

I quit my job. Today is Day 16 - keslert
http://www.nevertryneverfail.com/i-quit-my-job-today-is-day-16/

======
gedrap
>>> I’ve felt the pull. However, personal motivation to succeed keeps the
wheels churning.

I really like your point about motivation.

I'm a freelancer and working from home, and I used to think that nutrition,
physical activity etc has a lot to do with it. Yeah sure it does but recently
I think at the end of the day, it's just about will power and deep, personal
motivation. If you are not enjoying it, no diet will make you more motivated
or energetic. It's about an ability to say firm 'no' to distractions.
Especially the 'short' ones, because they never tend to be short [0].

Sometimes there is just shit that needs to be done. I mean ugly stuff, like
code written by someone else and you have no idea how does it even work in
first place or think that the the other programmer was drunk when coding it.
Something that your mind says 'I didn't signed up for this shit!'. You just
have to focus on it, and get it done. No 'just going to starbucks downstairs',
or 'just a cigarette' will help.

Actually, I think one of the best indicator of maturity of software engineer
is dealing with unpleasant tasks. Less mature developers try to delay it to
the last minute (when bad comes to worse), or impulsively suggest re-writing
everything from scratch, etc. Mature developers just get their shit together
and get it done.

[0] Once I noticed that the biggest productivity killers are longer than 5min
breaks because once you are away, it's so tempting to do one more thing, and
then another. I blogged about it "It's all about the short breaks"
[http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/02/09/its-all-about-the-
shor...](http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/02/09/its-all-about-the-short-
breaks/)

~~~
Swizec
With the current market for engineers, if you aren't enjoying your work most
of the time, you're doing something wrong and should probably find a more
interesting project to work on. Fire yourself if you have to.

That said, good diet, healthy social life, and exercise are of paramount
importance to will power. The better balanced your life, the more will power
you're going to have.

But it's also important to manage will power. When you're tired, just stop,
take a break. Even leave things for tomorrow. You are likely just fooling
yourself that you can still get stuff done and wouldn't you rather just take a
proper break than spend the next hour or two shuffling your feet and getting
neither rested nor getting work done?

As for short breaks -> Timers. Use timers. Seriously, use a timer.

Shameless plug, I've been working on a book about this stuff:
[http://nightowlsbook.com](http://nightowlsbook.com)

~~~
gedrap
Good points!

>>> With the current market for engineers, if you aren't enjoying your work
most of the time, you're doing something wrong and should probably find a more
interesting project to work on. Fire yourself if you have to.

Yup, I'm starting a new job in 1.5 week, extremely excited :)

>>> Even leave things for tomorrow.

That is also very true, blogged about it too a while ago as well [0]. Trying
to get something done for 3hrs can be replaced by 1hr burst next day, as long
as 'tomorrow' doesn't become a procrastination. What is important is to make
sure that you are actually having a break, your mind is totally away from
work.

And yeah, I agree about the timers. I sometimes use a pomodoro timer app and
trying to make it a habit, planning to make a physical arduino one. Some day
:)

[0] "3\. Take a break and don’t feel guilty about it"
[http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/05/19/4-things-i-learned-
the...](http://blog.gedrap.me/blog/2014/05/19/4-things-i-learned-the-hard-way-
while-freelancing/)

~~~
Swizec
> Trying to get something done for 3hrs can be replaced by 1hr burst next day

I've often found that impossible bugs that I struggle with for hours on end
and just can't figure out no matter what I do, get solved in 10 minutes next
morning.

Now how do I teach this to junior developers? I've worked on teams where
juniors will frequently overwork themselves in an effort to "pay their dues"
or whatnot, or just because they feel they should offset their lack of skill
with stronger work ethics and I am fairly convinced it's counterproductive.
But I can't seem to find words to explain this to them. Or maybe I'm wrong and
the "leave it for tomorrow" only works when you've reached a certain level of
skill.

These are the questions that keep me up at night.

~~~
gedrap
Good point again!

Programming largely is creative, with some degree of standard and quite
autopilot code. Creative work can't be produced by staring at a blinking
cursor.

I agree with counter productivity, and I strongly agree with companies who
approach this with 'just get it done, whenever you want'. Twitter certainly
does so, Netflix I believe does.

>>> Or maybe I'm wrong and the "leave it for tomorrow" only works when you've
reached a certain level of skill.

I think there is some skill involved, or more accurately, experience. The
problems we are solving are often unique but still share something in common.
After solving a bunch of them, you have a gut feeling when something's going
right, and when you must to take a step back.

And it has to do with corporate people and managers, not everyone understands
how programming works. Young developers are afraid to look lazy in front of
their non-technical managers. It's often important just to appear working
hard, e.g. reading HN in terminal ;)

------
meritt
Can you please please remove SumoMe? Or add a button which allows me to
disable the stupid highlighting / clickjacking shit it does?

~~~
danielweber
I wants me to do _something_ but I can't tell what. Tweet things, maybe?

