This resonates with me. I love my work, I really like what I do, I think it's mentally challenging, interesting, and important for our world and civilization and I believe I'm compensated well enough. But it's tiring ok? And all I can ever do on weekends is lying on my bed watching netflix. I work 9 to 6 and work out intensely for 2 hours every week day. By the time it's saturday I'm both physically and mentally exhaust. I cannot do anything other than sleeping. Of course this is not a good situation for various reasons: no friends, no relationships, no hobbies. Just work, gym, and recovering from those two. I like this for a lot of reasons (which is why I do it) but I acknowledge that my life is also pathetic. I wouldn't be surprised if I died alone.
First off, it seems as though your gym schedule is very intense and easing on that may help especially the physical aspect of what you’re going through.
Secondly, I strongly recommend, if you don’t already, to just maybe see a therapist? It seems like you’ve got some cool things going on and like you could be a cool person, and sometimes it’s tough to reach out. I had to myself recently.
Seriously. If they're hitting the gym with any sort of intensity, 2 hours a day is going to leave you destroyed on the weekends. 3-4 days a week is plenty. Your body needs to rebuild.
You should definitely see a therapist, you sound clinically depressed. Laying in bed all weekend is not healthy. Making friends and having lasting relationships takes effort but is a requirement to have a happy and fulfilling life (excluding total hermits who are perfectly happy ignoring family, friends, and social contact, and some of those people do exist on HN and will argue with this comment).
You have a career, now it's time to have a life. You owe it to yourself.
"Requirement" is too strong a word. We've all read the Harvard 75 years old study [0] probably here, cause it was posted couple of times on HN, but I for one side with Chamfort: "Happiness is very difficult to find in yourself, but impossible to find someplace else"
I've felt this way all my life, even before I read Chamfort. I always valued quality relationships with people, not just any relationship with anyone. To me, being alone is much better than being in the wrong company.
It's very hard to find good, well-mannered people with moral integrity. At least it is for me. And based on everything I see around me, those people are just rare. Most people tolerate each other, instead of actively wanting to be friends/whatever with each other. I don't fully understand why that is. But is just is. I'm curious to see other's thoughts on this subject, though.
He (or she) does not sound clinically depressed at all! They are excited about life and work. Wanting to relax and spend some alone time on the weekend is not depression. May be lonely, and probably not healthy in the long term, but not depressed. Depression is primarily characterized by hopelessness and despair.
Like others I think you should see a therapist about it.
Work - Gym - Netflix, misses so many things from reaching a balanced life.
A person needs to interact with others apart from their work and gym. Also I do understand that through e.g Netflix you are sort of interacting with 'others' points of views etc e.g getting emotional about your favourite character etc. Thing is that this needs to happen in your real life as well apart from the imaginary world of watching a film or online gaming for example.
I too for some years while growing up got stuck into computer games, and it felt like it was the only thing I liked to do. I got out of it and I am happy I did so, now I have a family, I go out, I go to the gym, I like working too, I do play video games for 1-2 hours a day on my off time and I am quite happy that I explored and learnt that there are way more things in life than just video games.
I hope that helps you understand that you also need some human interaction in your personal life.
Nobody wants to interact with me, can't speak for the grandparent, but not everybody has the same options as everybody else. With me, people have a visceral reaction of extreme dislike upon first meeting me, so I have to work twice as hard, and when "friendship" is so ephemeral it's a lot of work for little long term reward, tbh.
I faced similar things regarding time management. I shifted my exercise stuff towards HIIT, i.e. short but super intense exercises most of days (~30 minutes), with 2x/week strenuous weightlifting ones that might take longer. I know this limited amount won't make me an Olympic winner, but I don't care. Then, remote work with my own hours helps another time management issue; usually I am done working at 2pm and can do something with my life. Then once/twice a month I throw a party where I invite a lot of people from all around the world from different fields, many of whom I never interacted with before (if you are in a large international city, it gets easier). Then there are hobbies, where I suddenly have time to pursue e.g. serious photography or electronic music composition etc.
This is a super intriguing comment. Could you say more about the parties? I'm imagining a bunch of your Twitter followers descending from everywhere on Munich or something into a warehouse that you rent out.
I can relate to your schedule, but you have to break it up. Working out every day is great, but 2 hours of 100% intensity is tough. It's okay to do a light run on some days. The Zen concept here is you want to fill everyday with as much as possible without impacting your ability to do the same tomorrow. Think of your life as a marathon instead of sprint. What hours would you need to keep to exercise and work every single day? Treat the week like that and you'll have the time and energy to do other things on the weekend.
You also need to find some things outside work. Joining a sports league would help. You get your exercise and meet people. Jiu Jitsu is fun and many gyms treat all the members like extended family. It's also mentally challenging (think physical chess), so it gets your mind off of work.
2 hours a day of solo gym exercise is pathological unless you have some really good reason to be doing it and it's making someone happy. Which it clearly isn't.
It's possible to get to 'intermediate' powerlifter level on about 2-3 hours a week. There are of course many other goals, but 12 hours a week in the gym is almost certainly reaching diminishing returns for almost any of the goals I can think of (with the possible exception of really hardcore bodybuilding or endurance work).
I’d also recommend Jiu Jitsu. Incredibly fun, physically demanding, and very social. It’s also damn near impossible to be thinking of anything but the present moment while in the middle of rolling, so I’ve found it be a great way to reset my brain after a long and demanding day of work.
Dying is terrible, but there is definitely a difference between being surrounded by loved ones and being all alone or among strangers.
