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After listening to and reading about how others spend their time, I've come to the conclusion that either I'm horrible at managing my time or these people secretly have more than 24 hours in their days. One example was a gentleman who had a day job, ran an RC track later in the day/weekends, had 3 kids, horses and a vintage motorcycle hobby. How is that possible? Granted, I have a special needs child which consumes a great deal of time. I work full time of course. On the other hand I don't watch TV of any kind, have pretty much whittled my hobbies down to RC, have zero friends (outside my wife) or social life. Between fixing/keeping up with the house/chores, working and raising a child, the idea of multiple hobbies or just a vacation is so alien to me at this point. So how do these folks do it? I never seem to get anything done or rather, the incoming life projects (not hobby/fun related) stack up quicker than I complete them. I couldn't fathom adding one of my old hobbies back in. My wife says I'm constantly doing something and truthfully, I'm only "idle" when I'm on this forum. So, what's the secret?

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50 minutes ago, Saito2 said:

So, what's the secret?

Delegate :)

If there's nobody to delegate too, buy the time of someone who is willing to exchange £ for their time. 

There's also this thing - the more you do the more you do. The theory being if you stack yourself up with several, interesting things you want to do, you will do them, at the expense of the crap that you don't want to do. You'll delegate that, or let it slide. Like a sort of natural selection. Doesn't work for boring stuff though. This is the strategy your example man is doing I bet. "Do the dishes? No thanks the guys at the RC track are counting on me..." etc.

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1 hour ago, Howards said:

Delegate :)

If there's nobody to delegate too, buy the time of someone who is willing to exchange £ for their time. 

There's also this thing - the more you do the more you do. The theory being if you stack yourself up with several, interesting things you want to do, you will do them, at the expense of the crap that you don't want to do. You'll delegate that, or let it slide. Like a sort of natural selection. Doesn't work for boring stuff though. This is the strategy your example man is doing I bet. "Do the dishes? No thanks the guys at the RC track are counting on me..." etc.

I had a supervisor once who made a lot of money by doing pretty much nothing. He knew how to delegate. It was his favorite word ;). Delegation is a good suggestion under normal circumstances. In my world, there's just me, my wife and my child. There's no one to delegate to (my wife certainly does her share) and I can't pay others. I've learned not to trust most folks and when it comes to getting things done right,  so its best to just do it myself. I didn't know how to lay flooring or redo countertops two years ago. I do now ;).

I also speculate whether something is falling through the cracks when I hear stories of these amazingly productive people. If had to do a chore like dishes, I'm not pushing it off on my wife. She needs attention and consideration just like my child. Or I could be wrong and these folks really do have it all.:mellow: 

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I do the same thing that lady does in the video, but i'm a blur doing it in WARP SPEED!

since i stopped drinking there's no rest for the wicked.

now when it comes to dusting and weeds GRANNY GEAR all up hill.................................:lol:

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You might have asked in a rhetorical manner... please don't mind if I go to strange places with this question. 

In one word... Potassium.  

After 40, I get the feeling you are getting, when I'm low on potassium.  Then my friends would come over and say, "where do you get the energy to do all that?"  I learned to replace rotten floor boards, re-finish the floors, sweat (solder) water pipes, replace 2-prong sockets with 3-pronged ones, etc. 

2pLXAOJ.jpg

I even built a coffee table in exchange for Konghead. (later I learned that the table my wife wanted was about $1000. Lesson learned. Look up what your labor is worth before striking up the bargain). After a bookshelf that I needed, this was #2 furniture in my life.  But I learned that putting planks together is no different from building Tamiya kits. (I bought the legs for $120, but the rest is about $200 worth of planks, nails, screws and glue from Home Depot)  I was waiting for warm weather when we could leave the windows open after vanishing this thing. 

bFSfCL4.jpg

Now, I'm looking back and think, "how the heck did we do all that?"  We've got no one to delegate to.  As mentioned, I think like that when I'm running low on potassium.  

Food with potassium will give you energy; spinach, broccoli, potato, beat root, cucumber, banana, kiwi, orange, etc. Omega-3 helps too.  My wife's doctor once told her to take iron supplement immediately. That was 2 years ago when she was getting headaches.  She perked right up.  Whenever she says she's too tired, I get her some iron and potassium supplements.  Iron is no good for men, but potassium, we need lots.  The older I get, the greater impact food/supplements have.  When I was in my 20's, a slice of pizza and a can of Mountain Dew would fuel me all day long.  That doesn't work in my 40's.  