~~~
keslert
Thanks for the feedback guys. It is supposed to make tweeting easier, but
apparently it's not doing a very good job (although it probably does make you
want to tweet nasty things about me :)

I'll look into a better solution.

~~~
endersshadow
I find that many-a-web developers don't realize that people impulsively
highlight sections as they read them. I usually triple-click to highlight a
paragraph as I read it. It's just a habit, but it's apparently one I share
with many people. This also frustrates me to no end on the NYT site, and it's
the sole reason I'm not a subscriber.

~~~
thatjoist
Highlighting text you're reading increases readability as it adds a visual
clue to where on the page you are reading if you look away from the page.

A lot of people pick up the habit without being taught it because of that.

------
keslert
I added caching to my blog, but in case there are issues, I posted to Medium
again as well.
[https://medium.com/@keslertanner/e6eeeb60360c](https://medium.com/@keslertanner/e6eeeb60360c)

------
ibrad
I wish you good luck. I will be in the same boat in 2 days. Quitting your job
is very hard especially when you are not going for another one. Working on
your own project is exciting but the toll comes when you don't see progress
for a while and these times will come believe me.

I too will be working on my own ideas but I know after the honey moon is over
I will have to face the fact that I have no paychecks coming every two weeks.
It will be hard, but if success was easy, everyone will be doing just that.

Again good luck, and I do think freelanceinbox is a neat project.

~~~
arethuza
Good luck - and if it helps here is a quote that I find rather motivating (and
yes, I do know what it is like to leave a steady job for your own project):

 _" It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong
man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The
credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred
by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short
again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but
who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the
great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows
in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails,
at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with
those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."_

[It's an awesome quote made even better by the role it had in a fantastic
sporting/political event - involving rugby so therefore doubly awesome]

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizenship_in_a_Republic)

~~~
keslert
That is epic. Needs to belong to the wall behind my monitors.

~~~
thix0tr0pic
you can also check out zen pencils, prints are usually available
[http://zenpencils.com/comic/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-in-
th...](http://zenpencils.com/comic/theodore-roosevelt-the-man-in-the-arena/)

------
beat
Oh man, the feels, they burn!

Tomorrow is my last day of dayjobbing. I'm committing full time to my startup.
On saturday, I plan to sit down with my lawyer for re-incorporating and re-
branding. I've had an LLC and an initial name I used for expenses and stuff,
but I have a better name now and I want to start with a completely clean
slate.

I have no idea where my mind is going to be in a month, or in six months (I'm
giving myself six months of runway to have revenue at least trickling in).
Euphoria and terror, all at once.

~~~
keslert
That's awesome and I completely understand :) Best of luck and feel free to
reach out anytime.

------
elwell
Freelance Inbox piques my interest, but have you considered a commission fee
business model as opposed to monthly payments? I'd like to _try_ it out your
service without putting any money up, and if it works well I wouldn't mind
paying a certain percentage (or flat rate) to you if the lead turned out to be
profitable.

~~~
jarrett
I suspect that collecting on such commissions would be a real challenge. I'm
not saying the service's customers are dishonest, but...it's easy to "forget"
to pay your commission when it's on the honor system. Other bills come in,
other responsibilities push it out of one's mind. Human psychology may thus
work against an honor-based commission system.

As a customer who's rooting for the success of Freelance Inbox, I want the
subscription fee to stick around. Not to be an elitist, but by its nature,
this type of service can only work if it's exclusive. (Too many freelancers,
and the fierce competition makes the leads worthless.) Which is why I'm also
pleased to see that Freelance Inbox will/does have a membership cap.

~~~
elwell
Good point about it being exclusive

------
clarky07
I remember those days. Quitting was really exciting. I got more work done in
the first few months after I quit than probably at any other time in my life.
I'm on day 1100ish now and it doesn't come as easy, but it is still pretty
awesome working for myself. It's still kinda scary, but I consider the
experiment at least pretty successful considering I'm still at it 3+ years
later. Good luck to you.

------
mathattack
I like the intellectual honesty and perspective that comes with time. And I
hope this post generates interest in the business for the OP.

------
ark15
I don't have any words of wisdom since there are too many people here who are
smarter than I am that you should be listening to.

But for whatever it is worth -

I signed up to freelanceinbox to show my support.

Not sure how useful it would be since my niche is enterprise web applications
but I am going to keep my subscription alive for at least a few months to see
if anything converts.

I also promise to sign up for your pro community when you launch that.

If there is at least one lead that converts into a decent client every month,
I'd be happy to pay 2-3x of what you are charging right now.

Good luck!

------
ehurrell
Great post, good luck with the product! I recently did almost the exact
opposite of this, quit work with a startup.

While I learned a lot of what you mention in your post (being a self-starter
is a huge asset) at the time continuing work there seemed untenable. In
retrospect, even though I was quitting into nothing and the next two months
were some of the hardest times money-wise I've ever had to get through the
decision was the best one I could have made.

I guess what I'm saying is congrats on taking control, which I think is more
important then the vector of travel, I'm glad it's going well.

------
sologoub
Has anyone used the Freelance Inbox?

Curious to know what the experience is/was like and if you actually closed any
meaningful business.

------
jctanner
Great followup to the last post. Interested to read the three month post!

------
zrail
This is so inspiring. I'm looking forward to reading your continual followups,
hopefully they'll help push me over the edge.