"Everyone dies alone" is one of those things that is sort of technically correct, but has absolutely nothing to do with what people mean when they talk about dying alone.
I used to work out 1.5hrs 4 times a week -- it was so exhausting on-top of my normal day (I'm a dancer as well) that I was about to just let it all crash and walk away.
I since changed my schedule to 40 min, 3 times a week, 2 sets, maximum reps till failure with pyramids.
Most gains in strength i have ever achieved with the least amount of work I have ever done.
Less time - more ROI
check out @maclulich on Insta -- I can back it up.
I think we all need to be part of a small tribe, a group of friends we see at least every two weeks or so. Also getting intense contact with nature, I’ve noticed that if I’m without going out for more than 2 weeks I also begin to feel down and lay in the couch. Biking, skiing, trekking, it doesn’t matter, be out in the nature, far from the city.
Unsolicited advice usually makes me feel worse about a given discomfort in my life. Do others really think I haven't considered these simple remedies? Most people assume that, if someone is in a bad way and sharing their experience, they possess the armchair wisdom to save them.
I imagine they think you have tried most of them. But from experience, even if someone telling me to go do sports was getting really tiresome after a while. I was still looking for other things I could try.
If you are unhappy you should change. Take that as given.
I will second the people who say two hours is a lot. Honestly more time with lighter amounts of activity (thinking walking rather than deadlifting) is actually healthier for you in the long run. The human body is a 250,000 year old OS with the last update maybe 10,000 years ago, and for most of that time we sat around and ate a badger (or similar) maybe once a week.
If you want friends, join a group that does some light activity and then hangs out. Kickball is fun as is hiking or ultimate frisbee or kickboxing. Working out and friends can go together! Two birds stoned in the hand is worth three sober in the bush, or something.
Maybe you want to ask yourself what you are working out for. If working out is actively eating into the reason that you are working out for, then I hope you can see the damage or at least the redundancy caused by extra workouts.
Also, you could take a look at some workout-esque hobbies. Bouldering has become very popular recently. Maybe try playing a sport that is high intensity (like squash or swimming)
Please read Feeling Good by Dr. David Burns, or even check out the website he maintains. He gives lots of resources for DIY Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, if you want to give that a shot before professional help.
Work less and get outside more. Whatever it is your job entails, it's simply not important nor urgent enough to deprive yourself of experiencing a greater variety of living.
Death, alone or accompanied, is inherently irrelevant. That you're even thinking about it suggests you're aware on some level that this pattern isn't a good use of your life.
If you're going to the gym that often, you must be in great physical shape. Go climb a mountain, working at computers endlessly is for suckers.
This was me in grad school. I did do stuff on the weekends, but most of it was vegging. It didn't work out for me healthwise. I would recommend trying to transition into a more slow-burn, less intense lifestyle. If work is that intense that you need to crash on the weekends, it can add up over time in bad ways.
What I don't understand here: Why can't we just work less?
I know it's not trivial, but it can't be impossible either. I doubt he would starve if he got a part-time dev job (are those easy to find? I have no idea). I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. I think a life of work-home-work without breathing is almost meaningless unless you can have possibly unreasonable amounts of fun and freedom in the job (few if any industries allow/demand this kind of work). Indeed if a job allows for fun and freedom markets will usually exploit this advantage to try and push you to work even more (if you let them of course).
I'm still a student but I'll certainly look for a job that's either totally fulfilling (rare) or allows as much freedom as possible while maintaining a reasonable lifestyle and quality of life.
It is the government's explicit policy to continually raise the price of housing (etc) so that most everybody is forced into working "full time" to keep up the "growth".
The elephant in the room is that all of those housekeeping tasks used to generally be done during the week by a second householder. So what happened?! Rather than double income households actually resulting in getting ahead, economic feedback simply made it the new normal!
Similar destruction of economic progress happened when Walmart (et al) gutted local business - a lot of high-margin employers went away, yet prices weren't allowed to go down. So rather than local economies' costs at least going down along with their pay, they only got the downside.
Taking into account women entering the workforce plus general technological progress, "full time employment" these days should be under 15 hours per week!
> It is the government's explicit policy to continually raise the price of housing (etc) so that most everybody is forced into working "full time" to keep up the "growth".
I downvoted you because of this extraordinary claim. If you're going to make a claim like this you need to provide evidence. Not only that but the government doesn't even have direct control of property values and indirect control is at the local level.
The biggest reason is because bosses don’t want us to. They want to make as much money as possible, and that’s about it really. The good news is we have made progress, through mass action, people have won the right to weekends, fewer hours and other rights. The final battle is one to win control of the workplace itself, a self-managed and owned workplace.
I convinced my boss to let me work less days per week. 4 to be precise. It was a very very rare exception open just for me and because I was a well regarded dev 2+ years in the team. Since then, I had interviews with companies and recruiters and there simply isn't any offers for reduced week loads. Companies have fixed costs in hiring you, I guess, and want to suck you dry ASAP.
Pretty much. People have been talking of 6 hour work days and 4 day work week for awhile now. It makes sense. It is mostly a matter of, lack of, influence.
The final battle is the only battle worth striving for. Become financially independent and make bosses a thing of your past. You would not believe how motivating it is to work for yourself.
Even when self employed I don't really want to. I know 5 days/week is unproductive, but it's difficult to scale down to 4. That's cutting down "potential" salary by 20% and with all the fixed costs out there, the potential income loss is much, much higher.
But the reality is that being constantly tired is unproductive and having 50% more time off is huge.
The first step to working less is being in a comfortable enough financial position that you can push your boundaries without worrying that if it backfires you'll be out of work and behind on your bills.
