105 hours: Time Independence

I use a set of tactics and principles to manage my time. I call it 105 hours.

It helps me allocate the 105 hours I have in the week.

Some of those hours are pre-committed to those chores we must do to keep our life going: cooking, laundry, cleaning, and paying bills.

But what if we didn't have any chores to do?

Vacation.. from chores

It was a long drive, but we're finally here.

The resort lobby is modern; the walls have floor-to-ceiling windows and open space displaying the trees and the sunsetting sky beyond them. I hear a couple of kids playing in a pool.

A dark-haired front desk clerk with black eyes and a spotless uniform gives me a key programmed to open the door to room 402.

We move our clothes to the closet, freshen up, and head to the restaurant where dinner's being served.

The stay is "all-inclusive" meaning I don't have to worry about what I'm paying or not paying for. We go through a dinner buffet and pick our preferred options, and when we're done, servers diligently take our plates elsewhere to be dealt with.

We put on our bathing suits and head to the pools. We leave our phones in the room and our used clothes in a pile for "future laundry."

All of our bills have been prepaid or scheduled.

Nobody calls us.

I get into lively conversations with my family and later grab a book by the pool to read while mulling over some writing I'll do in the evening.

Before dinner, we stop by the room to shower: the room has just been cleaned, our bed has been made, and our toiletries replaced.

Time passes with no obligations and very little I must do.

A week later, it's time to go back. We pack our dirty laundry, pay for our stay, and go home.

0 hours for chores

Chores for me are any of the tasks I must do to keep life going: laundry, cooking, doing dishes, cleaning, buying groceries, buying things for the house, paying bills, going to the bank, taxes, car maintenance, house maintenance, going to the doctor, the dentist, etc., etc.

My time allocation goal with chores is to reduce it to 0. Much must be done, and it seems normal and inevitable.

It may be normal, but it's not inevitable.

Time independence

I have a concept I call time independence, derived from a somewhat commonly used term called financial independence.

Financial Independence means an investment of about 20x one's yearly costs that eliminates the need to work for money.

Time Independence is a similar concept but applied to time: investments in different areas eliminate one's need to spend time to live.

A person with time independence can choose to do something, something else, or nothing without any relevant negative repercussions to them or those they care about.

Even financially independent people are often not time independent: while they could choose to stop working, they have all these other obligations with their time that must be done for life to work well for them and their loved ones.

Time and financial independence can be at odds with each other: reducing costs to achieve higher financial independence means spending more time doing what must be done.

Having the choice

There's a surprisingly common reaction when I share the concept of time independence with my mentees and friends for the first time.

As I explain the concept, they'll listen attentively and nod in agreement. Then, they'll smile as they imagine this beautiful world without their everyday chores. Finally, they'll frown and bring up an objection, which for whatever reason is always the same: Cooking.

The objection comes as "but I really like cooking," "cooking is a nice way to spend time with my family," "I cook and listen to podcasts, it's really productive," or finally, "home-cooked meals are healthier," or some variation of these.

It doesn't matter. If you have to cook, you don't have time independence. You only have time independence if you can choose not to cook.

Time independence is about having the choice, not about making a choice.

Like someone who has financial independence and chooses to work, there's nothing wrong with having time independence and choosing to cook.

But if you choose not to cook, what happens to your food? Does it get cooked for you? Can you afford it? Is it healthy? Can you do that indefinitely every day with your life going as well as if you had cooked every day? Those are the questions we must answer.

We have time independence if we can choose not to do any of the chores that must be done for life to go well.

Escape drudgery

Is reducing chores and achieving time independence challenging? Yes, it's very hard.

Is achieving time independence and controlling our time worth the effort? Absolutely.

As the cliché says, how we spend our days is, after all, how we spend our life.

While some of the drudgeries of life can come from work, in modern times much of it comes from everything else we must do for our lives to go well – that is, chores.

I'll close this by quoting Henry David Thoreau's Walden, talking about chores, in this case morning work, in his Economy essay.

At present our houses are cluttered and defiled with it, and a good housewife would sweep out the greater part into the dust hole, and not leave her morning's work undone. Morning work! By the blushes of Aurora and the music of Memnon, what should be man's morning work in this world? I had three pieces of limestone on my desk, but I was terrified to find that they required to be dusted daily, when the furniture of my mind was all undusted still, and threw them out the window in disgust. How, then, could I have a furnished house? I would rather sit in the open air, for no dust gathers on the grass, unless where man has broken ground.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, Optimized For Kindle . American Literature. Kindle Edition.

Thoreau's point is not only that we should be escaping chores but a highlight of the opportunity cost of our time.

It's about what we should be doing instead of those chores.

And finally, a similar quote by the same author reflects on the importance of mindfully spending our time and, therefore, our lives.

Self-emancipation even in the West Indian provinces of the fancy and imagination — what Wilberforce is there to bring that about? Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.

Thoreau, Henry David. Walden, Optimized For Kindle . American Literature. Kindle Edition.

"As if you could kill time without injuring eternity." – what a beautiful passage.