How I think about work

Several things in life have prompted me to think more deliberately about work: doing a master’s degree while working (stressful), reading The 4-Hour Work Week, diving into Stoic and Taoist philosophy, and getting turned down for a promotion.

So I think it’s time to do some thinking on paper and see what comes out!

Health warning

I am in a position where I have a solid foundation (have done a PhD), have enough of a job history to feel safe about finding the next one - so what comes next is pretty entitled but that is the way the world is structured right now.

Work is just solving a money problem

My main takeaway from The 4-Hour Work Week was this: work is the solution to a problem. The problem is not having enough money to do the things we want in life. When we face a problem, we should solve the problem, not fixate on the solution. No ‘what job do you want to have when you grow up’.

So let’s frame the problem correctly. I need about £2,500/month after tax to live like I do now in London (expensive city, I’m lazy about cooking). If I want this lifestyle for my whole life but only work until 65, I need to earn roughly £4,050/month after tax.

For the nerds

See the appendix for the detailed math on how I got to £4,050/month - it’s just basic arithmetic but I found working through the numbers really helpful for thinking about this stuff.

More money is always good - but only if the cost is right.

But obviously not all work is created equal. Some work I love, some I hate. So let’s try to be precise about what I mean by cost.

The cost

Instead of just thinking “do I like this job or not,” I try to weigh 1 hour of doing different activities on a scale from 0 (love it) to 1 (hate it). When scoring an activity you may want to factor in the following:

• Do I enjoy the actual work?
• Do I enjoy the skills it teaches me?
• Do I like the people I do it with?
• Does it contribute to something I care about?

For example, as a developer:

• Coding something I’m proud of with no time pressure: 0 (love it)
• Reviewing code of a good engineer: 0.4 (great to see others code)
• Debugging production issues: 0.7 (stressful and too much information)
• Pointless status meetings: 1 (pure waste of time)

Right now I work about 33 hours/week (after accounting for holidays - appendix) and my weighted average is around 0.7, so that’s about 23 hours of “cost” per week.

I don’t, but you may have situations where you can only work 20 hours a week or so due to commitments like child care, family support, etc. In this case, I would weight any hour over 20 as 1 or more cost - even if it is something you enjoy.

Graph this

The graph is simple with two axes income against your weighted work hours. At each point in this 2D graph I am going to think how I would feel being here. More money for the same hours is better. Less hours for the same money is better. Though what is interesting is looking at how valuable an extra hour of work is at different amounts of work/income. To make this simpler I picked 5 mental states: unbearable, bearable, fine, good, and made it - and then drew the dividing lines between them.

I should acknowledge this assumes I have choices - I’m privileged to have in-demand skills, good health, and low responsibilities. But even with limited options, the core question remains: what trade-off between money and hours makes sense for you?

This is simple enough but doesn’t really account for decisions like:

• Should I do a PhD: low pay, high hours but as I can say, it sets you up well.
• Should I risk it all on that start up: Large payout … maybe.
• Graduate jobs: If I can survive the grind then I’ll make it to a cushy job eventually. In the past I have had the ‘grid it out’ mindset for the “growth”.

But here’s the thing about “growth”

Here’s where I need to be controversial (or maybe just honest). I’m not sure optimizing for future outcomes is as smart as we think it is.

I can sink lots of time into things. I did this during my undergrad because I thought getting my degree would feel amazing. I got a good degree, but the moment I got it felt hollow - like I’d somehow cheated the system or it was not worth achieving. The weird thing is, “doing the work” I actually found very rewarding - learning Maths with great people I loved.

Same with my PhD. It was transformational - I lost weight, had my first partner, made great friends, started to build an actual personality and first listened to philosophy. But I was always focused on getting the PhD itself, which again felt cheap when it happened (thanks, COVID). What I loved was the journey, not the destination.

