Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness • Hacker News Board

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#161

Post by jasonkester » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 8:58 AM UTC

orthoganol wrote: post #127

jasonkester wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From where I stand, it looks like you have your numbers backward. The reason you start a startup is so that you can work those 15-20 hour weeks (or less) without anybody giving you grief about it. Shipping software works just fine on a few hours a weeks. Maybe a quick burst up front to get v1 out the door, but then you can ramp it down as far as you want to go. I've gone entire months without opening the IDE for some…

Most would refer to what you describe as 'lifestyle business'. I mean 'startup' as the type of startup you would see come out of YC. You work really hard, all the time. Company culture is encompassing, which means employees sacrificing a lot of time and mindshare. As a founder it becomes the only thing you think about, for years. That's startups of the YC vein, and they only want to fund startups that work this way.…

Indeed. That's the definition on paper, but it's your business so you get to run it how you like. There is surprisingly little correlation between hours worked and end result.

I could have easily worked four years of 80 hour weeks, ruined all my relationships and given myself health issues building the product that pays my bills today. I can't imagine the monthly recurring revenue numbers would reflect that effort. It really is more calendar time and marketing that moves the needle. You can do that and still have plenty of time for product development working 10 hours a week.

You can make up quaint terms for it, but really all that does is flag it in your mind as something that's not for you. You really need to be doing that 80 hour week boiler room thing, else you're not startupping enough. So you do, and you're unhappy.

The end goal is to replace your salary by building a product. Call it a lifestyle business if you like. But be sure to do it.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#162

Post by queeerkopf » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 9:24 AM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #147

lmartel wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with the unrepresentative part, but absolute sample size numbers don't tell you anything. For some experiments, N=100 is more than enough, and for others N=10000 isn't even close. Did you look at the p-values or any other confidence measurements?

Statistically, doesn't a sample size of 2000 get you pretty close to +/- a 5% margin of error?

I'm not sure what you mean by 'statistically' above.

In general you can't say whether a sample size of 2000 will get you within a specific margin of error without additional information. It very much depends e.g. on what the hypothesis you're testing is or what you're trying to estimate.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#163

Post by marvin » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 9:35 AM UTC

Florin_Andrei wrote: post #87

marvin wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one: Get a high-paying software job in a high COL area, work for a decade or so while minimizing your expenses (live cheaply/with friends) and investing as much as possible in a diversified stock market portfolio. Then when you're sick of it, move to a cheaper area, get a part-time job and sell 3-4% of your assets every year to make up for the deficit. If you're lucky, the safe withdrawal rate of 3-4% will eve…

At what point during this sequence do you expect to have children? In what kind of area are you going to raise them?

If you're happy with and able to have children after the 10 years of aggressive saving and investment, this strategy will also give you an extra financial buffer for raising kids. The basic strategy is not incompatible.

But obviously, your total spending will increase, so you either have to earn more after having kids or save up more before having kids. If you want to raise your children in a high cost-of-living area, this will of course be even more pronounced.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#164

Post by aninhumer » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 9:38 AM UTC

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #139

welly wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lead a similar life to the OP so can probably answer this one. In the last 10 years, I've lived and worked Switzerland for 6 months, in the south of France for 9 months (contracting), in Scotland for a year, Canada for 10 months, New Zealand for 2 years, Australia on several occasions for a year or so at a time. I'm currently back in Australia now. In between those, I've lived back in the England, my home countr…

I can relate to accumulating "stuff"... when I move to the town I'm currently living in, one of my goals was to not acquire anything new that I didn't need. Two years later and just thinking about moving makes me dizzy because I have so many things, most of which are pretty frivolous and I would just donate/throw out when I move. Frivolous, but I'm going to miss it all anyway...

I remember reading an article that said a good way to deal with the anxiety of throwing stuff away is to take photos of it. Because generally, you know you're not going to miss it in any practical sense, you're just going to miss having it, and in that sense a photo is almost as good.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#165

Post by emilyfm » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 10:44 AM UTC

EC1 wrote: post #123

dfc wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the definition of an "instigative hobby"?

Something where you create tangible value. Video games, movies, collecting, etc are all consumer hobbies. Leather making, coding, music, knitting, etc, are instigative. The main difference is it's difficult to relate to other people about consumer hobbies unless you consume the same things. With instigative hobbies you can teach people and talk about them to others who know nothing about it. I'm not saying either is…

The normally used term is "creative hobbies".

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#166

Post by sjclemmy » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 10:47 AM UTC

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on.

Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough money in my account for savings, holidays etc. whilst supporting a child (the same one!) at University and another trainer obsessed teenager.

I think there is a threshold income - up to the point of the threshold more money is required to support the life style one expects. After that threshold is reached, options open up, and WHAT YOU SPEND YOUR TIME ON becomes a big factor. Think minimum basic income.

So, time vs money is a rich persons dilemma.

Also, the idea that there is a trade off between more money and longer hours is laughable. People on low incomes work long hours and still earn very little. There is no choice. You simply must work long hours to tread water financially.

EDIT: I increased my income pretty quickly after that so I haven't suffered as much as the post suggests, but it was HARD work. The great thing about bringing up kids in your 20s is that you have a lot of energy to do all the things.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#167

Post by osoti » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 10:56 AM UTC

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Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#168

Post by hellofunk » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 10:58 AM UTC

sjclemmy wrote: post #166

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on. Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough…

I read a report years ago that said in the U.S. the level of "happiness" increases with your income only up until an average of $60K per year, and after that, increased income had no more effect on happiness.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#169

Post by cLeEOGPw » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 11:05 AM UTC

sjclemmy wrote: post #166

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on. Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough…

Is associated with != is caused by. It just means they go together. You will not get happier by valuing your time more than money in a same way that your car will not go faster if you put advertisement stickers all over it, because some study found an association between amount of logotype stickers and average speed of the car.

Re: Valuing time over money is associated with greater happiness

#170

Post by rudenoise » Fri, Jan 08, 2016, 11:10 AM UTC

hellofunk wrote: post #168

sjclemmy wrote: post #166

When I was young and fresh out of college, I earned £8000 per annum and attempted to support a non-working partner and a small child. The idea of time vs money was irrelevant. I did not have enough money to live on. I would work as much as possible to get more money, and it still wasn't enough to live on. Fast forward to now where I have enough money not to bother about budgeting day to day and there is still enough…

I read a report years ago that said in the U.S. the level of "happiness" increases with your income only up until an average of $60K per year, and after that, increased income had no more effect on happiness.

You may be thinking of this:

High income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being (Daniel Kahneman1 and Angus Deaton) http://www.pnas.org/content/107/38/16489.abstract

" Income and education are more closely related to life evaluation, but health, care giving, loneliness, and smoking are relatively stronger predictors of daily emotions. When plotted against log income, life evaluation rises steadily. Emotional well-being also rises with log income, but there is no further progress beyond an annual income of ~$75,000. Low income exacerbates the emotional pain associated with such misfortunes as divorce, ill health, and being alone. We conclude that high income buys life satisfaction but not happiness, and that low income is associated both with low life evaluation and low emotional well-being."