Once you have the money to cushion the blow, you can start pushing back on demands for your time with a lot more confidence. A thing I've personally found is that my employer just wants results and things done on time and when needed. They don't particularly care how much time I'm physically in the office working.
Definitely not impossible, one of my co-workers switched to only working 3 days a week last year. He lives a fairly frugal lifestyle and enjoys more time for other things, so it works well for him... But it wasn't easy for him to get either, they originally told him he'd only be able to continue like that on a temporary 4 month contract... But we work in a larger bureaucractic company, and after a couple months it was clear that we wouldn't get approval to automatically replace him any time soon if he left completely, so it made more sense to keep him permanently even at 3 days a week, rather than have no one new. It helped that he was one of the better performers on the team, so even at 3 days a week he's very productive, he's just taken less of a role on many of the side tasks that he used to do.
Hiring is actually a tremendous burden for most small/mid sized business with all of the compliance and regulatory stuff. Its far cheaper to hire one person for 40 hours/week than 2 people for 20, even if their pay is half.
This. It’s interesting to read all the other reasons people think that we don’t have a shorter workweek but the above is the simplest reason. It’s also easier to manage 1 person working 40 hours than 2 people working 20 hours. It’s also less effort to interview and hire 1 vs 2 people. As the business owner you might even prefer hiring a 60 hour employee over 1.5 40 hour employees by the same reasoning, but we in the U.S. and western world have reached an equilibrium in the supply/demand at something around 40 hours.
You can. Anyone that says you can't hasn't tried hard enough.
Ask your boss. Tell them you want a better work-life balance, tell them it's really important to you and that it's something you will prioritize. Work 4 days a week and get 4/5th of the pay. Step down to 3 days a week later.
If your boss won't come at it, find one that will. Your time is so much more important than more money.
There are a lot of industries where if you aren't at work before and after the boss is and aren't there 50+ hours and promptly answering calls and emails all weekends, you will not ever be promoted. A lot of my friends in finance are going through an existential crisis due to the weight that this mandatory brown nosing has on their well being, despite the decent pay. A lot of them feel trapped in their job, that they can't transition to a better industry with a better culture without basically resetting the last five years of their careers with no guarantees of making it back through the rat race, or that it will be culturally any different at all.
Its worth noting that “tried hard” isn’t a good description of the things necessary. You need to creatively manoever into a position to do so and you need to know how to do that.
I’ve worked both 3 and 4 day weeks (at 8 hours a day), and it was always really great, but it made me feel I was missing so many things in the workplace, I’m now not particularly bothered by working 5 days.
But if you want to do a lot of things beside work, 3 days is best.
It’s also a bit dependent on life situation. When I left university I was perfectly good with 3/5ths salary, but now with a family to support that would be hard.
Graeber's book on Bullshit Jobs gives an answer: we work more , and for longer hours, as a (fallacious) proof that our jobs are useful after all. Being busy, in a hurry, and tired is a form of validation.
1) Ask for a 30 hour work week, or find a company that can offer this. Your salary should still be high enough to aim for a comfortable retirement at 65.
2) Adopt a more frugal lifestyle and increase your savings rate.
You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years, and then you should be able to retire in your 30s or 40s. You should also aim to increase your salary by changing jobs every few years (or get a job at a FAANG.)
3) Build side projects or a startup and try to get some passive income (or an exit)
Write all your startup ideas down and keep looking for opportunities. It can be hard to build products in the evenings or weekends, especially if you're already burnt out from your normal job. So this option works best when combined with part-time freelance work:
4) Become a freelancer and work part-time while you work on your own projects
Bonus: Move to a place with a very low cost of living.
Working 10-20 hours per week gives you a lot of free time and much longer weekends. But it also gives you a lot of time and energy to work on your own ideas.
Note that working 10 hours per week is a terrible idea if you just spend the rest of your time working on hobbies that don't make any money. If you do that, then you won't even be able to retire at 65, and you probably won't be able to save money for emergencies. Only do this if you spend the rest of your time trying to build a business.
If you can't get anything to work after ~10 years of trying, then you should still have plenty of time to go back to a full-time job and save for retirement.
> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income.
You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of living, as you suggested, you'll need even less.
You would be surprised how little of what you consider "necessities" of your lifestyle you actually need, or miss when they are gone.
A conservative "safe withdrawal rate" is about 3.5%, so you need around $1.1M invested in index funds in order to have $40k income per year.
I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.
Honestly, I am surprised that by now, places in SEA/ India haven't become retirement homes for low savings westerners.
2 people can easily live lavish life in India (something like Goa or a nice hill station) for ~$2000 a month.
Healthcare is not as bad, especially in urban locations. People speak English well, and it isn't that far, given that people drive ~10 hours across states to meet family anyways.
If no one else steals this 'idea' , I might just think of implementing it 20 years down the line.
> You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years,
How would a few million be possible? What is your contextual salary for this position, and their expected expenses?
Earn 250k on average across 15 years. This is quite conservative for FAANG. In California, you'll take home about 150k. Each year, live frugally off 50k and put away 100k in index funds. Over 15 years, you'll gain 7% real annual returns from the stock market. In 15 years you'll go from $0 to $2.5m. At a very conservative safe withdrawal rate of 3.5%, you can withdraw about 85k per year for the rest of your life.
If you're dual income for part of that 15 years, you'll have far more money, or you can retire a few years earlier.
