slightly unhinged*, rushed* article below

I try to do a lot of things. Some might say everything! Most people tell me: too many things.

But that can’t possibly be it. You see, the problem isn’t that I try to do too many things, it’s that I simply don’t have enough time to do those things!

But, you say, Stephen, this is the exact same problem but worded differently! No! I refuse to hear your nonsense.

With that in mind, if the problem is not having enough time, that’s a pretty hard problem to solve. We all get 24 hours a day, and I’m not really sure if there’s a workaround. I do like solving challenging problems, but I’m not quite sure I can make a time machine. If you do manage to make one, please contact me though—you will have solved all my problems.

Aha! But! I have stated the problem slightly wrong. The problem is that there is not enough time in the day to do the things I want to do. For example, the main thing I want to do with my time right now is finish reading Ulysses, by James Joyce. I picked it up last year, and I still have not been able to finish it, and I would really like to finish it. I need time, however, to read this book.

So seeing as we have relaxed the problem a bit, what’s my proposed solution? Capitalism. Throw money at the problem. Unfortunately for me, being a student, I do not have as much spending power as I’d like. That means only some things are worth prioritizing in order to save time.

Assume I value my time at $60/hr. Then, for example: booking an uber/lyft instead of walking 30 minutes, ordering uber eats, door dash, etc. is out of my budget. Negative value purchases!

Other things, like reading, are not tasks I can outsource. After all, I want to read the book, and spend time reading the book. It’s not really possible to just like, pay someone else to read the book. This also applies to probably the biggest use of my time in a day: sleeping. And honestly speaking, most of my time is spent doing something I enjoy.

When I started this post, I thought I’d have more ideas about what I could buy to save time and allow myself to do more things. But there really isn’t much. Welp!

I guess capitalism might not be my thing. Might have to revert back to writing software, seeing if I can automate processes to save my own time! What’s most effective is probably just getting a consistent sleep schedule so I don’t keep wasting time falling back asleep after my alarm. But there’s no fun in that :(

Actually, something like https://nuj.app/ might be the play—if I snooze I pay like $5. Mmm.

Anyways. Monthly rant blog post #2 done? To bed :((, and then reading Joyce. Some things just take time.

As an appendix: a small list of things I’ve found worth spending money on already to save time:

1. bus rides and public transit … I mean … I guess I could walk four hours every day
2. amazon prime. saves so much time on actually going to the store and shopping idk
3. a claude subscription. I kinda just ask it to make decisions for me, because I get a lot of decision paralysis. It is a little offputting to be moving some of my autonomy into the hands of a language model, YMMV