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How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

timeawareness.substack.com

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Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#31

Post by arrosenberg »

esoterica wrote: post #22
jeromegv wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow, so the solution is for workers to do as much work as possible to "help" management hiring less employees? Do you think that when they save money, they set it aside for employees bonus? Or may be employee compensation is driven by supply and demand and has nothing to do with you working overtime all year long...

A lot of finance firms have a “you eat what you kill” model where the compensation pool is a direct function of how much money the desk makes. So if you hire more people to do the same amount of work then yeah, the bonus pool gets divided more ways and each person makes less money.

Sure, but finance is the exact last place we want to look for sustainable, value-producing business models.

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#32

Post by MaKey »

Akcium wrote: post #4

Currently I'm in a big problem with time because of the mix of psychological problems including perfectionism. What I mean is: I spent almost all my time thinking how to plan my life. When I think about what I should do every day, I always find excuses why it won't work. So it turns out that everyday is spent by thinking instead of doing. Also I understand what the author meant when talking about the difficulty of ma…

It sounds like you are controlled by your thoughts. I'm looking into the concept of "Mindfulness" to get more control back and find more happiness. I also found that doing one workout every morning greatly improves my well-being and reduces thoughts that limit me.

I, too, struggled with wanting to to everything as best as possible but found that it really limits me. I eventually just started with very small iterations and even though I didn't write a lot of code yet the process itself already taught me quite a few things. The great thing with code is that you can come back later and improve it, so it doesn't have to be perfect on the first try!

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#33

Post by notretarded »

mech422 wrote: post #2

I've worked remotely for 20 years on both salary and hourly (consulting). I found it especially hard to 'unplug' when working hourly, as you always feel like you could be making money. Doing laundry? You can get an hour billable while waiting. Watching a movie? Is the movie good enough you want to give up 2 hours billable? Also, this can be a lot worse when you're younger, just starting out, and money is generally ti…

> Watching a movie? Is the movie good enough you want to give up 2 hours billable?

Lie?

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#34

Post by codyogden »

throwarayes wrote: post #3

Here’s what I do: - never install slack or email on your phone - use a separate laptop for personal stuff. I don’t/can’t log in to work stuff here. - put your work laptop away and out of sight when done work - (optionally) give a few trusted people your phone number if they absolutely must reach you The last point help alleviate the stress of “I absolutely must always check slack to deal with the latest crisis”

> give a few trusted people your phone number if they absolutely must reach you

My last team sent me a desktop IP phone they could call me whenever. I should have realized then it wasn't a great fit. heh.

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#35

Post by ghaff »

notretarded wrote: post #33
mech422 wrote: post #2

I've worked remotely for 20 years on both salary and hourly (consulting). I found it especially hard to 'unplug' when working hourly, as you always feel like you could be making money. Doing laundry? You can get an hour billable while waiting. Watching a movie? Is the movie good enough you want to give up 2 hours billable? Also, this can be a lot worse when you're younger, just starting out, and money is generally ti…

> Watching a movie? Is the movie good enough you want to give up 2 hours billable? Lie?

Please don't go into hourly-billed consulting if your default assumption is to just lie about your hours.

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#36

Post by jakear »

arrosenberg wrote: post #31
esoterica wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of finance firms have a “you eat what you kill” model where the compensation pool is a direct function of how much money the desk makes. So if you hire more people to do the same amount of work then yeah, the bonus pool gets divided more ways and each person makes less money.

Sure, but finance is the exact last place we want to look for sustainable, value-producing business models.

To be fair legal shops often have the same policy. (Bonus = your billed hours/total billed hours * surplus)

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#37

Post by baby »

kuhzaam wrote: post #27
baby wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same issue and two things: - go take a walk alone for one hour. No headphones, no device. I’m not kidding - make a list of tasks that you must accomplish. See it like a queue that you’ll pop from and get a task to focus on. Now take your days one at a time focusing on the task in front of you. Do this until you depleted the queue. For this to work the queue should not be vague, and have items that you real…

What kind of benefits have you felt from long walks with no devices? I was on a good routine doing that earlier in quarantine, and kind of fell off the wagon. Could use some inspiration to get re-started :)

For some reason when I walk I get some time where I can really think, and organize my thought, and it gets me into this peaceful and calm state for weeks after. I used to do this when I was younger as well, if I'd feel really down I would just skip class and take the day off to walk endlessly in the city, always made things better for a while.

I think this idea has been echoed multiple time in history. For example, the Peripatetic school[1] (in ancient Greece) etimologic roots is in "walking" or "the pleasure of walking". Some rumors say that it is by walking that thinkers could achieve correct or deeper thinking.

Apparently, a lot more philosophers have a very deep relationship with walking. Nietzsche and Kant both spent hours walking to think[2].

I think inherently, we are not souls, we are not brains without a body. When we do something, our entirety gets to work, and sitting all day in front of a screen is no way to think or live.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripatetic_school

[2]: https://fs.blog/2014/05/a-philosophy-of-walking/

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#38

Post by baby »

Akcium wrote: post #15
baby wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have the same issue and two things: - go take a walk alone for one hour. No headphones, no device. I’m not kidding - make a list of tasks that you must accomplish. See it like a queue that you’ll pop from and get a task to focus on. Now take your days one at a time focusing on the task in front of you. Do this until you depleted the queue. For this to work the queue should not be vague, and have items that you real…

Thank you By queue you mean a set of tasks? Or a big goals or what? I have a to-do list, a backlog in my project. The number of tasks just grow up, all I got power to do is to endlessly fill this list. So we're talking about "small set of tasks", or a queue per project, or... could you clarify here? And yeah, walking alone might help. Indeed. Will do

Tell me how you feel after the walk :)

By queue I mean a set of task yeah. The whole point is to take away your will to organize (or at least place it somewhere) and set a queue of tasks to work on in front of you. You can then spend your entire focus on the task in front of you, then when you're done go to the next task.

From time to time (at the end of every week) you can re-organize your task lisk, but most of the time focus on one task at a time.

Re: How I was failing to find time for life while working remotely

#39

Post by p2t2p »

throwarayes wrote: post #3

Here’s what I do: - never install slack or email on your phone - use a separate laptop for personal stuff. I don’t/can’t log in to work stuff here. - put your work laptop away and out of sight when done work - (optionally) give a few trusted people your phone number if they absolutely must reach you The last point help alleviate the stress of “I absolutely must always check slack to deal with the latest crisis”

This!

I'm doing exactly this since 2021 and it helped _immensely_

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