I haven't looked into this recently, but are 30-hour work weeks a thing now? With benefits and all? Last time I checked they were being piloted by a couple of companies, but it wasn't so commonplace that you could just go out and find a company offering one. I feel like you could also be cast as "lazy" (at least in American culture) if you asked for a 30-hour work week.
I dream about a 30-hour work week for all of the reasons listed in the parent article... I would take a 25% paycut for one without second thought
"Average pension pot at 55. On average those aged 55-65 currently have £105,496 saved in pensions, according to research released by Aegon in June last year": hmm.
> I feel like my whole life is centered around work. Even though I work a (what is considered) reasonable 40-hour work-week, I feel like too much of time is taken away from me. Not only is it actually being in the office but commuting too. My morning are devoted to getting ready for work: dressing up, packing up a lunch and so on.
As someone who also works a reasonable 40-hour a week job, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference working remote has made.
I used to commute an hour each direction in the DC area, and (like the author) spent time preparing meals, getting dressed, etc. I have since moved to the NC area to work remote, and quality of life improvement is incredible:
- I can get to work immediately with no commute, and when I'm done, I don't have to get in a car to get home.
- Lunch break involves making a healthy lunch in my own kitchen, then reading a book while I eat in the comfort of my own home.
- I am a coffee enthusiast, and I love being able to make a french press, pour-over, or cold brew right in my kitchen.
- Crappy weather and accidents on the roads no longer have any effect on my workday.
- I get the exact office setup I want.
- I can go work at a coffee shop, an outdoor park, or even at the beach (all of which I have done), if I want a change of scenery.
WRT to the central point: I hate the _concept_ of living for the weekend, and have taken intentional and proactive steps to ensure that I don't fall into that trap.
Just a few examples:
- Get up early, and make time for what matters. I like to work out in the mornings, and also make sure to do any hobbies or side projects during this time, as my brain is fresh.
- Make yourself stop working at the appropriate time. This will differ depending on your job and your personal preference, but I draw a line in the sand and do not let myself work any later than 6 PM. My personal time is very important to me, and even though I love my job, I will never choose it over my personal time.
- Make sure to do things you like during the week, too. This really just involves not allowing yourself to believe that you can only make time for yourself on the weekends. Sometimes I'll get up early and meet someone for breakfast at a restaurant, sometimes I'll do a fun hobby in the evening, like rock climbing. If your job is flexible enough you could even step away for a quick break during the day to do something outside, like bicycling or kayaking, if that's your thing.
I've been working remotely my whole life (freelance developer).
It's interesting how jaded I am of driving in general. There are certain intersections in my town where it's common to get stuck at a red light that lasts for minutes. Things like this put me on complete life tilt. All I think about is "how can anyone put up with this every day?". I'm no longer surprised why people go berserk out of no where.
I really don't know how people do it. Getting stuck in traffic or waiting on long red lights sucks the life out of you because it's such an utter waste of time. Maybe I'm just not used to it (I drive, but it's usually outside of rush hour), but man, I am pretty sure I couldn't exist in a world where I had to do the traffic grind daily.
Yes - once you have full control of your time things like traffic and lineups drive you bonkers.
Honestly, one would think that 'less stress' and a more peaceable mindset give one more resilience in dealing with such things, but just the opposite.
To deal with traffic you almost have to 'give up' on the notion of doing something quickly and resign to the reality of it, which is what happens if you have to deal with it daily.
When working from home I avoid doing absolutely anything during rush hour.
> waiting on long red lights sucks the life out of you because it's such an utter waste of time
Weird... now that you mention this, I recall that during grad school when I had complete control over my time (and essentially worked remotely), I would get so angry sitting at red lights. Now that I have a corporate job, they no longer seem to bother me. Maybe you're on to something.
I use the time at traffic lights to do little stretching and twisting exercises in my seat. Rotating my wrists, punching, wiggling my ankles and hips. Basically the warmup exercises I need to feel healthy at 40, and a good use of dead time. I do neck and wrist twists when I'm on cruise control too.
I've ended up in a situation where I am commuting one hour each way to a client's office once per week.
This is my choice -- I could work totally remote, but I have found it necessary in order to resolve some issues to go in.
The difference is even more stunning when you are only doing it 20% of the time. I am fried when I get home, and commuting in Houston on a regular basis can take years off your life.
People get sucked into living like this slowly and don't realize how damaging it is.
I'm super lucky and 1) Work from home 2 days a week, and 3) When I do travel to the office, I rotate my day forward to start from 5:30 am and finish at 2:30 - 3 pm to avoid traffic.
15 years ago in Houston, 6:30 am was adequate to avoid most traffic when commuting from the Northside, nowadays, you need to be out the door about 4:30 am. That's a huge change. Traffic on I45 ramps up in the Spring area, right around 5 am.
Seems that you have an innate talent for regularity. For some it's tough to get moving when home after a while. Some get lonely. All your points are super valid and super obvious and moving to an office involves so much drag it's insane.. but we need to learn a few balancing tricks for remote work too.
I don’t have any talents for regularity (diagnosed adult ADD), but I work 100% remotely for the last few years, and I was never happier. Office environment is a strain for people like me.
I used to work a 4-day week (a true 32-hour week, not 4 x 10 or something) and it was the greatest thing I've ever done. All the "weekend stuff" you can do on your extra day, and get two full days off. I can't believe how great it was.
Though I’m young and have little work experience, I’ve already started to think that a ~30-hour work week would be optimal for the rest of my life. My current work place is very flexible in work hours and days, so I decided to do 6-hour days. I think it leaves me enough time to get daily activities & hobbies done and relax.
