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Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

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Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#121

Post by mrctte »

Overall, pretty well. I was able to make a major career shift, going from a data analyst to a software engineer in the span of about 9 months of self-directed study. I reckon this was one of the biggest positive changes in my life to-date.

On the other hand, I developed quite a bit of anxiety and felt a little lost and depressed at times.

My advice to get the most out of your time would be: make sure the other key areas of your life are stable first (e.g. relationships, geography, finances, social life).

If you change multiple major facets of your life all at once, you are running the risk of becoming a bit untethered.

That being said, maybe it's the feeling of being untethered that catalyzes the growth in the first place.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#122

Post by secondcoming »

JSavageOne wrote: post #99

Traveled the world for a year and a half, then started contracting remotely while remaining abroad, making more money than I was before in NYC (I wasn't working at a FAANG type company though). Zero regrets, life is too short to be miserable, and people severely overestimate the repercussions of quitting one's job and difficult of finding employment again. Although NYC is fun to visit from time to time, I don't miss…

Are you a US citizen? Don't you get double-taxed on foreign earnings?

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#123

Post by sumtechguy »

cko wrote: post #31

I did this, with a passive income cushion from some investments. I live very simply. I found travel pretty boring after a few weeks. I found whatever I was doing outside of work (YouTube and mindless browsing) filled up all my free time after I quit. I started learning web development but haven't had any ideas that stuck. I mean I had a lot of ideas before quitting but perhaps lack of motivation or discipline killed…

I did it accidently about 5 years ago, structured layoff and wildly good severance package. Had enough for 3-4 years of coasting. What I found for myself personally is that I did just that, coast. I did not have any great plans to do anything. I went back to work because I was bored. Days of YT, video games, and coursework can be interesting and all but after awhile it wears thin and I personally wanted to work on something a bit more interesting. But I had no 'interesting' ideas of my own. So I got a job and borrowed someone's. I lasted about 7 months before I was ready to go back to work and started applying anywhere. Would I recommend it? Not really. It may be time to jet from this place though.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#124

Post by BlueTemplar »

rootsudo wrote: post #79
cko wrote: post #31

I did this, with a passive income cushion from some investments. I live very simply. I found travel pretty boring after a few weeks. I found whatever I was doing outside of work (YouTube and mindless browsing) filled up all my free time after I quit. I started learning web development but haven't had any ideas that stuck. I mean I had a lot of ideas before quitting but perhaps lack of motivation or discipline killed…

I've blocked Youtube, it's a bit easy via a HOSTS rule, or firewall level (littlesnitch on OSX is great) or such. The HOSTS rule is probably too much but the later isn't. ublock also can remove comments, the front page of youtube, etc. I don't block youtube now, but I don't have "mindless" browsing, it's like the front page of google.com. I search for exactly what I want, and no ads.

You can spend all your time in "mindful" rabbit holes too : consider Wikipedia...

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#125

Post by Glench »

Both times I've taken time off without plans have been really transformative for me.

In the first I discovered I had a passion for helping other people learn and ended up working at MIT on the Scratch project and then with Bret Victor (http://worrydream.com) at his research lab, both really amazing opportunities.

In the second I decided to quit tech to become a therapist. You can read about that here: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

Your mileage may vary.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#126

Post by rolisz »

I quit my job last November. In January I started my own business doing machine learning consulting. It took off slowly, until July I was not making too much, only small clients.

Then business started taking off and now I'm too busy for my own good. I learned a lot. Biggest lesson is that I need to charge more. A lot more. Another thing that surprised me was what brought in the most income, both in absolute terms and in a per hour rate, so I'll have to reconsider my positioning and marketing strategy for next year.

And I love what I'm doing and I feel like growing a lot. There have been many moments where I doubted things (The Dip as Seth Godin calls it), but somehow I got over them.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#127

Post by DrammBA »

edmcnulty101 wrote: post #105
josh2600 wrote: post #89

Note: I am not an engineer. I’m mostly skilled in telling stories. I got fired from every job I ever had before I started working for myself. Each time I left I ended up in a better job until the last time when I got laid off from a telecom PM role. I went to look for another job and never found one. At the time I was living paycheck to paycheck (barely) so this was quite scary. I did have a small severance but that…

What do you define as living 'paycheck to paycheck'? What kind of friends do you have that have loanable startup money? I think you and I come from totally different classes in life.

I was thinking the same thing. Begging my friends for money would land me a couple hundred dollars, maybe a thousand if I cry enough, and I definitely don't have any friends that would let me gamble money on crypto and pay me back if I lose it. It's interesting seeing the stark difference in safety nets.

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#128

Post by martindbp »

I left a job earlier this year due to health issues both for me and my wife, plus the strained childcare situation due to Covid had us both close to burnout already. It was the best decision we could make for the health of our family. Instead I've been working on something which I still haven't released, but it's close. Our financial future is not really dependent on this project replacing my full salary within X months or anything, so I find that it hasn't added any extra stress so far. We'll see what happens long term though. I'm not ruling out getting a job again if this project fails, but so far it's been very nice!

Re: Ask HN: Those who quit their jobs without anything planned. How did it go?

#129

Post by extr »

My job sucked and I hated it (doing sales analytics for a FinTech startup). Boss was an asshole, his boss was an asshole. You know how it goes. I had probably a year's worth of living expenses so I said fuck it and just quit with nothing lined up. I had the idea that I was going to try to start a business. That didn't really get off the ground. I'm still piecing together why exactly. Perhaps I'm not the kind of person that's good at that kind of thing.

In the end I spent about 4 months unemployed. I did get a new job, which paid better than my previous one (and had less assholes). And then about month into that, a FAANG recruiter hit me up and I got a job at one of those places. Ended up doubling the salary I had originally quit at. So it all worked out. But I feel I got very lucky.

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