(Author of the post)

For energy, it both requires and pays dividends. It's a bit like working out in that sense.

I think my intended takeaway was that you really don't need to have make the thing you're studying take a lot of time, that daily consistency matters more than pouring hours into practice and obsessing about it.

Though in general, I do still think it's the phones and media diet that is the problem with the sense of lacking time.

Few years ago I had a full time job I felt like I had no time. Then I had a part time job, and I still had no time. Now I'm self employed, with nobody to answer to, and I still often feel like I have no time. Like damn, to get more time than I actually already have I'd need to move in next door to a black hole. Though when I unplug, then holy crap do I suddenly end up with a lot of time.

But even then, it's still the phone, in my experience. It takes up so many hours but you also don't really rest, and it also tends to keep you up too long at night.

If you can replace five hours of doom scrolling with an hour of doing nothing in particular, an hour more of sleep, some time staring at a book page or soduku, some more work on chorse, you'll most likely gain an hour or so to use on something that takes mental energy.

I think when people say "not enough time", they just mean "uninterrupted time". This is the thing that is extremely difficult in conjunction with parenting (and not just toddlers). There is a close to zero sum tradeoff between being truly present with your kids, and having intellectually high quality uninterrupted time. But there is actually lots of time scattered about throughout the days! It's just in little moments here and there before you hear "dad, can you help me?". I really struggle with this, I have enough time in these scattered moments for my mind to get bored frequently, but I have nowhere close to the uninterrupted time necessary to develop a real serious hobby like woodworking. (Parenting is also the best thing in the world, this is not a complaint about parenting, it just happens to be that the specific topic of this article is the hardest thing about it, for me.)

Psychological state is key, and I think you're understating it.

The human mind is always passively working on problems. We are not necessarily aware of how much working memory is "tied up" on background computations, but when it's a lot, we will feel a natural aversion to new learning, it will be exhausting, and we will lack for curiosity. This is fine, working as intended.

When in this state, what one usually needs to do is a different part of the learning process: not absorbing new information or abstractions, but making sense of what one already knows, working out contradictions, assembling larger-scale theories--synthesis, basically. "Learning" is only one part of the arc of "thinking".

Usually this is best done by writing, and usually comes easiest when trying to convince someone else or what we believe. If you can't find the energy to learn, try writing instead.

Making a strict hour and a half of no-interruption a day has worked well for me. Learned this from John Cleese (feel free to ignore the word “management” in the title of the video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pb5oIIPO62g

Still occasionally get interrupted because of life, of course, but marking off an hour and a half and closing a door and putting all chores/calls on silent during that time is very helpful. And I understand that for many it is simply not possible. Private space is a luxury in much of the world.

A sense of play and no obligation also helps. For more on this I recommend Rubin’s The Creative Act.

I have been having more 'luck' with those factors and less luck with physical comfortability (I don't mean air conditioning; I have that). Also, timing.

It is very true that it is becoming hard to monetize knowledge. The depth a lot of people seek is often the depth of about at most five or six websearch queries, or maybe three or four AI-enabled queries.

It blows my mind that people want things like neural interfaces and human/computer physical integration, in part because, okay, let's say you have all that information there in your head, 24/7. What would it even be useful for, especially if others had it. You could not really make pay in any career involving a thought economy, and at the same time, you would destroy curiosity and actual learning, and you would almost certainly be (ugh) Bored (and Boring to anyone else). One reason Elon rubs me the wrong way.

I have too much emotional attachment to progress. A lot of people made the mistake of putting too much energy into e.g. career instead of what you really want outside of a paycheck. Well, now I really am doing the thing I've always wanted, of course I suck at it, and most days I feel bad in the process.

Some people feel good about making mistakes. Though necessary for long-term success, this is a completely foreign mindset to me. I have no idea how a person can do such a thing. I tend to overreact instead.

It's not any wonder I would turn to doomscrolling in response, it seems the stakes in my mind are too high and effort invariably leads to depression (speaking from experience). It's too important to me to fail at. Maladaptive phone usage is for escaping that anxiety. I'm most likely burnt out from other attempts in the past. I don't get this feeling at all with work since I'm only doing it for money.

I would feel bad if I couldn't learn the things I really wanted to in life because the emotional toll is too high to pay, after putting in all the work to have a stable income. I still have to manage the rest of my life on top of optional things.

I'd argue all of those are often issues of how we perceive circumstances vs what actually is going on. There are real situations that crowd out this sort of thing, but they don't apply to everyone (having people that need care comes to mind or crunches at work).

Jung has a great quote to the effect of, "we don't solve our problems, but rather outgrow them." Life is going to feel like mostly-imperfect circumstances for any venture, and your brain can be too good at rationalizing any [lack of] behavior.

Anxiety procrastination is basically my default state. I find doing things with my hands while listening to dumb podcasts helps dissipate that energy.

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