I really enjoy my work. However, I still occasionally think to myself “man, this kinda sucks”. I think it’s because I feel the need to put my productivity in something original, something that is born from my personal passion only.
After I graduated from college, I actually kept a year-long “break” and just stayed at home. On this “break”, I set up daily tasks for myself to see what I could accomplish on my own. I did creative, productive stuff from 5 to 7 hours a day. I was learning Spanish. Programming. Piano. All on my own. It was a really awesome year. The problem in the long run, of course, is that I don’t get any money from those. It was only possible because I was still living with my parents. I would really like to do all of those activities as often as I could back then, but it’s just not possible now with a job.
I hope to soon have a solution for this: a business. Currently I’m slowly working on a software project on my free time, with the aim of it eventually creating a solid income, with a relatively small need of maintenance. Not overly confident that it’ll work out, but I’ll do my best to be able to do the stuff I want, as long as I want, while also being able to live comfortably. That’s the dream.
You can build up a reputation on the side by creating educational "content" (ugh I hate that word) in the form of written tutorials, videos, etc. While you're building up that reputation + backlog of content, you can also be building an email list of people who like your stuff. Then you'll have an audience ready and waiting if/when you launch a product.
It's not necessarily fast, but it can work! I started in 2015 blogging, wrote & launched a book in 2016, and quit my job in 2018 to focus on my own products. I don't make nearly as much (yet!) but 100% of my time is my own and I can grow it at my own pace.
Just working at home gives all these benefits. No commute saves tons of time. An hour or so at lunch lets you do most of the normal house chores. I end up working more from home, but with so much less stress. And, when I stop working I can go right into leisure time.
Same here. There is a world of difference between 32 hours/week and 40/week. I'm looking forward to being more settled in my current job so I can move back to 4 days/week (and be more productive too).
I’ve just been hired by big tech (TM) working 4 days a week. Have done this in the last 2-3 jobs. Ask for it (after you have been made an offer), blaze the trail. We can make this become the norm!
I just switched to every other Friday off and it seems like it will help a lot. I can never relax until like Saturday evening and then Sunday it's like welp, back to work.
I’ve tried to think of a way out of this, but so far none of my ideas are very good.
1) Use my spare time to study a more lucrative field, and negotiate a four-day work week. The pitfall here is that I need to spend all of my spare time working, so that I may be able to work less in the future (and it’s not guaranteed that I will).
2) Move to a country where the cost of living is cheap, and freelance with international clients. The pitfall here is that I have to move away from all the people I care about. I may also end up introducing more stress into my life by living as a foreigner and relying on a freelance income.
3) Invest all of my time into starting my own business (for pitfalls, see 1).
4) Negotiate a four-day work week on my current wage, live a much more ascetic lifestyle, and only save a small amount of money for my future.
5) Marry into a wealthy family.
6) Find a duffel bag with a few million dollars in it.
> Use my spare time to study a more lucrative field
assuming you are in software development field, it is tricky to get into a more lucrative one, probably easier to just stay here.
> Move to a country where the cost of living is cheap, and freelance with international clients
Not long-term sustainable. Might work for couple years (especially if you are single and have perfect health), but after a lot of problem will show up – relatives, friends, connections, etc. Also, you might want your own home.
Overall, you listed it. Other ideas are:
1. embrace it. Be consistent in your hobbies, and dedicate one day to it (like Saturday). It is tough for new hobbies, but if you are already in it, might be just fine. Not everybody has to produce something artsy and from their passion – your family, what you like might be enough. Try to reflect on it sometime, it might clear some things for you.
2. Retire early. If you live more frugally (or not so posh, depending on your preferences), you can easily save plenty of money, which will allow you to retire not in 65, but around ~45 (number depends heavily, but you got the idea).
3. Aggressively negotiate vacation days, and take off 1–2 days at the end/beginning of the week. You'll work much less (you'll notice it), and taking 2 days off reduces 2 weeks into 4 days work week.
Will assume you are programmer, here, if not the dynamic might be different.
The presumption is that you get paid less when you work less. And this is true, to an extent: when I've negotiated a shorter workweek I've typically gotten paid correspondingly less, e.g. at 4 days a week get paid 80% time.
So again, it's possible to get 80% of a higher salary.
You'll still get paid less than you could have otherwise... but beyond a certain point I and others at least have found time to be more important than money.
To add insult to injury I find doing things on the weekend often a chore because everything is so crowded. Around here finding a parking place at the mall, movie theaters, etc is very difficult. There's a beautiful state park that my wife and I love. But to go there on the weekend you gotta arrive either at 6am or 6pm. The parking lot fills up solid, complete with people lurking in their cars waiting for someone to leave. Want to get out of town? Be prepared to sit in lots of traffic. I sometimes seriously wonder if living in such a crowded part of the country is worth it.
I had to take a blood test today. Normally if I go my local clinic the wait time is 15 minutes. But because I went on a Saturday the wait was 1-2 hours!!
My technique is to remember where the job ranks in my "give a shit about" list and it's not as high as you might assume. I am not irreplaceable, and either is my job. So I try to give a good value for the work I'm paid to do, but at the end of the workday I flip the switch, as it were, and my life is my own. I am militant about not letting my job control me. I am polite but firm with coworkers and managers, and they respect my off-hours time, and I respect theirs. We all have families so that probably helps.
Readit News
Secondly, I strongly recommend, if you don’t already, to just maybe see a therapist? It seems like you’ve got some cool things going on and like you could be a cool person, and sometimes it’s tough to reach out. I had to myself recently.
You have a career, now it's time to have a life. You owe it to yourself.
