January 1st, 2024 paycheck

Created:

I apparently didn’t publish this when I thought I did. Probably for the better actually.

I left my employer on November 7th. Given I’ve been in this position (not having a job) before, I know how to deal. That said, I’ve never been in this position with a rather large (for me) net worth and savings.

I did what I normally do when a steady stream of income goes away:

  1. I maintained a standard workday.
  2. I updated my résumé and started looking through job lists.
  3. I started putting feelers out regarding side projects.

I split the workday with my side projects being the first half of the workday:

  1. Mastering the Mundane
  2. The Irreverent Agilists
  3. Alexander Midknight
  4. HnS Works (website coming soon)

Each one has a crowdfunding area to help with feedback and prioritization:

  1. Mastering the Mundane
  2. The Irreverent Agilists
  3. Alexander Midknight
  4. HnS Works

In the beginning, each one was given about 60 minutes of my time. Based on pull, that shifted. Let me explain.

Pull, for me, has three aspects:

  1. Outside financial support.
  2. Outside interest.
  3. Internal desire.

This is also how I prioritize having a regular paying job and my side hustles. You can think of this like an inverted multiplier. Activities that bring in money (food) have roughly three times the weight as something I want to do (internal desire). Things people seem interested in but aren’t actually paying have double the weight as something I want to do.

So, I spent an hour posting online about the four things. I registered the DBAs, started pages on LinkedIn, Open Collective presences, and establishing websites for as many as I could using the aforementioned prioritization mechanic.

Mastering the Mundane had the greatest outside interest. Within Mastering the Mundane are various products and services. I started working on the one with the greatest internal desire, and telling folks about it: Time: Mastering the Mundane. So far, the internal desire hasn’t waned, and this edition is almost done. Further, the outside interest seems to be remaining the same, and the first pieces are being made available.

All that to say, I spend about 120 minutes per day on it. Then about 60 minutes on the next book. Then about 30 minutes on one of the other book ideas I have. Then another 30 minutes on one of the other projects; whichever is prioritized next highest.

Priorities shift as more feedback is received, which doesn’t cause things to shift as much as you might expect.

Then I spend the rest of the workday doing the regular job search and business development things.

My burn rate for December was pretty low compared to previous months. This was due mostly to not eating out and not spending on medical and mental things like I had been. I’m going to try to keep it down this month as well to get a feel for what’s possible. Of course, with some medical and mental things, I don’t really have much say in the matter.

If short-term assets start getting down to the 3 percent threshold, I’ll ramp up time spent on the job search. Further, I was already planning on closing out the M1 finance account this year; if I do, I’ll probably leave it in cash, but I’m hoping to do that when it’s at an all-time high. Finally, if worse comes to worse, I have money in the HSA and receipts I can use for reimbursement (tax-free withdrawals).

I also finished the 401k conversion in the Traditional Individual Retirement account, which brought the short-term assets down even more.

All right, that’s enough rambling.