I'd rather eat food than take supplements.  But I gained 6 pounds since the pandemic. (I was down to 150 pounds, now I'm up to 156)  Potatoes, kiwis and bananas have potassium, but lots of carb to add weight.  So, I took some potassium supplement yesterday instead.  After months of inactivity, I was out mowing the lawn and doing various yard work for 2 hours (even after dark). 

Without salt people will die.  Without potassium, people will die.  That's why sports drinks have potassium (or taurine that could help with potassium use in our body).  But sports/energy drinks have lots of sugar/caffeine too.  That's no good.   

Taking a fistful of salt will kill you, so will a fistful of potassium pills or 10 cans of red bull.  But most of us live in permanent deficit when it comes to potassium. We just don't eat enough fruits and veggies.  Potassium supplements that you can find in any drug store, supermarket (or supplement store) will give you 3% of daily need in one pill.  You might try and take a pill or two a day and see how you feel.  If you have a heart problem ask your doctor first.  I don't have a heart problem, and it's been working for me for about 20 years.  I had this dry cough on and off since early teen years.  One nurse told me to drink Gatorade.  I was already better by the time I got to the parking lot.  And that's how I learned about potassium. (not the garden potassium made for flowers and trees, I'm talking about supplement for human consumption)  

 

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    I can put you in touch with my wife if you like Saito as she is an expert at fitting 30 hours of tasks into 24 on a daily basis.
Running our small Picture Framing and Art Materials business, kids art classes, Adult Bubbles & Brushes workshops + catering, organising her mother’s art classes, & workshops, all of(well most of, I vacuum & do the odd laundry load!!) the house stuff, organises our sons international College Affairs, and Daughters last school year etc etc etc and still finds time to play Words with a Friends on her phone.


   As I get older I definitely don’t do as much as I used to and find now that I HAVE to make time for myself. While in my youth as a Carpenter / Joiner I wouldn’t think anything of working a 10/11 days on the tools only to get home and spend a few hours in the evening working on my own house and all weekend to improve it to work our way up the property ladder a bit. My Dad was also a great help ( he’s a builder ) donating a lot of his spare time. But man alive does he drink copious amounts of tea in the process!! But that’s what set us up to be able to move to Australia. 
   I was always a keen cyclist but it wasn’t until moving to Oz that I started doing group training rides with a goal to participate in some Mountain Bike events. To get fit this had to happen around the Business hours we had just taken on. So getting up at 4.30am for a couple of hours in the saddle before work 3 times a week is what it took, and a couple of evenings too. But it paid off as the fitter I got the faster I got and the better I felt. My goal was a 100km MTB event, which took 3 years to achieve. 
  All that punishment takes it’s toll on the body and would struggle to do it now. As @Juggular so rightly points out what may of worked in your youth doesn’t necessarily work later on in life for energy.
 

Energy is key to most of it. As is quality sleep and the length of sleep various greatly for different people. 8 hours being considered best, but some are happy on 4 to 5 hours, I’m more 6 to 7. Others may need 9. So that in itself makes  people’s disposable time in a day different. Someone only needing 5 hours has 4 hours more time to use a day than someone needing 9 hours sleep. I believe Churchill only slept 4 hours a day so had 20 hours to run a country. He must have had a Lipo implant or something.

I used to eat all sorts of rubbish and 2 sugars in every cup of tea. But after a bit of a Palio stint a few years back it changed my pallet I can’t eat anywhere near the amount of sugar. None in tea or coffee anymore and 2 squares of chocolate is more than enough instead of the whole bar but equally as satisfying (dark now preferable to milk chocolate), I can’t even face a soft drinks anymore, our food consumption went down but energy levels and general well-being went up. 
  All was well up to the previous GFC a while back and our accountant advised us to get a second income along side the business. So I got my Truck License and I now drive Fuel Tankers for up to 90 hour shifts over 8 days, as well as framing.       Unfortunately this now left no time for training rides anymore. A Bicycle is still my preferred method of transport so I ride the 5k’s ‘Sprint’ to and from work and helps keep at least a bit of fitness with a bit of occasional MTB now and again. 
  Missing the time out of the training rides from the hum drum I needed another pastime to have another focus other than work, RC fits in well as it can be done mostly at home, but outings for running then I have to make time for that as I did with the training rides. 
  
