Why is free time still so elusive?
But it is the only explanation for why, despite our technological capacities, we are not all working three- to four-hour days.
David Graeber • Bullshit Jobs: A Theory
Societal pressures used to make it relatively easy to take time off: you couldn’t go shopping when the shops weren’t open, even if you wanted to, or work when the office was locked. Besides, you’d be much less likely to skip church, or Sunday lunch with the extended family, if you knew your absence would raise eyebrows. Now, though, the pressures a... See more
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
it’s not entirely our own fault that we approach our finite time in such a perversely instrumental and future-focused way. Powerful external pressures push us in this direction, too, because we exist inside an economic system that is instrumentalist to its core. One way of understanding capitalism, in fact, is as a giant machine for instrumentalisi
... See moreOliver Burkeman • Four Thousand Weeks: Embrace your limits. Change your life. Make your four thousand weeks count.
The household economy of cooking, cleaning, mending, washing, and grocery shopping has arguably changed more in the past 100 years than the American factory or the modern office. And its evolution tells an illuminating story about why, no matter what work we do, we never seem to have enough time. In the 20th century, labor-saving household technolo... See more