Between Workaholism and Procrastination (2015) | Hacker News Reader

Between Workaholism and Procrastination (2015)

jamalx31.com

56 pointsjamalx3144 comments

I get the sense that digital nomadism is akin to a multi-level marketing scam; the only people making actual money are the ones recruiting others to the "lifestyle" by advertising their blogs, books and guides (see OP).

a digital nomad myself I have to disagree. digital nomadism is just a life style like any other, and it's not for everyone. I know many ppl who tried it and went back to 9-5 jobs and thats totally fine

Where can I buy your book on how to do it successfully? :))

hehe, I didn't write one (yet :p). but if you wanna chat about it, i'm down. ping me on twitter

Oh, it was just a joke ;) I've been down this road way too many times - procrastinating instead of working by "researching" or "learning" how to do things differently, more efficiently, learing new tools, paradigms etc. that will improve my productivity and whatnot.

What I've learned is it's way better to just do stuff and improve things as you go (be that the optimal way to be a digital nomad or whatever ;)

I guess I'd disagree, since multi-level marketing scams are marketed as ways to make money, and as a general rule that is not what digital nomadism is marketed as.

As someone who was a digital nomad and now works more or less permanently from home in the US, I can say that this is absolutely not true. There are definitely "digital nomads" that could be described that way because they are operating affiliates businesses off of a travel blog and monetizing social media, and I guess more power to them. But most of the digital nomads I met, including myself, worked actual full-time jobs for actual companies while abroad.

Becoming a digital nomad isn't about making money... in fact if you do it properly it's at best break-even or slightly cheaper than just renting a place to live in the US and staying put, but could be vastly more expensive. It's about exploring the world, expanding your viewpoint, and inspiring you to think differently. Going abroad helped my engineering work immensely, and also gave me a chance use time zones to my advantage to improve my health by adapting my sleep cycle to my body's needs rather than the whims of an employer. It also got me moving much more despite working on a computer all day, which greatly improved my health as well. Being able to leave work and actually go do something new, interesting, and exciting each day had a positive effect on work/life balance and was the perfect way to combat the burnout I was experiencing as a senior engineer before I stepped on the plane.

I don't advocate being a digital nomad, because I think it's something that's not for everybody and it had its own set of challenges and stressors. But I don't think it's some sort of MLM get-rich quick scheme by people either. You are only seeing the aspect of it shown by social media which is dominated by "influencers" using their skill at marketing and manipulation to enrich themselves. But if you talk to most people who lived the lifestyle, they were normal joes doing normal jobs, just in a location-independent fashion. Not everyone who is a digital nomad is a white 20-something from New York or LA that decided to take their affiliate blog on the road and write a book to be self-published by Amazon, probably less than 10% of the digital nomads I met along the way were like that. I met a lot of people during my time due to using coworking facilities in so many places.

Years ago I sort of did the digital nomad thing for about 8 years in Western Europe, but I managed to spend a good amount of time in every continent but Antarctica. I earned between $25k and $100k a year working about 10 to 20 hours a week and spent most of the money on alcohol and women. I had to work pretty hard the first couple years just to kick-start the whole thing though. The final year was a total blowout and I played video games all day and partied 5 or 6 nights a week. I ended up killing the business through neglect, but that final year of total freedom was worth it.

The bad part was that I ended up in my early 30's with no money, no job, and a very unattractive CV/Resume. The good part is that I was socially transformed. I'm way more confident now, especially around groups of strangers.

I never wrote about this before nor have I ever written a blog, but I met plenty of people living similar lives. Anyway I guess my point is that there are plenty of people out there doing things without blogging about it. But you're not going to meet them online.

a serious question, what "work" did you do?

I am curious to know what kind of profession has the option to be a digital nomad. They only one I figured is being a journalist or a writer.

What types of business do you do being a nomad?

Software development is huge with remote work.

I don't know if I ever identified with "digital nomad," but I have traveled a lot.

Roles that are what is now called "developer relations" or similar effectively force you into an adjacent lifestyle.

Freelance development can often support this kind of thing.

Basically, any sort of remote job.

Similarly, I've never thought of myself as a "digital nomad" and actually do own a house. But prior to travel shutting down, it would absolutely have been practical for me to put my stuff in storage, ask a friend or family member to let me use their address as my home address, and live at least around the Americas or Europe as I saw fit. Given that I was traveling 1/3 of the time anyway, what's another 2/3rds?

Yep, exactly.

What's kind of amusing/terrible is that while doing this I was almost always living in very high COL areas, while a digital nomad would be off somewhere extremely inexpensive. Oh well, money isn't everything.

I actually did this for someone who was basically living on the road for an aerospace company for a number of years. They shifted most bills etc. online and I kept my eye out for anything critical such as drivers license renewals and forwarded that kind of thing to her company's mail forwarding PO Box.

Yeah. Some of it I was only able to make work because a partner was willing to work with me on the money side. In the long term it wasn’t fair, though.

It's almost certainly easier than it used to be because you can do so much online, everyone has a mobile number, etc. There are even basically "address as a service" services for mail forwarding and the like. Still, there's probably more peace of mind (and it's probably somewhat more legit) to be officially living somewhere with someone reliable even if you just happen to almost never be there.

When I was doing it for my friend, it was never that big a deal. But stuff did come up every now and then that needed to be handled.

It was pretty popular for online poker players when that was big

In principle, any job that you can do fully remotely.

Having said that, you'll need a home base where you "officially" live and can legally work from--and, if you're an employee of a company (i.e. not an independent consultant), you probably need to be up-front about what you're doing and many companies may have issues with the legal ramifications.

