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Comment by virtual_void | Hacker News Reader

I noticed the same thing in myself. Free time, especially a long block of it can just be wasted. Sometimes that’s a sort of necessary mental reset but it made me think about what I’d do when i retired.

I came to the conclusion, like you, that structure is good. Without structure it’s really hard to get started on things or feel a sense of progress.

Now if i take a long break i treat it like i used to back in college days. I have a schedule, high level goals and daily to-do lists. Those lists have productive things as well as free time or gaps of a fixed length to fill with whatever i want.

Sounds hellish when i write it out but without it I’m all about cat videos and noodling around on my guitar. Suddenly a month has passed.

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Time enjoyed is not time wasted

I disagree. I might enjoy 2 months of sitting on my couch, smoking weed, and playing video games stoned out my gourd.

That time would still be very much wasted.

Not sure if you meant it as a pun, but if so: slow clap.

That's just because you limit your view to 2 months and look at it in a vacuum.

If you extend your timeline, you may find that you get bored or restless and want to change things up. That "wasted time" is necessary in order to get into a different headspace. It's the equivalent of riding an elevator for your brain... It takes you to a different stage of life.

Doubtful. I had severe mental trauma happen to me when I was 19 and I basically become an emotional wreck who played video games until I was 26 or so. It was just a way to avoid confronting my issues and I became an exceptionally good World of Warcraft player. I hate that I wasted so much of my prime years “self medicating” with video games. It wasn’t until I quit World of Warcraft that I met my wife (maybe a week after!)

I wish I’d gone to therapy or done literally anything else. It took years for me to finally feel disgusted enough with myself to make any sort of change and I was a wreck when I did. I’d barely improved at all, if not gotten worse than I was when I got emotionally messed up at 19.

Ok, but that's an extreme case - that may have been bad whereas someone taking half a year off after working extremely high pressure job for a decade can be good.

I think you’re right. There is a heck of a lot to be said for enjoyment regardless of productivity.

It becomes problematic, for me at least, when the thing i enjoyed becomes a sort of default mode. No longer for enjoyment, more of a reflex. Then it feels like it might be wasted.

That's exactly the point where you become able to decide for yourself what you'd like to do. I would say that seeing that point negatively and reflexively going back to work your standard job is what makes that period a waste.

While this is true it's also easy to do things you're not really enjoying just because they require low activation energy.

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