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I just don’t want to be busy anymore

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Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#91

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

I have a friend who once told me that they can only work for about 4 hours a day. When I challenged them that this seemed like a very priviledged position to be able to take, they insisted that it was actually true for pretty much anyone, it's just that as a society, as an economy, as a series of employer/employee relationships, we pretend that it's not.

What they meant of course was not whether they could be "at the job(site)" for more than 4 hours a day, but that you could only really do actual (productive) work for 4 hours a day. The rest, so my friend claimed, is almost always filler. My friend also claimed that they believed this was true almost regardless of the type of work you did. Even people doing physical labor don't actually "work hard" for much more than 4 hours - you need breaks (lots of little ones, or maybe a few long ones).

I still don't know if they're right about this. Personally, I've always preferred the maxim about "work long, hard or smart: pick 2". Either way, I know that across society, not just in IT related fields, we do not honor these ideas about work in any meaningful way.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#92

Post by syshum »

webdev777 wrote: post #83
gregd wrote: post #2

As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. This is coming from someone who has always had a growth mindset and had a really hard time sitting still. I used to loathe naps and felt like I was missing out if I took one. Now, I take a one hour nap almost daily and I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM). I'm not sure what to do about…

I thought by the time you're 54 you could retire. I'm much younger and I could retire in a couple of years. What is your saving rate? - you can read more here https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/ Your job starts at 7am? You could start later, like 10. Have your 2-3h lunch time. Finish at 6pm. Change jobs until you find a job like that. There are plenty, I can assure you.

>>I thought by the time you're 54 you could retire. I'm much younger and I could retire in a couple of years. What is your saving rate?

That is not going to help him much now. Not everyone has or could have started saving early in life. Some did not due to ignorance, some did not due to life circumstances, some did but other life events could have taken that from them (i.e bad investments, divorce, medical issue, or 100's of other things).

Just because you have the luck and privilege to be on the FIRE path does not mean everyone else is as lucky or choose that path. This person may have not planned to retire early and looking back now wished they had made that plan in the 20's. The road not taken an all that...

>>Change jobs until you find a job like that. There are plenty, I can assure you.

Again it would seem you are taking your anecdote and applying it globally. This is very region specific and I can assure you in my region there are exactly Zero jobs in IT that allow you to start at 10am, take a 2-3 hour lunch, and knock off an 6pm...

I will not implicitly state those are not common, but I can not imagine a region where they are?

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#93

Post by abledon »

gregd wrote: post #57
abledon wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

have you thought about joining Government? pretty laid back there. Less pay, but if you are okay with that, its worth it if you value time > money

Haha...interesting you'd say that. I worked for two State Governments, Oregon and Nebraska for a combined 13 years total. I ended my career at the State of Oregon as an IT Director for a State Agency. So several things about state employment bothered me to no end: 1. State employee union contracts catered to the lowest common denominator. What I mean by that for one thing, is that you cannot negotiate your salary or…

_I ended my career at the State of Oregon as an IT Director for a State Agency._

I think thats the issue you're too high up in the job ladder to not have any 'work responsibilities'.... If you drop back down to the nameless IT 'tinkerer' programmer , responsibilities will vanish!

You mention "If I could retire now, I would"... so maybe you have certain life logistics preventing you from taking a lower pay-grade... but if not...

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#94

Post by tartoran »

tudelo wrote: post #59
tartoran wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I started taking some Ashwaganda and experienced positive effects so far. Give it a try, maybe it works out for you as well

any more details on "positive effects"? Have you had blood work?

I’ve done bloodwork prior to taking Ashwaganda and will do again in two to three months. Testosterone was low, not excessively so but was feeling exhausted and unmotivated. Ashwaganda appears to have given me the energy and motivation back but I’ve only been taking it for a week so am not exactly sure how I’ll fare in the longer term. It gave me enough energy to work out now so Im hoping to raise my energy to prior levels or close by.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#95

Post by bonniemuffin »

bumby wrote: post #6
gregd wrote: post #2

As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. This is coming from someone who has always had a growth mindset and had a really hard time sitting still. I used to loathe naps and felt like I was missing out if I took one. Now, I take a one hour nap almost daily and I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM). I'm not sure what to do about…

I never really made the connection before listening to a recent podcast with an expert on serotonin and dopamine, but do you think this is a natural effect of declining dopamine? Online searching seems to indicate dopamine declines with age and is also responsible for taking risks and motivation for both short and long term goal attainment

Is there any action you can take based on this knowledge to change your outcome, or is it simply an unavoidable part of aging?