My PhD examiner

If this was a real viva (PhD exam) I would make you …

I have been reading Stoic and Taoist philosophy recently. Stoics teach you can only control your actions, not outcomes. Taoists talk about wu wei - going with the natural flow rather than forcing outcomes. Both suggest obsessing over destinations you can’t control is a recipe for suffering.

The career capital trap: We’re constantly told to “invest in our careers” - take the boring job that teaches skills, network strategically, build our “brand.” But what if you spend years building capital for a career you end up hating? What if the industry changes? (Hey AI!) What if you change?

Growth is just change: People use “growth” like it’s inherently positive, but growth is just change. If you need to go left, growing up doesn’t help you. When we want to change, the best way is to change in a direction that lets us do more of what we already like doing.

The path of least resistance isn’t lazy: Maybe choosing what feels right now, what you actually enjoy doing, isn’t short-sighted. Maybe it’s wisdom. You know you’ll take at least two steps in that direction. You don’t know if you’ll reach some imagined destination.

Why does older me deserve such a great life?: Here’s what really gets me - I’m in my early 30s, I have energy, I’m healthy, I’m curious about everything. Why am I optimizing so hard for the 65-year-old version of me? What did that guy do to deserve all this sacrifice from current me? That older version might not even exist, might have different priorities, might be dealing with health issues that make all this wealth accumulation pointless. Current me is here right now, full of energy and life - maybe he deserves some consideration too.

For me I am deciding to weight “immediate satisfaction” much more heavily in my graph. Not because I am hedonistic, but because the process is what we actually experience. The destination might be a mirage.

So how do I use this insight?

Honestly, I don’t right now. But I want to, I am trying to:

1. Trust my gut, but use the graph to sanity check: If I am going to commit a massive amount of time into something. Maybe just quickly check - is the payoff worth it? Should I do that high profile piece for a large bonus when I hate the team I am working with? Should I take that promotion that means spending more time on activities I hate?

2. Weight present satisfaction more heavily: I used to think suffering now for future benefits was smart. Now I think it’s often just delayed gratification that never pays off the way you expect.

3. Pick a journey, not a destination: Choose work that lets you do more of what you already enjoy, rather than optimizing for some imagined future self.

4. The path of least resistance might be wise: What feels natural and sustainable right now might be better guidance than what looks strategically optimal.

Maybe I should actually take my advice and halve my hours for half the pay - it would put me higher on my own satisfaction rating! Part of it is building a buffer for uncertainty, but honestly? Part of it is probably just the default mode of “more money = better” that this whole graph is supposed to challenge - because more money always feels better, we don’t think about the cost.

I believe some younger people need to be more skeptical of sacrificing present happiness for uncertain future rewards. The journey is what you actually experience.

Appendix: The boring math

Target pay

For the nerds who wanted to see how I got to £4,050/month:

I currently spend £2,500/month after tax in London:

• Rent: £750
• Day-to-day expenses: £1,500 (I should work out why this is so high!)
• Holiday fund: £250 (Or Janet tax - as me and my partner put it)

If I want this lifestyle until I’m 85 (53 years) but only work until 65 (33 years), the math is:

• Monthly earnings needed: £2,500 × (53 / 33) = £4,015/month

So roughly £4,050/month after tax. Right now I earn at least £5,200/month.

Current hours

I work 9-6 with an hour for lunch putting that at 8 hours a day 5 days a week - 40 hours a week.

I have 25 days holiday standard with 8 days bought back and another 12 for doing uni putting the total at 45 days leave. That means I only work 43 weeks out of 52 (I have not accounted for bank holiday in this). That then leaves me at 33 hours.

Then multiplied by 0.7 puts me at 23.15 hours per week.

Average UK salaries

It is good to be grounded in reality - when working some jobs normality feels a long way off. Personally I find the following calculator useful:

Giving what we can

For the number in the graph, I used plumplot which I put in to the UK tax calculator and added 5% as employer contributions to your pension.