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Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

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Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#181

Post by simpss »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #161
simpss wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure how it works in Australia, but if i break down my salary by taxes in Eastern Europe, I'm paying 33% "social tax" which comes out to around 1900€/month. This breaks down further to 2 groups. One for pension and the other for healthcare. Pension is 20% from the total. (used to pay the current pensions) Healthchare is 13% from the total. This comes out at around 990€/month for "health insurance". There are adva…

Wow, you earn a lot for Eastern Europe. What do you do if I may ask?

software engineer/manager with (bigger) international projects. This is on the high end for such positions.

I can't complain :)

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#182

Post by ptah »

yellow_lead wrote: post #129
bogdanoff_2 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found that back when I had lots of free time, my style when doing projects was: I start where I left off, I get engrossed and code late into the night, repeat that one or two more days, get bored and "burned out" from the project, don't touch it for a week or so (sometimes I work on some other projects), repeat. Of course, that's not really sustainable. But 30 minutes does not seem feasible for me. It's not like yo…

Agreed, 30 mins is not enough time to get into "deep work" for programming. At best you could do some business-y tasks.

on the contrary it can make you more productive. for one it forces you to take a step back regularly instead of blindly going down a potentially wrong path.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pomodoro_Technique

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#183

Post by steve1977 »

pinky1417 wrote: post #174
daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

As a startup founder with wealthy parents, this seems likely. Not only can parental wealth serve as a safety net, but you might also get direct investment from your family, have a safety net if things don’t work out (enabling you to take more risks), not have to exert as much effort taking care of sick, old, etc. family members because you can hire people, get access to powerful family connections, and learn from hig…

I think it's a very common thing with success that people want to attribute it to their skills and not factors such as pure luck.

Might also be a cultural thing, in many societies there are myths of equality and everybody having a chance.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#184

Post by steve1977 »

ss3000 wrote: post #170
q-base wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that this also depends a lot on how draining and intense your day job is. Some jobs require too much of you to be able to do anything once you are done - or do so in periods. You will probably have to decide what is most important to you. You cannot chase and strive for promotions, extra responsibility etc. on your day job while still wanting to do your own thing in your spare time. Perhaps you need to lo…

I would argue that _most_ full time jobs probably require too much of us than we should be willing to accept, regardless of if we have energy left over to do anything else outside of those hours. 40 hours per week is more than half of most people's waking hours. That's a terrifying amount of my life to have to spend on something I don't _absolutely love_ doing, and I sincerely hope I can find a way out of it sooner r…

What? Assuming you sleep 8 hours a day, your waking hours per week would be around 112.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#185

Post by zerr »

tannerc wrote: post #2

I like Austin Kleon's insights here [1]: "A day job gives you money, a connection to the world, and a routine. Freedom from financial stress also means freedom in your art. As photographer Bill Cunningham says, 'If you don’t take money, they cant tell you what to do.' Because the real truth is, once you start making money doing what you love, it BECOMES A JOB. And with it comes all the hassle of a job." It's why I've…

The key is to have a high-paid part-time job.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#186

Post by hvidgaard »

mc3 wrote: post #115
hanniabu wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come home at ~6pm, make/have dinner ~7pm, exercise ~8pm, get home and shower ~9pm. At this point there's not much time to do work, especially if you have to go grocery shopping, do laundry, clean, have a family, or any number of other misc things like get a haircut or have clothes dry cleaned.

A side project can be 2 hours a week. You can optimise making dinner so it take less time (cook in bulk, make some meals salads). Exercise can be done at home, probably 30 minutes in the morning and evening is more than enough.

As with everything else, you have to prioritize - there will never be time for everything. Meal prep and home exercise alone can cut that schedule down to 60-90 minutes, so you can begin on the side project at 7.30 pm.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#187

Post by [deleted] »

pinky1417 wrote: post #174
daxfohl wrote: post #4

There's a pretty high correlation between parental wealth and success as a startup founder. I assume it's because of the safety net. My friends who have been successful (and who had blue-collar upbringings like me, and all in mid-40's now) all worked full time jobs until their side projects were self-sustaining. None of them hit unicorn status, but I think all of them have lived healthy, fruitful lives. Also note by…

As a startup founder with wealthy parents, this seems likely. Not only can parental wealth serve as a safety net, but you might also get direct investment from your family, have a safety net if things don’t work out (enabling you to take more risks), not have to exert as much effort taking care of sick, old, etc. family members because you can hire people, get access to powerful family connections, and learn from hig…

[deleted]

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#188

Post by non-entity »

opportune wrote: post #36
moretai wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally just get so drained after a day of work, on top of exercising, and some sort of recreational activity would be nice. The work isn't hard. It's the thinking that goes around the work that is the draining part. Especially if you want to keep a job. Others can perhaps compartmentalize a bit better than I can.

It depends on what you do at work a lot I think. Working on greenfield projects is so much less mentally draining than working on some old thing with only 10% of its functionality encoded in tribal knowledge that interacts with like a 100 different services that you need to constantly be learning about.

Most of the time I'm doing nothing at work all day, yet I manage to pass out for 3 hours of exhaustion after I get hone

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#189

Post by dkersten »

tempsy wrote: post #57
dkersten wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$530/month sounds insanely expensive to me as someone outside of the US. My private health insurance costs me approx $100/month. 530 is over half my rent (outside of a major city though, in the major cities rent is much higher)

how much do you pay in taxes though?

Approx 35% in income tax (which includes social security etc).

Note that private health insurance isn’t a necessity, public healthcare is generally ok here, but I choose to go private for comfort and additional peace of mind.

Re: Working for someone vs. doing your own thing

#190

Post by timeisfinite »

steve1977 wrote: post #184
ss3000 wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that _most_ full time jobs probably require too much of us than we should be willing to accept, regardless of if we have energy left over to do anything else outside of those hours. 40 hours per week is more than half of most people's waking hours. That's a terrifying amount of my life to have to spend on something I don't _absolutely love_ doing, and I sincerely hope I can find a way out of it sooner r…

What? Assuming you sleep 8 hours a day, your waking hours per week would be around 112.

not counting that 40hrs weeks accounts just for working hours. You should add 1hr per day for lunch or equivalent pause, and often 2hrs\day for commute. You easily end up to 55 hrs that is ~50% of your waking time. You should add all is needed to sustain a full time job that requires you to be conscious of what you're doing, so I'd add some routine habits that make this possible, like maybe time to readapt your consciousness from work environment where you just lived and focused thoughts the last 9 hours, as I feel to need. You sell your life when working full time for someone's(something...maybe) else enrichment. Those 40 hours a one give to someone else are the most profitable hours a one have
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