Workflows

In the attempt to be efficient, being able to point at something for reference is really helpful.

Day-to-Day Notes

As much time as I spend on the computer, I generally prefer to write out ideas or thoughts. There are too many reasons as to explain why, but one key aspect is being able to freely draw as many lines as one pleases. Lines as letters, as objects, as graphs which can all live on the same sheet of paper. Unless the written notes are bound in a journal or notebook format or they are a contiguous set of notes which fill out more than a single page, I will typically not use the reverse side of the paper. Instead when full, photo scan and file into some directory. Additionally, cropped photos of a white board are also filed in their own folder.

Trying to balance a work life balance when many hours of my day are spent away from home and the commute alone can eat up to two hours a day is difficult to say the least. I can't write as much as I used to when I was still in school. Additionally, tracking all of these items is becoming more and more unmanageable. The last notebook is only half full at this point and has remained that way for many months. I would highly suggest during the job search to find one that has the least amount of commute possible.

Commuting is a part of the work day that is unpaid and a detriment to quality of life. If I could get paid for commuting from my bedroom to the kitchen in the morning, I would gladly take that job. A method for putting in to perspective two jobs with different pay and different commute times is to find the reduction in gross pay rate and consider the commute itself unpaid labor. For two jobs, A and B, where A is a 8 hour work day for 5 days a week on 2 hour total commute paying $100,000 compared to job B is 10 hour work day for 4 days a week with a 20 minute commute paying $85,000. An approximation is 50 weeks a year at 40 hours (on average) a week, is 2000 hours a year.

Job A: $100000 / (2000 work hours + 50 week * 5 day / week * 2 hours/ day) = $40.00/hour @ 10 hours

Job B: $ 85000 / (2000 work hours + 50 week * 4 day / week * 0.3 hours/ day) = $41.26/hour @ 10.2 hours

Though I would nominally be making 15000 less at Job B, I would prefer it over Job A because of the full free day that it would give me. The total number of hours worked is the same but the denominator is much smaller in Job A because I wouldn't be spending 2 hours in the car each working day.