Junk time vs. goal time
Mighty Oak Athletic Podcast S3:E101 - Junk time vs. goal time: What are you doing with the time you got back?
The point: It's in our nature to chase goals. People who finally get pure leisure (retirees, anyone with a free afternoon) tend to fill it with amusements that evaporate like morning dew — scrolling, watching, tapping. AI is handing Coach Mike hours back every week at Mighty Oak Athletic, and he's refusing to spend them on junk. Free time only counts if it's pointed at a goal. A screen is an amusement. A barbell is a goal.
Don't Fill the Time You Win Back With Junk
I was listening to a writer recently who said something that has stuck with me all week. He said it's in our DNA to work. Not to punch a clock, but to chase goals, to want to get from here to there. A goal, he said, is just a desired state of the world that you're trying to bring about. And then he pointed at the people we all know who retired, finally got everything they thought they wanted, no deadlines, no checklists, nothing but leisure, and became flat-out miserable.
The second half of his point hit harder. Most of us, when we get free time, don't use it for anything. We fill it with amusements. Something makes us smile or laugh for a few minutes, and then, like the morning dew, it evaporates. Scrolling, watching, tapping. Hours a day, maybe the majority of our waking hours, that don't add up to much of anything.
I'm thinking about this now because of what's happening at Mighty Oak Athletic behind the scenes. Over the last year I've built AI systems that handle a big chunk of the work that used to eat my evenings. The website, the emails, the scheduling, the parts of running a gym that nobody sees. It's working. It's giving me back hours every week. And the question I keep asking myself is the same one I want to put to you: now that you have the time, what are you going to do with it?
Here's the trap. The time you win back doesn't come labeled. It doesn't show up as a block on your calendar called "be a better father" or "get strong." It shows up as a gap, and gaps get filled by whatever is easiest. The easiest thing is a screen. That's how a guy ends up with more free time than he's ever had and less to show for it.
The answer isn't to work more. It's to point the time at a goal. That's the whole reason a gym like ours exists. Nobody needs a barbell to survive in 2026. What people need is a place where the desired state of the world is clear, measurable, and worth the effort. Add ten pounds to the bar. Earn the next shirt. Show up three times this week when nothing is on the line. Those are goals in the truest sense: from here to there, with your own effort in between.
Watch a kid at MOA do this. A six-year-old gets a kettlebell in his hands and he's not entertaining himself, he's working. He wants to get better at the thing. The look on his face when he finally cleans the bar isn't the morning-dew kind. It stays. Weeks later he's still telling you about it. That's the difference between an amusement and an accomplishment, and kids feel it long before they can name it.
Adults feel it too. We've just gotten better at numbing it. That vague dissatisfaction at the end of a Sunday where you "relaxed" the whole day? That's your nature telling you it wants a job. Not busywork. A goal.
So this is how I'm choosing to spend the hours the machines gave back. Coaching in person, on the floor, with more attention per athlete than I've had in years. Sitting down face to face with members to go through their nutrition journals. Training my own body, because I'm not going to ask your kid to chase a number I won't chase myself. Time with my family that isn't spent half-looking at a phone. None of that is leisure. All of it is better than leisure.
Technology is going to keep handing us time. That's not the problem. The problem is that junk time is the default, and defaults win unless you decide otherwise. So decide otherwise. Pick a goal with a barbell attached to it, or a kid attached to it, or a skill attached to it, and give your free time somewhere to go.
Be strong to be useful. That's what the extra time is for.
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Human beings are wired to chase goals — a desired future state you work toward. Remove every goal and replace it with pure leisure, and many people lose the structure that made life feel meaningful.
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An amusement gives a few minutes of pleasure and then evaporates (scrolling, watching). A goal has a clear endpoint and requires effort to reach — like adding weight to a bar or earning the next level in a progression. The satisfaction from a goal lasts.
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Every session uses barbells, kettlebells, and bodyweight with measurable targets, plus a nine-level shirt progression system that gives athletes as young as six a clear path from here to there.
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AI systems handle back-office work — website, email, scheduling — which frees Coach Mike to spend more time coaching in person on the gym floor and reviewing nutrition journals face to face with members.