   Granted it’s not always easy juggling the time but it’s probably what makes it so satisfying when you can, and don’t feel guilty when you do either after all you’ve earned it. 
   


 

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4 hours ago, Re-Bugged said:

Churchill  [...]  must have had a Lipo implant or something.

... after a bit of a Palio stint a few years back it changed my pallet I can’t eat anywhere near the amount of sugar... our food consumption went down but energy levels and general well-being went up. 

Lol, LiPo implant... that made no sense to my wife.  

All good points!  

While carnivore diet has no potassium, meat has something in it that allows preservation of potassium (if there is no carb).  I think it's probably better to go with Paleo diet in keto style, though.  After cutting sugar, I realized how it makes you hungrier and tireder.   If I was on keto, I could go without food for about 36-40 hours.  I wouldn't even be all that hungry.  If I had sugar?  No way. I can't go longer than 2 hours after meal time.  I'd be dizzy and my hands would be shaking.  It's the most fattening thing too (more than fat itself).  And large quantity would damage your liver (my mom had her liver hardening. She kept a big basketful of candies. It took me years to convince her to let that habit go).  

My wife was a "grazer," 5-7 small meals and snacks a day.  We now have 2 meals and generally we feel better. That might not be an option for diabetic people, but keto might. (below discusses type 2, not type 1).  

If I were smarter, I'd stick with drinking tea.  But every few years, I start drinking tea.  Then I say, "man, I have more energy."  I think I'm one of those people who does not do well on coffee.  It gives me a jolt in the morning, but I crash in the afternoon.  Tea is slower to kick in, but I've got energy in the evening for other stuff.  I forget this all the time. I re-discovered it a week ago again, for the 5th time in the past decade. 

Having said all that, though, we just had two of our nieces run around the house yesterday.  As much as we love them, having them is tiring for a couple who do not have kids. So hats off to parents. Having even one hobby is a feat.  

 

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FOOD!? someone mentioned food. I am a ISE (InSinkErator) . i have to eat constantly or i'll die.

my cousins' cousin whom i learned about floor refinishing from and helped him on many jobs and did work for him and his wife's home also, just died from diabetes after a few years battle.

i had and have other relatives and friends with this mean SOB of a disease.

it's fargin everywhere. that's what i love about diseases, viruses and deadly animals, they do not discriminate. 

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On 6/28/2020 at 11:12 PM, Juggular said:

In one word... Potassium.

So potassium will add hours to my day...hmmm. lol, j/k. Honestly, thanks for the advice. I'll look into it.

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on the lighter notes of lifes songs Saito2,

i am taking the time to say "How ya doin' Buddy!" 

well darn there went 49 seconds:lol:

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4 hours ago, ACCEL said:

"How ya doin' Buddy!"

I'm doin' man, I'm doin' ;).

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To the most part, lie! 🤷‍♂️

Depends what they class as, a full time job too. Had a 'discussion ' with a mate of mine, who'd told me he'd done a 5k run before work, done a days work, then this and that after work , so he couldn't see why I don't have time, suggested i look into my ,time management better. Then it transpired that I'd already been in work half an hour before his alarm had gone off, and I didn't get home from work until he had been asleep an hour in his bed...

I can't function without a list, I just don't have the mental capacity anymore to remember things, I have a note pad next to my bed, so I can crack on and be the most productive, when I get a day off. 

I've learnt to ignore people, let them crack on and save the world, and not let it add to my worry list, if they want to run a marathon before breakfast, on you go and as ,Mrs Brown would say, "That's nice" ...🙄😂😂

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On 6/29/2020 at 4:12 AM, Juggular said:

Potassium supplements that you can find in any drug store, supermarket

Having your words rattle around in my head since reading, I checked the vitamin/supplement section in the supermarket today.

Didn't realise there where so many!!! 😯

Although, couldn't find any that said, potassium (found one containing,  John's Wart, not thinking that's for me....😳).

Is there a name it goes under, other than ,potassium?

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11 hours ago, Wooders28 said:

Having your words rattle around in my head since reading, I checked the vitamin/supplement section in the supermarket today.

Didn't realise there where so many!!! 😯

Although, couldn't find any that said, potassium (found one containing,  John's Wart, not thinking that's for me....😳).

Is there a name it goes under, other than ,potassium?

Bananas

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