[sidfthec]

I can't help but think that the author of the book as an artist, who I assume is not in a 9-5 job and whose work necessarily requires unusual uses of their time, can't possibly relate to normal folks here.

Every day I need to: 1. work out. 2. work at least 9-5. 3. cook dinner. 4. spend time with my wife.

Then, things come up. Shopping, chores, etc.

Already I don't have time to waste, and I don't even have kids or a second job. So yeah, I block out my day: Wake up at 6, breakfast and out the door by 6:45, commute and work out and shower and get to my desk by 8:30, etc etc. If I didn't purposely block out time like this I'd wake up at 10am, have to work late, cook late, spend less time with family, not keep up with my health, etc, etc.

[tayo42]

This is why working remote /from home was probably the best thing to happen to me. So liberating to gain those hour's back stolen by commuting and organizing a life around being somewhere else all day

[thelogicguy]

I don't necessarily disagree, but I think there's another way of seeing this here that goes: if some of your time is already accounted for by certain tasks, trying to regiment them out further ends up reinforcing the idea that you're losing time constantly. Scheduling out personal time in the same manner as working time pushes you to think about them in relative terms.

As a disclaimer, this is something I go back and forth on and I do tend to use time blocking myself because otherwise I find it hard to maintain direction over long periods of time.

[brokenbot]

I think part of the view on an authors/artists work schedule is naive and idealistic. But often times they are really just normal folks with mostly standard schedules.

I've known of few artist and one author, they all pretty much worked 9 to 5 with some small variation, but not much. Generally those types of jobs have the same flexibility as working from home, but also require more motivation, discipline, and time management to get works (book, commissioned art) out on time. I believe she alludes to this in her comment about being that person who keeps a log and tracks time and that its important within the context.

When I started working from home full time about 6 years ago, I relied on them to help me not get distracted and get my work done on time. I struggled at first because I model my time on freedom, the idealist view of artist in my mind. I didn't work well, time slipped away, then I adopted a standard schedule and was back on track. I also learned getting dressed like you're going to work helps a ton.

As for you schedule, its the word `need` that I would question. Do you `need` to do those things, or do you get meaning from them and so you make sure they done and the time for them becomes priority.

I realize a job is essential in some very real ways, but use of need is similar to management in the sense that people need to manage there time to get more out of it and should focus on time efficiency. Which to me seems like they point she is making.