This is a linkpost for https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/4jHqkfWpbP6Pd3aim/time-time-tradeoffs
I've seen the idea in this post:
Every now and then, you’ll have an opportunity to get great leverage on your money, your time, your energy, your friends, your internet connection, and so forth. Most days, the value of free time is relatively low, and can even be negative (“I’m bored!”), but when you need that time, you really need it. Money isn’t that important most of the time, but when you need it and don’t have it, it’s really bad. Most of the time being low energy, or not having as many friends as you’d like, or having a spotty internet connection, is mostly harmless, but at the wrong time it can spell disaster.
Using time now to save time later is often efficient even if you spend more time than you save, because that time later on might be orders of magnitude more important.
I think it's very important idea and one many people seem to not understand. For example back people complain that mandatory software updates disrupt their work. But usually you have some day to install any update, you could trigger update when you finish your work on first day it's available and never be forced to update when you don't want to.
Epistemic Status: An idea I thought of a few days ago and wrote up quickly.
I often hear EAs and rationalists making Time-Money tradeoffs. The general idea is that money can often be exchanged for time (e.g., buying an Uber to save 30 minutes), and time can be exchanged for money (e.g., spending an hour to earn $X).
For example, let’s suppose Alice values her time at $50 per hour. Alice is willing to turn her money into ways of freeing up their time (by paying other people to do work for her for less than $50 per hour, for paying for services that save her an hour for less than $50, etc.) or by knowing how much money she’d take to lose time (by only working only pay $50+, etc.).
I recently thought of another kind of tradeoff that I’ve been finding useful: Time-Time tradeoffs. The idea here is that present time can often be exchanged for future time (and vice-versa).
The idea here is that not all hours are equally valuable. A standard case might involve thinking about which hours of your day tend to be most productive. Let’s suppose that Alice “peaks” around 12PM: she tends to be 2X more productive from 12PM-1PM than any other hour of her day.
But Alice also benefits from eating lunch at some point in the afternoon. By default, Alice had been eating lunch at 12PM each day. But Alice realizes that she can push her lunch break back to 2PM. She is effectively making a trade: 12PM Alice gains an hour in exchange for an hour from 2PM Alice.
Time-time trades also relate to time-money trades. For example, if Alice values a “normal hour” of her time at $100/hour, she should be willing to pay $200 to save the hour from 12-1PM.
Additionally, time-time trades don’t have to be 1:1. I noticed this when I was at EAGxOxford. A marginal hour of my time spent on community-building (networking, coming up with ideas, etc) at EAGxOxford was at least 3X as valuable as a marginal hour of “regular” community-building. In order to maximize especially impactful time, it would be worthwhile to sacrifice a greater number of hours of less impactful time. For example, if Alice's 12-1PM is twice as effective as her usual hour, she should be willing to trade 90 minutes of “non-peak Alice time” in order to gain 60 minutes of “peak Alice time.”
After thinking about Time-Time trades, I intend to spend more time completing tasks before or after conferences, even if it takes more time overall. This allows “EAG Akash” to borrow time from “Past Akash.”
I think there are also examples in which “EAG Akash” would want to borrow time from "Future Akash." For example, suppose it’s the last day of EAG:
The examples are meant to be purely illustrative. For some people, it will not make sense to get 5 hours of sleep or to move their lunch to 2PM. I encourage you to consider how time-time tradeoffs might be useful in your life.
A few guiding questions:
Note: I would be shocked if I was the first person who thought about this, and I don’t claim that this is novel. If you know others who have written about this, feel free to leave this in the comments!
Note: I am grateful to Aris Richardson for being a writing fairy (listening to me talk about an idea, writing up a first draft, and then helping me edit/refine it. Writing fairies will be the subject of a future post). I am also grateful to Olivia Jimenez and Miranda Zhang for reviewing a draft.