That said, in practice, before the pandemic I traveled about a third of the time so having some sort of nominal home base in the US and otherwise being on the road really wouldn't have been that much of a stretch compared to my usual. I do marketing-related stuff for a computer software company.

"...and spent most of the money on alcohol and women."

"I spent a lot of money on booze, birds [women] and fast cars – the rest I just squandered" -- George Best

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Best#cite_note-10

If you're not a digital nomad yourself or otherwise living in digital nomad desirable locations it would make sense that you never encounter any organically, and that just leaves you with those that are pushing the lifestyle.

I don't understand how you could be skeptical of the idea, it's pretty simple. Step 1, have remote job or contract work. Step 2, choose not to stay in one location. The end.

What is the thesis of the book?

Instead of opposites, I would consider both Workaholism and Procrastination as forms of experiential avoidance coping strategies. Instead of a golden-mean between the two, the ideal point is off the line, where you have the psychological flexibility to live a valued life despite difficult feelings and avoid both traps i.e. Acceptance and Commitment theory.

n.b. I see you are using ideas from Tim Urban, I would suggest referencing him properly rather than just copying.

was about to say the same thing about the refs... seems to forget to reference other concepts and ideas in his other blog posts too.

"Instant Gratification Monkey...Panic Monster" -https://waitbutwhy.com/2013/10/why-procrastinators-procrasti...

could you please tell what other refs you see in other posts? I will update them

> I see you are using ideas from Tim Urban, I would suggest referencing him properly rather than just copying.

Thanks for pointing this out, a human error. I've updated the post to point to the original idea from Tim post

> I wake up around 6 am, go to the gym with my buddy, come back to my room to take a shower, eat a bowl of salad and then leave for work. I get to work around 9 am, leave around 5 to meet friends, hang out, or do whatever activity I was planning for that evening.

Where do people get that energy?

I remember that kind of energy was normal when I was content

and 23

This will sound wired. But the days I wake up early I usually have more energy (ofc I need to get enough sleep).

This seems to me the idea(s) of a young person who's working (no pun intended) on the small picture, but missing the big one. In short, somebody who doesn't know yet what to do in life, however, not what to do in the planning or business sense (which is what described in the post), but more precisely, what they _want_ to do.

To me, rather the conceptualization(s) proposed, the words of John Carmack are immensely more powerful: when asked about what's the difference that being rich made to him, he replied "not much, I wake up in the morning, I go to work, and I do my best"¹.

¹=I can't find the reference. I don't think it comes from Masters of Doom.

> when asked about what's the difference being rich has made to him

I think that this quote, while well meaning, misses what being lower class is. It's about the constance worry and anxiety over being able to provide. It's being terrified of every accident or potential set back. It's about constantly sacrificing wants for needs. Being even upper middle class alleviates many of these, and being rich alleviates almost all of them entirely.

TBH though, Carmack gets to choose what work he does in virtue of being wealthy.

I don't really get this, but Carmack's wealth has been, and is, completely disconnected from his software career.

I can take that he may not have founded his aerospace company without plenty of money, but that's not what he's mostly known for, or even better, what he represents (one of the greatest software engineers).

(2015) in the title is an error. 2015 in just the first heading in a chronological story, the last heading being "March 2020"

I have this idea where I can work my neck off for 4-6 months (including weekends; essentially eat, sleep, restroom, and work 24x7). And then I need the rest of the year off.

I'm not sure how to find this kind of work. Some have advised that I should seek contract work. But contract work is hell, no thanks.

Aside from contract work, I think you've pretty much limited your choices to consultant or commercial fisherman.

Even consultant is tough. You have a business that you need to run and typically can't just disappear for 6 months at a time and largely ignore everything going on in the industry.

It's actually almost certainly easier to consult part-time (whether you intend it to be part-time or not!) than it is to go 120% for 6 months and then rapidly ratchet it to zero for another 6.

I think the only person I know who has done something like this was a lawyer who worked as a contract lawyer for some big finance company (I think) for about half the year. Which doesn't sound like a bad gig. But it's hard for most white collar jobs.

Ski instructor? Mine site commissioning engineer? Game developer (except you get the rest of the year off because you got fired when the game shipped.)

I think that if you can find a way to intrinsically value yourself and your life you may find it easier to get balance with your work. The graph of Procrastination vs. Workaholism has many more dimensions.

huh?

A weird blog post becomes an ad for a book?

Whatever this example should demonstrate, it doesn't make me curious about the book.

it wasn't meat as an ad, just for context. In some places I say "this chapter.." which doesn't make since in a blog post without context.

also appreciate your honest feedback. Any personal thoughts on how to deal with procrastination without turning to a workaholic

It simplifies procrastination and throws in happiness with procrastination and workaholic.

You also assume your worldview. When i hear your digital nomade lifestyle i'm not envy it and i'm not connecting to your worldview.

Procrastination doesn't mean 'not working'. Workaholic doesn't mean 'unhappy'.

Workoholic doesn't mean 'unhappy', yes, but how does procrastination not mean 'not working'? In this context, it litterally means 'postponing the work'.

Small warning: There’s a slightly shocking gif in this article, which possibly depicts animal cruelty. (Hard to say exactly what’s going on in it).

Unlikely: there's no visible motor on the wheel (it appears to just be a clip holding it in place, so all that speed is the hamster's doing. It's no more animal cruelty than tripping and faceplanting while running would be the ground assaulting you.

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