Optimizing inputs and becoming indistractable

Optimizing inputs and becoming indistractable(sovereign-individual.xyz)

82 points by PascalPrecht 4 years ago | 11 comments

Not a bad read, probably the most succinctly worded self-help piece regarding time management that I've seen so far. I'm still not convinced I have to live like that. The site is ironically called sovereign-individual, yet the author seems to have every minute of their life bound by a schedule. Is that our ultimate purpose as humans?

gumby 4 years ago | |

If you control that schedule, it could relax you because you don’t have to make prioritizing decisions in the moment. If other people control your schedule (as is true for many work environments, at least) then this level scheduling is most likely to be quite stressful.

Other people (generally) don’t control my schedule, so I do like like having blocks of time clearly marked out. But I’m much less fanatical: I just make my schedule the night before, and it’s generally a couple of 2-3 hour blocks with blank time inbetween. But it’s stress relieving for me to know, say, that my bills will be paid (or with autopay, supervised) at some point so that I can safely ignore the bills the rest of the time. Or to know that something bad isn’t going to happen because I went outside with a book for a few hours.

Darmody 4 years ago | |

You are a "sovereign-individual" if you have a tight schedule and that's what you really want.

I wish I could do that but it looks like I can't without meds or a higher purpose (or something that motivates/obsesses me).

blooalien 4 years ago | | |

> … "higher purpose (or something that motivates/obsesses me)."

The magic trick here is to find something you truly enjoy doing and then figure out how to get other people to pay you to do that thing for them. Contract work/freelancing can be a joyful and rewarding way to live a "sovereign" life. ;)

trompetenaccoun 4 years ago | | |

The question is why would they want to live like that? Are they still in control, or is it our capitalist society's firm grip on our lives that tells us we have to become ever more efficient, ever more robot-like?

It's a serious question about the meaning of life. Do we want our societies be run like Toyota factories?

danpat 4 years ago |

I would love to see something like this written by someone with a young family. I find myself living JIT subject to the whimsical demands of small children for extended periods, and often wonder if it's even possible to re-arrange life in this context to try to re-capture some sanity.

Usually I just give up and bathe myself in the chaos, hoping that it's just a few years and then some semblance of sanity will return naturally.

R0b0t1 4 years ago | |

Self-employment is the only answer I have seen provided. From memory, some people said they were able to transition into it, some others implied they felt they only had the chance at contract work due to a long onramp they made for themselves working at it earlier in their life. Hopefully we'll get some anecdotes.

Well, I suppose there is teaching your children discipline; depends on what you mean by whimsical demands.

PascalPrecht 4 years ago | |

Hi, the author here.

You're raising a great point. While I'm not living together with my partner, we do have a little family and I'm very much with you that it's super hard to get anything done with kids around.

Unless you get up super early, stay up super late after kids are in bed, or use the time when they aren't around (e.g. kindergarden), I also think that it's almost impossible to fully focus on something for a longer period.

I guess it kind of boils down to finding the right routines. That certainly doesn't make it easier...

nireyal 4 years ago |

Thanks for reading and sharing what you learned in Indistractable. Glad it was helpful!