##more spare time can”Buy”me__ #XR

Now spare time is scarce, but in retirement, spare time would be too much.


k_soul_search

See also

XR described to me that (lack of) spare time means so much to him — coaching his son on Chinese; coding drill; personal investment; … However, if he is given 50 hours of spare time, can he be productive in those 50 hours or just 5 hours?

update as of Oct 2020: My Spare time was more scarce esp. during UChicago days. Now I have a rare lifestyle with more spare time, so now I believe most people including XR would not be productive if given this much spare time.

Original title: What can more spare time including leaves “buy”me? Answer:

  • lower-body flexibility; cardio fitness
  • more therapeutic, reflective blogging
  • more (productive or fun) time with kids
  • more QQ and coding drill?
  • slightly more exploration of local codebase on my own, without time pressure.
  • more wellness research, for self-care and teaching my kids. Parents spend a lot of time talking to kids about wellness.
  • more calls to Beijing
  • Spare time did buy me lots of blogg→evaluation@life→more satisfactions

However, limiting factor is not only spare time (like O2) but absorbency:

  • insufficient absorbency for localSys
  • insufficient absorbency for jogging, stretch
  • insufficient absorbency for coding drill

Jolt: Before I scold ah-boy about his absorbency deficiency, look in the mirror.

##strategic areas !!gett enough Sunshine +patience #

Image: precious ground flowers overshadowed by tree. Sunshine needed.

Original title: [15]strategic areas!!receiv`enough”sunshine”

“Sunshine” means time, laser energy including absorbency, patience. Sunshine has no expectation.

 

 


Pattern — I get preoccupied with emailing/meet-up, personal finance ,,, and neglect some strategic areas.

Q: What I feel is important but not receiving enough sustained “laser” focus i.e. mental energy:

  • — strategic areas:
  • localSys
  • C++ critical mass maintenance,
  • driving practice
  • ( the obvious items as of 2021: flexibility; strength; )
  • — short-term items also needs sunshine, though not the focus of this blogpost.
  • more standing at home
  • lasik

— emails left in inbox + blog pages left open in my browser tabs … receive more sunshine.
Similarly, paper under my 玻璃板

I have physical radiators such as palm-sized display holder

— too much sunshine on these items below. Note this is a high-level list featuring some low-level examples.

  • land grab alerts in all my laptops !
  • mechanical pencils
  • light bulb optimization
  • disposable batteries .. separation of used vs new
  • per finance
    • reduce monthly exp tracking?
    • FWD insurance?
    • credit monitoring, due to emails from B@A, CreditKarma etc
  • friend sharing
    • meet-up is most time-consuming. Always prefer jogging.
    • slow down email

— The quadrants .. the important-non-urgent need more sunshine; the urgent-unimportant gets too much sunshine.

Compared to me, my cohort tend to have busier day jobs, sometimes more dependents .. and tend get swamped in the “sunshine low ground” in terms of wellness, parenting etc.

— Sunshine is a scarce resource. The real scarce resource is time+absorbency, not money. How do I trade money for time?

  • capture the power surge (blog)
  • pay to reduce commute
  • git-blog on laptop
  • use outside tutors, and reduce facetime?

— sunshine+patience
When giving more “sunshine”, it’s often unwise to expect (slow but) visible improvement

Sunshine is necessary but insufficient condition. You often need patience to wait for a long time to see some improvement.Wee need patience to see the absorbency growing stronger.

Also, you need to spot/notice and celebrate every small (even if temporary) improvement in your kids or yourself.
— Q: In which area do you give much-needed sunshine but majority of your peers don’t bother to?
The question asks me to name where I give sunshine, so it’s impossible to surprise myself, but I will still try to name unsung heroes.

  • driving experience review
  • tech Dram refresh
  • career longevity + healthy longevity
  • flexibility
  • Eng and Ch vocab
  • current income? Not really “much-needed”
  • exp recon
  • tax-like expenses

capture powerSurge regardless@location #localSys

Real limiting factor is absorbency, not convenient equipments or private time.

— don’t need to postpone localSys to office

In office, I often spend hours on nonwork (though I should try to finish my work first).

If at home I make progress on work projects, I can have freedom to use my time in office 🙂

Warning: I may end up working at home a bit, but slow down progress on work projects. Therefore, it’s often better to segregate working hours vs nonwork hours.

— don’t need to postpone coding drill to home.

Once (at home or office) I make some progress on work projects, I should capture whatever absorbency for coding drill wherever I am.

enough sunshine,insufficient absorbency

k_soul_search

Given my current MLP carefree job, I can go to office any time to get the privacy I yearned for. Weekday mornings, and everyday after 11pm are also perfect private hours. Even on MRT I can now get private time 95% of the time.

Reality is, when private time is no longer the limiting factor, absorbency becomes the limiting factor. You may call it insufficient drive, but I won’t say “willpower”. Once, for a few weeks I took on the toughest of ALL absorbency endeavors, but the absorbency level is hard to keep up.

In mid 2020, XR said “given your situation, you can achieve a lot in your spare time.” Now I think I was able to convert my spare time/energy into MSFM degree !

— fair review

Now, most people are not super motivated. Vast majority of us don’t spend much spare time on coding drill, workout or self-improvement. These domains are my relative advantage actually.

Q: When my available private time increased around 18 Jun 2020, was there a corresponding increase in “productive” hours?
A: I would say yes a little bit including workout, tech xx, academic coaching,,,. I think most of the private time increase went to non-productive activities, chiefly blogging, but also DIY, shopping, family outing. Many of these non-productive activities can be considered enjoyment of leisure and family bonding — important goals of working men.