I've felt this way all my life, even before I read Chamfort. I always valued quality relationships with people, not just any relationship with anyone. To me, being alone is much better than being in the wrong company.
It's very hard to find good, well-mannered people with moral integrity. At least it is for me. And based on everything I see around me, those people are just rare. Most people tolerate each other, instead of actively wanting to be friends/whatever with each other. I don't fully understand why that is. But is just is. I'm curious to see other's thoughts on this subject, though.
[0] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/03...
Dead Comment
Like others I think you should see a therapist about it.
Work - Gym - Netflix, misses so many things from reaching a balanced life.
A person needs to interact with others apart from their work and gym. Also I do understand that through e.g Netflix you are sort of interacting with 'others' points of views etc e.g getting emotional about your favourite character etc. Thing is that this needs to happen in your real life as well apart from the imaginary world of watching a film or online gaming for example.
I too for some years while growing up got stuck into computer games, and it felt like it was the only thing I liked to do. I got out of it and I am happy I did so, now I have a family, I go out, I go to the gym, I like working too, I do play video games for 1-2 hours a day on my off time and I am quite happy that I explored and learnt that there are way more things in life than just video games.
I hope that helps you understand that you also need some human interaction in your personal life.
You also need to find some things outside work. Joining a sports league would help. You get your exercise and meet people. Jiu Jitsu is fun and many gyms treat all the members like extended family. It's also mentally challenging (think physical chess), so it gets your mind off of work.
Good luck.
2 hours a day of solo gym exercise is pathological unless you have some really good reason to be doing it and it's making someone happy. Which it clearly isn't.
It's possible to get to 'intermediate' powerlifter level on about 2-3 hours a week. There are of course many other goals, but 12 hours a week in the gym is almost certainly reaching diminishing returns for almost any of the goals I can think of (with the possible exception of really hardcore bodybuilding or endurance work).
Everyone eventually dies alone, but do not let that sadden you. A full life is measured in the depths of sorrow from that truth, not in avoiding it.
Dying is terrible, but there is definitely a difference between being surrounded by loved ones and being all alone or among strangers.
"Everyone dies alone" is one of those things that is sort of technically correct, but has absolutely nothing to do with what people mean when they talk about dying alone.
I since changed my schedule to 40 min, 3 times a week, 2 sets, maximum reps till failure with pyramids.
Most gains in strength i have ever achieved with the least amount of work I have ever done.
Less time - more ROI
check out @maclulich on Insta -- I can back it up.
If you are unhappy you should change. Take that as given.
I will second the people who say two hours is a lot. Honestly more time with lighter amounts of activity (thinking walking rather than deadlifting) is actually healthier for you in the long run. The human body is a 250,000 year old OS with the last update maybe 10,000 years ago, and for most of that time we sat around and ate a badger (or similar) maybe once a week.
If you want friends, join a group that does some light activity and then hangs out. Kickball is fun as is hiking or ultimate frisbee or kickboxing. Working out and friends can go together! Two birds stoned in the hand is worth three sober in the bush, or something.
Something like this : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDWyqnGhmWY
Maybe you want to ask yourself what you are working out for. If working out is actively eating into the reason that you are working out for, then I hope you can see the damage or at least the redundancy caused by extra workouts.
Also, you could take a look at some workout-esque hobbies. Bouldering has become very popular recently. Maybe try playing a sport that is high intensity (like squash or swimming)
Death, alone or accompanied, is inherently irrelevant. That you're even thinking about it suggests you're aware on some level that this pattern isn't a good use of your life.
If you're going to the gym that often, you must be in great physical shape. Go climb a mountain, working at computers endlessly is for suckers.
An alternate viewpoint on this - perhaps it will help you:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R5_m_3eHuQo&t=7723s
Regardless of whether you agree with Big Clive on this, his channel is amazing - IMHO at least :-)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baader%E2%80%93Meinhof_effec...
What do you do, if I may ask?
>t. Same except managed to find energy to enjoy my weekends.
The secret is healthy diet, 8 hours sleep, drinking water, and limit in alcohol
It's not really a secret. We all know this, but few execute (common theme in life?).
I know it's not trivial, but it can't be impossible either. I doubt he would starve if he got a part-time dev job (are those easy to find? I have no idea). I agree wholeheartedly with all that he said. I think a life of work-home-work without breathing is almost meaningless unless you can have possibly unreasonable amounts of fun and freedom in the job (few if any industries allow/demand this kind of work). Indeed if a job allows for fun and freedom markets will usually exploit this advantage to try and push you to work even more (if you let them of course).
I'm still a student but I'll certainly look for a job that's either totally fulfilling (rare) or allows as much freedom as possible while maintaining a reasonable lifestyle and quality of life.
The elephant in the room is that all of those housekeeping tasks used to generally be done during the week by a second householder. So what happened?! Rather than double income households actually resulting in getting ahead, economic feedback simply made it the new normal!
Similar destruction of economic progress happened when Walmart (et al) gutted local business - a lot of high-margin employers went away, yet prices weren't allowed to go down. So rather than local economies' costs at least going down along with their pay, they only got the downside.
Taking into account women entering the workforce plus general technological progress, "full time employment" these days should be under 15 hours per week!
I downvoted you because of this extraordinary claim. If you're going to make a claim like this you need to provide evidence. Not only that but the government doesn't even have direct control of property values and indirect control is at the local level.
But the reality is that being constantly tired is unproductive and having 50% more time off is huge.
Once you have the money to cushion the blow, you can start pushing back on demands for your time with a lot more confidence. A thing I've personally found is that my employer just wants results and things done on time and when needed. They don't particularly care how much time I'm physically in the office working.
