>Our society is such that we typically work 8 out of 24 hours(33%)

I always think you should look at the effective free time you have left. I can't do much in my sleep (-8h), I can't do much on my commute (-1.5h), I can't do much in my lunch break (I have to take a 45 minute lunch break by law, it's way too short to use it as actual free time, but takes another significant chunk out of your day.)

I get to 24h-8h-8h-1.5h-0.75h = 5.75h of E.F.T. that's only 24% of your day you actually have for yourself, assuming comparatively reasonable western working times and pretty average commute times.

76% of your day is not effectively free time.

In what city is 1.5h the average commute time, just to make sure I'll never go there.

Washington DC according to https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/study-states-with-the-longes...

I don't sleep in the office, so my commute is 45min x 2, which as far as I know is quite average.

I'm in Stuttgart, Germany, it's a very crowded town with very narrow roads though, so there's certainly a reason for this.

Seattle. I work with people who have 2hr commutes, both ways.

That would be 4h in my calculation, because I counted the time per day you can't freely allocate.

when i was working at an office, my avg commute was 1h each way (using uber). that's são paulo, brazil where 150+km of traffic jams is not unusual.

To add to that - 5.75h free time might seem like a decent amount (although you didn’t account for things like washing, cooking, shopping which eat up much of the remaining time) but much of that time is after work when I’m normally fried from ~12 hours working/commuting/doing chores, leaving me incapable of anything that’s even moderately mentally taxing

Yeah, it depends a bit on how much you enjoy cooking, but there's definitely something to that.

Working less is a choice many can make if prepared to take the financial and cultural consequences.

Financially, the choice is quite accessible. For many groups in the Western world a bit less so than in 1970. Especially for us geeks, more accessible than ever.

Basically, you would be taking your retirement in small chunks instead of at the end of your life.

People need to work to create them.