Q: How about the last few free days before a middle-school or college exam?
Q: how about my son’s PSLE?

sunshine + patience is the right combination, explained in this blogpost

— private time and self-care

Private time is usually a scarce resource, for most people. Yet, now I have more private time, I tend to spend it on covid news, leisure reading, personal investment,,, ! Sign of insufficient absorbency

— sunshine on wellness

currently, I do spend a lot of spare time and absorbency on exercise and diet control.

“spare”time allocation history since 2006

To compensate for historical comparison, I count time required by family commitment as spare time. (Otherwise after 2012 my total spare time probably reduced by half…) Don’t ask me to elaborate…

— period: bachelor. I feel this is an important period that shaped my belief and habits. I think many peers moved in their directions at this time. I found myself lacking some fundamental skills to move up the corporate ladder, so I decided to try the start-up route…Poor choice.

1) XXXXX (i.e. learning) without accumu 🙁 … not only technical subjects
2) Socialize/volunteer, often required by my (full time) job, but not sustainable cos not gaining traction
….) exercise 4 times a week 🙂

— period: 2006 – Aug 2008.
1) XXXXX required by IV or job
2) OT (Strategem, NBC, Verizon, GS)
…) family i.e. wife. No “contention”
…) socialize? Much lower

— period: when family was away in SG
1) XXXXX required by IV or job. I found my edge and traction. By self-learning I quickly moved up in that job market
2) OT (GS overnight! MLEdge, Barc)

— period: baby boy on Wall St i.e. the 3 months + 14 months boy was with me on Wall St.
For a while (Oct 2010 – Jan 2011), GS pressure was so high I wanted to quit US in despair:(

1) FFFFFFamily. Didn’t have enough time for baby boy and my wife…Sigh
2) XXXXX, IV
…) OT not required in Citi 🙂
…) exercise much less

–period: q3SG
1) FFFFFFamily including boy’s study, outing, dining out, renovation
2) XXXXX including MSFM, c#, cpp.
** I think this will decrease gradually
** I didn’t fully anticipate that MSFM study is a discontinuity, with no positive feedback loop whatsoever.

** even the tech learning I couldn’t apply in my job search as I could as a Wall St contractor. Much lower motivation and positive feedback. This reminds me reading books on how to date a Caucasian woman, while the Asian women around you don’t react the same way as Caucasian women.

3) OT (stirt,)
…) personal investment 1H/day too much, low ROTI
…) socialize? No time at all
…) exercise much less

4) financial management
** bx — average 5 discussions each with Colin Lim … Anna Ong .. AXA .. Manulife .. Lee Peixian .. TokyoMarine .. Loh Junli
** real-estate investments
** FSM
** online personal trading
** expense tracking (about 2 full days each time)
** mortgage management including family loans

— period: c++US
1) XXXXX c++QQ, CIV — muscle building .. effective
2) WWWwellness — including yoga, chin-up,,, highly effective
3) u.s. housing research

— period: Hib19

  1. FFFFFFamily esp. boy — to be reduced
  2. XXXXX localSys, QQ, coding drill — to be increased
  3. WWWwellness — to be increased
  4. personal investment — to be reduced

— period: covid19 working alone

  1. reflective blogging — across many topics like long-horizon per-finance, wellness, parenting,,,,, to be reduced in some topics
  2. FFFFFFamily time — including DIY home repair, outing, and some parenting
  3. WWWwellness — including food shopping, research, workout
  4. XXXXX for tech IV
  5. emails, calls with friends and family
  6. curiosity reading — including covid,,,, to be reduced

[19] am taking on the toughest of ALL absorbency endeavors

Look at absorbency[def#2]worn_out by endeavors . Incredibly, as of late 2018 to early 2019 am making visible progress on the very toughest endeavors in terms of absorbency, such as

  • daily stretch at home or in RetroFitness + chin-up
  • starch abstinence + delaying meals
  • coding drill
  • … and some other tough endeavors like
  • standing desk
  • raw veg

By my own standard or external standards, the current level of progress, willpower, and personal effectiveness is heroic, probably unsustainable.

I may not have the environment or the willpower to reach this peak performance again, but I don’t have to. I will aim at 1 or 2 tough endeavors at any time.

##[18]where I Want2spend spare time #^bachelor

k_quietime

  • “quietime” — usually means reflective blogging/emailing. This is one of the biggest deficiencies experienced after I had kids
  • more time reading tech + news + non-tech topics /closer to my heart/, in Chinese or English
  • more time on personal investment — addictive
  • more time on home repairs
  • — bachelor lifestyle (+ to a lesser extent, my NY lifestyle):
  • more time visiting friends? I think so. In NY I didn’t spend much time here
  • more frequent visits to parents and possibly sister
  • more time emailing with friends
  • more time exercise esp. in classes — I can increase this now. Look at Oliver (our MD)
  • more time in office
  • even more time (than 2020 ) on blogging – tech + recoll
  • ! less time sight-seeing
  • possibly joining a start-up

weekends otherwise wasted: G3 ROI@UChicago

k_rmSelf_vs_xpSelf

A recurring “pain” is burn or rot — without a direction, my spare time is visibly wasted. I have seen this pattern for many years.

With MSFM, my weekends and spare time was completely taken up.

I count it as a major gain and ROI.

Most of the time I see my last 6 months as “coblood wasted” but those 3 years in SG were not “wasted”.

— xpSelf had a tough but positive experience.
However, the evaluative rmSelf probably considers the learning somewhat misaligned and underwhelming.