You can. Anyone that says you can't hasn't tried hard enough.
Ask your boss. Tell them you want a better work-life balance, tell them it's really important to you and that it's something you will prioritize. Work 4 days a week and get 4/5th of the pay. Step down to 3 days a week later.
If your boss won't come at it, find one that will. Your time is so much more important than more money.
Its worth noting that “tried hard” isn’t a good description of the things necessary. You need to creatively manoever into a position to do so and you need to know how to do that.
It’s really nice. That’s an errand day, or sometimes hang out with friends day, and sometimes just a sleep in lazy day.
Does 10% less pay (more like 8% less after taxes) affect me? No, not really.
But if you want to do a lot of things beside work, 3 days is best.
It’s also a bit dependent on life situation. When I left university I was perfectly good with 3/5ths salary, but now with a family to support that would be hard.
1) Ask for a 30 hour work week, or find a company that can offer this. Your salary should still be high enough to aim for a comfortable retirement at 65.
2) Adopt a more frugal lifestyle and increase your savings rate.
You need to save a few million dollars to retire with $40-$80k in investment income. It should be very possible to do this with a backend developer's salary over a period of 10-15 years, and then you should be able to retire in your 30s or 40s. You should also aim to increase your salary by changing jobs every few years (or get a job at a FAANG.)
3) Build side projects or a startup and try to get some passive income (or an exit)
Write all your startup ideas down and keep looking for opportunities. It can be hard to build products in the evenings or weekends, especially if you're already burnt out from your normal job. So this option works best when combined with part-time freelance work:
4) Become a freelancer and work part-time while you work on your own projects
Bonus: Move to a place with a very low cost of living.
Working 10-20 hours per week gives you a lot of free time and much longer weekends. But it also gives you a lot of time and energy to work on your own ideas.
Note that working 10 hours per week is a terrible idea if you just spend the rest of your time working on hobbies that don't make any money. If you do that, then you won't even be able to retire at 65, and you probably won't be able to save money for emergencies. Only do this if you spend the rest of your time trying to build a business.
If you can't get anything to work after ~10 years of trying, then you should still have plenty of time to go back to a full-time job and save for retirement.
You need a lot less than a few million dollars if you're willing to live at a more reasonable retirement income. I mean, you won't have to commute anymore, or buy all those services that did things you never had time for, or pay for daycare, or live in an overpriced city, etc. Hell if you move to a country with a lower cost of living, as you suggested, you'll need even less.
You would be surprised how little of what you consider "necessities" of your lifestyle you actually need, or miss when they are gone.
I'm living in Thailand, and $40k goes a long way. Many people would be happy with this lifestyle, but it's not quite enough for me, and I wouldn't want to spend the rest of my life here. I'd much rather have $80-100k and live somewhere like Toronto. But to each their own.
2 people can easily live lavish life in India (something like Goa or a nice hill station) for ~$2000 a month.
Healthcare is not as bad, especially in urban locations. People speak English well, and it isn't that far, given that people drive ~10 hours across states to meet family anyways.
If no one else steals this 'idea' , I might just think of implementing it 20 years down the line.
How would a few million be possible? What is your contextual salary for this position, and their expected expenses?
If you're dual income for part of that 15 years, you'll have far more money, or you can retire a few years earlier.
That’s a bit on the high end, but I guess not SV/FAANG impossible.
I dream about a 30-hour work week for all of the reasons listed in the parent article... I would take a 25% paycut for one without second thought
As someone who also works a reasonable 40-hour a week job, I cannot emphasize enough how much of a difference working remote has made.
I used to commute an hour each direction in the DC area, and (like the author) spent time preparing meals, getting dressed, etc. I have since moved to the NC area to work remote, and quality of life improvement is incredible:
- I can get to work immediately with no commute, and when I'm done, I don't have to get in a car to get home.
- Lunch break involves making a healthy lunch in my own kitchen, then reading a book while I eat in the comfort of my own home.
- I am a coffee enthusiast, and I love being able to make a french press, pour-over, or cold brew right in my kitchen.
- Crappy weather and accidents on the roads no longer have any effect on my workday.
- I get the exact office setup I want.
- I can go work at a coffee shop, an outdoor park, or even at the beach (all of which I have done), if I want a change of scenery.
WRT to the central point: I hate the _concept_ of living for the weekend, and have taken intentional and proactive steps to ensure that I don't fall into that trap.
Just a few examples:
- Get up early, and make time for what matters. I like to work out in the mornings, and also make sure to do any hobbies or side projects during this time, as my brain is fresh.
- Make yourself stop working at the appropriate time. This will differ depending on your job and your personal preference, but I draw a line in the sand and do not let myself work any later than 6 PM. My personal time is very important to me, and even though I love my job, I will never choose it over my personal time.
- Make sure to do things you like during the week, too. This really just involves not allowing yourself to believe that you can only make time for yourself on the weekends. Sometimes I'll get up early and meet someone for breakfast at a restaurant, sometimes I'll do a fun hobby in the evening, like rock climbing. If your job is flexible enough you could even step away for a quick break during the day to do something outside, like bicycling or kayaking, if that's your thing.
edit: Formatting
It's interesting how jaded I am of driving in general. There are certain intersections in my town where it's common to get stuck at a red light that lasts for minutes. Things like this put me on complete life tilt. All I think about is "how can anyone put up with this every day?". I'm no longer surprised why people go berserk out of no where.
