 20’s would become role models.