A little while back I saw this vlog entry by Casey Neistat:

Now Casey has a great, great vlog, and I highly recommend it, if you’ve got some free time (i.e. Not time you should be spending writing). He oftentimes gives inspirational bits about the importance of working harder on the things that you care about, and about how you can do a whole lot with very little if you only have the courage to create.

In this video he maps out his day, and basically urges his viewers not to become fat and lazy. The videography is great, as usual, and the piece is very inspiring. Do the work, push yourself to the limit every day, cut down on your leisure time, invest time and effort in what is important to you. All of these things have been said before, but Casey puts them in a wonderfully vivid and fresh way.

But as someone who is working very hard everyday for a good while now not to be “fat and lazy,” I have a few issues with it.

Casey does have leisure time, and so should you. Unlike what he says in this video, if you’ve ever watched one of his vlog entries you know that he does have leisure time — he just doesn’t count it as leisure (go ahead and watch a few entries if you don’t believe me). Yes, you should cut down the time you spend on video games, TV, social networks, etc. No, you should not cut them down to zero. I recently talked to a friend of mine who used to love playing the piano and taking landscape photographs. His life is now all work and family, with barely enough time for friends, let alone his hobbies. “Don’t you miss them?” I asked. “Of course I do,” he answered wistfully, “but I don’t have time for them in my life anymore”. Don’t do that to yourself. Leave some time for yourself, to recharge and have fun.

If Casey slept four hours a day regularly, he’d probably be dead. We need a minimum of six hours of sleep to, you know, live, and we could all use more sleep than we allow ourselves. We live in incredibly sleep deprived times, and we all need to work hard to get more and better sleep, not less. This is your short and long term health we are talking about here. Don’t cut corners (or sleep hours) on this one.

So yes, work harder. But no, don’t kill yourself doing it.