I really don't know how people do it. Getting stuck in traffic or waiting on long red lights sucks the life out of you because it's such an utter waste of time. Maybe I'm just not used to it (I drive, but it's usually outside of rush hour), but man, I am pretty sure I couldn't exist in a world where I had to do the traffic grind daily.
Honestly, one would think that 'less stress' and a more peaceable mindset give one more resilience in dealing with such things, but just the opposite.
To deal with traffic you almost have to 'give up' on the notion of doing something quickly and resign to the reality of it, which is what happens if you have to deal with it daily.
When working from home I avoid doing absolutely anything during rush hour.
Weird... now that you mention this, I recall that during grad school when I had complete control over my time (and essentially worked remotely), I would get so angry sitting at red lights. Now that I have a corporate job, they no longer seem to bother me. Maybe you're on to something.
This is my choice -- I could work totally remote, but I have found it necessary in order to resolve some issues to go in.
The difference is even more stunning when you are only doing it 20% of the time. I am fried when I get home, and commuting in Houston on a regular basis can take years off your life.
People get sucked into living like this slowly and don't realize how damaging it is.
I'm super lucky and 1) Work from home 2 days a week, and 3) When I do travel to the office, I rotate my day forward to start from 5:30 am and finish at 2:30 - 3 pm to avoid traffic.
15 years ago in Houston, 6:30 am was adequate to avoid most traffic when commuting from the Northside, nowadays, you need to be out the door about 4:30 am. That's a huge change. Traffic on I45 ramps up in the Spring area, right around 5 am.
Cheers
I really enjoy my work. However, I still occasionally think to myself “man, this kinda sucks”. I think it’s because I feel the need to put my productivity in something original, something that is born from my personal passion only.
After I graduated from college, I actually kept a year-long “break” and just stayed at home. On this “break”, I set up daily tasks for myself to see what I could accomplish on my own. I did creative, productive stuff from 5 to 7 hours a day. I was learning Spanish. Programming. Piano. All on my own. It was a really awesome year. The problem in the long run, of course, is that I don’t get any money from those. It was only possible because I was still living with my parents. I would really like to do all of those activities as often as I could back then, but it’s just not possible now with a job.
I hope to soon have a solution for this: a business. Currently I’m slowly working on a software project on my free time, with the aim of it eventually creating a solid income, with a relatively small need of maintenance. Not overly confident that it’ll work out, but I’ll do my best to be able to do the stuff I want, as long as I want, while also being able to live comfortably. That’s the dream.
It's not necessarily fast, but it can work! I started in 2015 blogging, wrote & launched a book in 2016, and quit my job in 2018 to focus on my own products. I don't make nearly as much (yet!) but 100% of my time is my own and I can grow it at my own pace.
I'm currently doing something similar at the moment, and I can't imagine I would want to go back to a traditional M-F 9-5 schedule.
1) Use my spare time to study a more lucrative field, and negotiate a four-day work week. The pitfall here is that I need to spend all of my spare time working, so that I may be able to work less in the future (and it’s not guaranteed that I will).
2) Move to a country where the cost of living is cheap, and freelance with international clients. The pitfall here is that I have to move away from all the people I care about. I may also end up introducing more stress into my life by living as a foreigner and relying on a freelance income.
3) Invest all of my time into starting my own business (for pitfalls, see 1).
4) Negotiate a four-day work week on my current wage, live a much more ascetic lifestyle, and only save a small amount of money for my future.
5) Marry into a wealthy family.
6) Find a duffel bag with a few million dollars in it.
Does anyone have any better ideas?
assuming you are in software development field, it is tricky to get into a more lucrative one, probably easier to just stay here.
> Move to a country where the cost of living is cheap, and freelance with international clients
Not long-term sustainable. Might work for couple years (especially if you are single and have perfect health), but after a lot of problem will show up – relatives, friends, connections, etc. Also, you might want your own home.
Overall, you listed it. Other ideas are:
1. embrace it. Be consistent in your hobbies, and dedicate one day to it (like Saturday). It is tough for new hobbies, but if you are already in it, might be just fine. Not everybody has to produce something artsy and from their passion – your family, what you like might be enough. Try to reflect on it sometime, it might clear some things for you.
2. Retire early. If you live more frugally (or not so posh, depending on your preferences), you can easily save plenty of money, which will allow you to retire not in 65, but around ~45 (number depends heavily, but you got the idea).
3. Aggressively negotiate vacation days, and take off 1–2 days at the end/beginning of the week. You'll work much less (you'll notice it), and taking 2 days off reduces 2 weeks into 4 days work week.
The presumption is that you get paid less when you work less. And this is true, to an extent: when I've negotiated a shorter workweek I've typically gotten paid correspondingly less, e.g. at 4 days a week get paid 80% time.
But—
1. My experience (https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/02/11/working-long-hours/), and that of others (https://lobste.rs/s/hvjwd6/how_become_part_time_programmer#c...) is that working less makes you more productive. You learn how to prioritize, how to avoid wasting time, you're force to plan more... basically you end up a much effective programmer and employee.
As a better employee, you can get a better baseline salary. So you're getting 80% of a higher salary.
2. The key to getting a shorter workweek is negotiating. If you have better negotiating skills you can get a higher salary, e.g. merely asking for more than the company's initial offer will usually give you a 10% boost (https://codewithoutrules.com/2019/01/18/negotiate-like-6-yea...). Knowing how to present yourself in a job interview and resume can also give you a salary boost (https://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/).
So again, it's possible to get 80% of a higher salary.
You'll still get paid less than you could have otherwise... but beyond a certain point I and others at least have found time to be more important than money.