Not Enough Hours In the Day

[Oryx]

Forever and I have been discussing the idea of 'busy'. Often people will claim that they can't do something because they're just too busy, or don't have the time. This could be something that actually demands a large commitment of their time and effort ("I'm sorry, I just can't write your senior thesis on the difference between Gandalf and Dumbledore, I don't have enough time"), all the way down to something that takes no more than a few minutes ("I'm sorry, I just can't tell you if you look alright in that dress, I don't have enough time"). However, I'm of the firm belief that there's really no such thing as 'too busy' to do something, at least not in the sense that people mean it nowadays.

People become accustomed to having the same amount of free time as they've always had, with the ability to do whatever they want with it with no worries about responsibilities. They adapt well to more free time, but never less. The idea of being 'too busy' for something in really the idea of wanting to spend your free time doing the things you enjoy more than whatever is being requested of you.

An easy way to express this is just to count up how many hours of the day you're actually doing something productive and not slacking off or relaxing. For many people in high school and below, this involves 7-8 hours of school, plus 1 or 2 hours a day with homework. After that, there's 8 hours of sleep (assuming you're the only human being on the earth with a normal sleep schedule). That leaves you with 6 hours of free time. What can you do with 6 hours? Quite a lot. But even if someone is doing 3 or 4 hours of homework a night with a full class day, that still gives you 4 hours to do whatever you'd like. While it's less than most people, it's a large block of free time that often goes ignored in the face of "I'm too busy".

So, thoughts? Am I way off base, spot on, or somewhere in between?

 

[Empoleon144]

Well, I did have over 12 hours of school and extra curricular activities and then 4 hours of homework plus studying at one week during middle school.

People also have to change, eat, take showers, clean up their homes, run errands, use the facilities when nature calls, and everything else that humans must do. Also, it takes time to get between places.

 

[Esper]

I have to wake up around 6 AM. From that moment until around 5 PM I'm getting ready for work, going to or from work, or working. (I do get the odd few minutes here and there while working to do things at my desk - like right now - but it's not what I'd call "free time.") When I'm back at home I have to make food, clean up after myself, and do whatever other miscellaneous chores I need to do. My free time is several hours, but a lot of that is what I call detox time. I need to physically and mentally recover from my day and that limits what I can do for most of my free time. I find that it's usually 8 or 9 PM by the time I feel okay to do the things I want to do, and by then I can barely get in time to see a movie. And when the weekend comes I usually sleep too much to make up for my sleep debt from the past week.

Yeah. Not enough hours in the day for me.

 

[Haguri]

I wouldn't use the words "too busy" to describe my issues with time, but rather I want to do too much in what little time I have.

I would like to help out others that need things (As you were saying), I would like to have my internet time, time with family, my fiance, time to draw, time for work, time to write, time to sleep, but it seems I get caught up in one thing or the other and the next thing I know, dinner needs to be made, or I need to take a shower, or I better be getting to bed in order to function properly in class the next day.

It's not that I'm "too busy" it's that time truly seems to fly. Especially when I'm preoccupied by something.