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#96

Post by lightbendover »

xyzzy123 wrote: post #70
lightbendover wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Create an intake queue and direct them to that. Service it on a stated SLA that you decide. Do not respond directly to ad hoc requests (outside of perhaps company wide campaigns that you are in risk of missing).

This is all incredibly difficult in a large company. The intake queues suck because _some_ teams respond to Service Now and some don't. Like, you'll have a pretty easy task which requires stuff from 3 teams, 1 you put in the ticket and they do it same day, the other sits there and never gets picked up, for the third you can't even figure out which team is supposed to do it let alone how you would contact them. So, th…

Your response is exactly why artificial boundaries should be set up. Most of these requests will not be important and they should either be dissuaded entirely or dealt with much later. The ones that are important (note: very infrequent) will be in the hands of someone capable of navigating internal politics despite the existence of a "stop bothering me" canned response.

Every team I work with (very large company) leverages this approach, their productivity would be Nil if they left a direct channel wide open. Back channels exist only where they should exist.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#97

Post by vimy »

gregd wrote: post #2

As a 54 year old Software Engineer, who has had a nice IT career for over 26 years, I'm spent. This is coming from someone who has always had a growth mindset and had a really hard time sitting still. I used to loathe naps and felt like I was missing out if I took one. Now, I take a one hour nap almost daily and I'm finding that after 1pm I'm basically fried (I start working around 7AM). I'm not sure what to do about…

Like a couple of others have suggested, get a checkup at the doctor. This sounds more like an energy problem than a psychological one.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#98

Post by rootusrootus »

EnlightenedBro wrote: post #88
bamboozled wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m younger than you, had the same issue and solved it by working less and doing more outside. Lifting weights in the sun, mountain biking, golf, surfing. In understand this is a luxury not everyone can afford but what I do now is work from about 6-9am, go out during the day until about 3, work 4-6. Which if you add it up is still a solid 5 hour day. For whatever reason it just makes me more productive and sleep bett…

Hmm, wondering when do you go to sleep if you wake up at 6? 9? That kind of sucks.

Not OP, but I usually go to bed at 10 and wake up at 4:30 or 5. It only sucks if you are a night owl.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#99

Post by syshum »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #91

I have a friend who once told me that they can only work for about 4 hours a day. When I challenged them that this seemed like a very priviledged position to be able to take, they insisted that it was actually true for pretty much anyone, it's just that as a society, as an economy, as a series of employer/employee relationships, we pretend that it's not. What they meant of course was not whether they could be "at the…

Depends on how you classify "productive"

in a 40-50hr work week I would say 50-60% is productive actual work (i.e writing a program, or doing the actual task you are paid to do), 10-15% is administrative (making task list, organizing your work, reporting about your work, etc) 10-15% is meetings about your work, 10-15% is socialization with co-workers, unofficial breaks, informal meetings, etc.

So if you do not count the other time as "productive" which I could and would challenge then that 4hr number holds true.

Re: I just don’t want to be busy anymore

#100

Post by Waterluvian »

Not to suggest this covers everyone or fixes everything, but I think anyone who feels uncomfortable about being completely offline and unreachable outside standard hours really needs to explore that deeply.

I think there’s a % of people who are convinced that they must do it for job preservation. And I think a far smaller % of them are actually right.

I worried about this a lot. Then it got to the point of being so burned out that I was ready to quit. So I realised I had an opportunity to experiment: delete all work stuff from phone, HARD exit at 5pm (I will hang up on slack conversations), and never work outside core hours. It worked beautifully and I just feel frustrated I didn’t realize this years ago.

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