

Ask HN: What are your problems? - umrashrf

I think every month we should ask fellow readers about their problems like we ask who&#x27;s hiring and who&#x27;s looking for work. If this post gets any traction, I will do it every month. I am a bit late for October but anyway there we go.<p>Please be precise and clear :-)
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ElongatedTowel
My biggest problem is knowing whether an idea is worth spending time or even
possible. Or just parts of it. There is no place to throw in questions like:

"I need this in my database but im pretty sure it won't scale, will it?

"I wrote this small gadget to solve a very specific problem that I use quite
often, does anyone else have that problem?"

"I'm using library X, how would I subclass Y to allow path prefixes?"

~~~
deadfall
I have this problem "knowing whether an idea is worth spending time or even
possible". I you are not sure if an idea is worth spending time on ask some
friends what they think about it. Just some questions I ask myself: Is the
idea something that people need? Would it be a good learning experience? Would
I use it? Is it fun or entertaining? People spend a lot of money on
entertainment and some take advantage of these extremely well. Better than I,
for sure. Everything is possible the technology exists. If it doesn't, how can
it exist?

I just ask myself a lot of questions, but the down side is I hardly finish the
projects I start. With all the information available and ideas floating it is
hard to stay on the rail.

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lgieron
I'd like to eat large amounts of chocolate without consequences ;) Seriously,
someone who figures it out (and manages to not screw up the business side)
will be the next Rockefeller.

~~~
evacuationdrill
I remember a book I had when I was young that had all these inventions. Many
of them were actually plausible, but they were all a little farfetched, and
most were the sort of "inventions" or little life hacks a child might think
up.

One of them was a very fine mesh in a resealable pouch for you to put food in,
so you could taste it and feel it, but you wouldn't swallow it. It was pretty
absurd, but I figured you should know that somebody's working on it.

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pjungwir
I'm a freelancer, typically with several engagements at once (1 major, a few
minor), and my biggest problem is figuring out how to take a vacation. I can
take two days off, and I suppose I could take 2 months off, but how do I take
2 weeks off? I'm sure how to do it!

~~~
stevejalim
To quote myself (see my profile for source):

""" The pressure of working full-out as a freelancer can lead to burnout
quicker than you might imagine. You may find your conscience won't allow the
kind of Friday-afternoon messing around/slack time that many enjoy as a
staffer, for instance. (Although hopefully you still get [compiling
time]([http://xkcd.com/303/](http://xkcd.com/303/)) or its equivalent.)
Similarly, it's easy to end up over-subscribed, which is exhausting.

So, allow yourself time for vacations, holidays, anniversary celebrations and
the like. Work is important in life, but it isn't life, after all. Also, it's
unlikely that client projects will always fall into your lap with the perfect
timing to allow for a proper summer/winter vacation, for instance. So make
sure you set aside enough time for yourself, and don't (sometimes
accidentally) promise all of your time to your clients - it's an easy mistake
to make.

### Arranging time off * Give your clients a decent amount of notice (at least
four weeks is good) and they'll generally be fine with that. * If possible,
try to avoid taking time off when you know it'll cause a genuine headache for
the client (and therefore you), such as launch deadline dates. But don't let
any non-critical grumbling put you off your hard-earned R&R. * Let your
clients know if and how you'll be contactable while away, and in what
circumstances (unless you're going off on a honeymoon or something similarly
significant, it's worth leaving some kind of channel open, even if it's simply
"I'll be checking my email once every two days"). Whatever ground rules you
set your client, respect them yourself, too. * Let your clients know when
you'll be back. * Remember to set up an out-of-office (before you're on the
airbridge at the airport).

### Holiday money It's worth bearing in mind the invisible cost of holiday
time when working out your annual income (which is something you'll need or
want to do quite often as a self-employed individual). If you conjure up your
expected earnings based on billing a client for every one of the 250 or so
working days a year, one of three things can happen:

1\. You'll refuse to take holiday, because you'll be “earning less”. 2\.
You'll fall into the trap of negatively pricing your time off ("Sitting on
this beach is costing me £X, dammit!"). 3\. You'll take the holiday (well
done!) but you'll be (falsely) annoyed with yourself for missing your targets.

So, remember to keep the cost of holiday time in your mindset from the start
and treat it as a necessary dip in your potential earnings. It's not being
slack, it's being human. """

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yohann305
I cannot get muscle mass without having to work out.

~~~
evacuationdrill
Is this a joke? I thought that's actually how it's supposed to work.

~~~
TaffeyLewis
I second that opinion. Were yo expecting the muscle mass to simply grow forth
from the shimmering air?

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Nicholas_C
If I open up one excel workbook with a lot of links excel freezes for 30-45
seconds, sometimes more, and I just have to wait it out. If I could change
between workbooks while it froze it wouldn't be so bad. My work laptop has an
i5 and 16GB of RAM, so I don't think it's a hardware issue.

~~~
evacuationdrill
It just might not be that hardware. Going through all those links may max out
your R/W speed.

~~~
Nicholas_C
I assumed that wasn't the problem as the excel file will open up then freeze
as it grabs the data from the links.

