A reader question:
What sort of mindset do you think helped you shift from “needing to spend as much time as possible being productive” to actually enjoying leisure time?
I think it’s hard to make that change straight out of training in your early career without the constant thought in the back of your mind that you could be earning $X while watching a movie or going for a walk, as examples. With the widespread use of home workstations and increasing volumes nationwide, it’s an ever increasing pressure as it’s so easy to log on and almost instantaneously be able to turn on that money faucet.
Radiology suffers from a curse of easily accessible extra work. Many doctors may work too hard, but radiologists are uncommon in the current era of frequently being able to do extra remote work on an hourly or even “pay-per-click” basis, often on an ad hoc basis without notice and without a minimum. Work easily bleeds into the rest of the day, and we start to take a billable time approach to everything. A little bit of that time-is-money mindset is helpful (like knowing when to outsource tasks you don’t like), but too much is essentially just sad. If you could only work full extra shifts or extra weekends, you’d be less able to make reading a book to your kids “cost” $75.
Now, I don’t think I’m necessarily a good example of having it all figured out. I definitely did a fair bit of moonlighting during my early career as well as related endeavors (consulting, expert witness work, etc). I think one cheat code is having a generative hobby. I think for many people who are inclined to overwork, having “productive” leisure time can be a bit of an enjoyable loophole. It’s one thing to trade passively scrolling short-form video for extra money; it’s another thing to skip something you find truly meaningful and that aligns with your priorities.
For me, writing is part of that hobby. Writing, in some cases, also has outputs that have economic value, but I am not a professional writer, and the vast majority of my time spent writing does not lead to any direct income like reading scans does. But it does hit differently than, say, watching TV (to be clear: watching TV is fine). I think parenting also falls into that category in terms of being something that is “worth” the time that work can take away.
A second argument for leisure is a variation on the work-smarter-not-harder mode of productivity, which is that grinding gears for incremental gains at the margin can actually be counterproductive in the long term. Leisure time, meaningful relationships, physical fitness, etc., are all important ingredients to a long-term career. Maximizing long-term income is a marathon, not a sprint. I will say that I found this argument difficult to internalize when I was younger. Everyone always talks about diet and exercise and sleep as being important, but it wasn’t until I hit my personal rock bottom of fitness after doing COVID with two young children that I really doubled down and revitalized myself physically (though even now, I have a truly horrendous/embarassing caffeine habit).
Lastly, and most directly to your point, wealth accumulation is the difference between income and spending. “Number goes up” has some real novelty, and I don’t think it’s inherently bad to do extra work to get your financial house in check. I would say that living below your means is extremely helpful in taking the pressure off. Having student loans paid off, for me, was a great relief. Becoming debt-free except for a mortgage that we could easily afford was probably the next biggest threshold. I found the cash flow more reassuring (bank account still goes up every month despite saving appropriately) than the number in my 401k (which is prone to fluctuations and set aside for future-me). The money is for the purpose of living your best life. The money isn’t the goal.
There’s a good quote from Amos Tversky, the late Israeli psychologist, that we “waste years by not being able to waste hours.” He was talking about doing high-quality research, but I think it applies to high-quality living as well.
Life is what’s called an Infinite Game. You can’t win it. There is no “end” that we are trying to achieve and no conditions for victory. Living it well is the whole purpose.