The [/] [X] [>] system goes crazy thanks for sharing! Wish I could have used this when I was earlier in my career, back then I just threw my body on the line and worked 80-100 hours per week whenever I was behind (not great, learnt a lot in life experience and work experience but still not great).
It wasn't until later that I realised if I got most of the things (~80%) done without dropping balls on the must urgent tasks and hitting utilisation I would've been fine. Firms like the one I worked at just needed employees like me to hit certain ROIs and big client deadlines and the rest is just window dressing:
Using a junior as an example:
Cost to firm:
$40/hr in salary + $40/hr in benefits, admin cost, office lease etc = $80/hr
Revenue to firm:
$350/hr in charge out rate x 70% utilisation rate = $245/hr
ROI = ~3:1
In my current industry blocking tasks out in my calendar (and making those calendar blocks as detailed as I needed) is sufficient in staying organised without needing any additional systems (my main deliverables nowadays are meetings and writing needed to be done before those meetings).
On your previous blog post, really appreciated the honesty with which you wrote this:
Even now, I question whether the price on my values has meaningfully increased or merely adjusted for inflation. I am still so scared of making the wrong choice, of ruining my life.
It struck a cord with me because this was my perspective six months ago, one I have slowly stepped out of every day watching people starve to death in an inflicted famine that my government funds. One day I asked myself what the point of anything I do will be if I don’t do anything about this - how can I view my life as sacred, or any life as sacred, when I stand by as the very sanctity of life is insulted so obviously and loudly - and seeks to conscript me in it through my tax dollars and silence. I was afraid of making the biggest mistake of my life too — I like you work in a field where the stakes are high — but in retrospect I see that the biggest mistake for me would have been to do nothing at all. My fears, and I suspect your fears, came from a place of cynicism - that the world would turn its back on me if I received backlash or lost professional opportunities, and so threatened the economic privilege I held. But what I learned is that my willingness to stay uninvolved was feeding and making that mindset true in my life - it would always be true as long as I stayed the same - for how could I think otherwise when I myself was turning my back on people at very real risk of being exterminated. What is the point of the ambition I seek in this world when this world is okay with a six year old dying a prolonged death trapped in a car as her family is sniped around her? Truly what does it mean to be human, and what is the value of our humanity - this is the question being asked of us right now.
Whether we like it or not we have the power now to influence the course of history and I fear we are answering the question to ourselves either way, either through our silence or involvement. I received a fancy education that gave me fancy opportunities but with that comes a cost, I think - the understanding of the implications of what is happening, and who that makes us to history. I suspect you see it as clearly as I do, because your blog post reads exactly like the conversations I was having with friends 6 months ago.
Whether we allow fear or radical hope to guide us right now is something that will follow us for the rest of our lives; at some point we have to account for our own actions to ourselves. And most compellingly, scarily, the younger generations now seem to have, bravely, chosen the latter and will be reminders to us for the rest of our lives of what we could have done.
The [/] [X] [>] system goes crazy thanks for sharing! Wish I could have used this when I was earlier in my career, back then I just threw my body on the line and worked 80-100 hours per week whenever I was behind (not great, learnt a lot in life experience and work experience but still not great).
It wasn't until later that I realised if I got most of the things (~80%) done without dropping balls on the must urgent tasks and hitting utilisation I would've been fine. Firms like the one I worked at just needed employees like me to hit certain ROIs and big client deadlines and the rest is just window dressing:
Using a junior as an example:
Cost to firm:
$40/hr in salary + $40/hr in benefits, admin cost, office lease etc = $80/hr
Revenue to firm:
$350/hr in charge out rate x 70% utilisation rate = $245/hr
ROI = ~3:1
In my current industry blocking tasks out in my calendar (and making those calendar blocks as detailed as I needed) is sufficient in staying organised without needing any additional systems (my main deliverables nowadays are meetings and writing needed to be done before those meetings).
On your previous blog post, really appreciated the honesty with which you wrote this:
Even now, I question whether the price on my values has meaningfully increased or merely adjusted for inflation. I am still so scared of making the wrong choice, of ruining my life.
It struck a cord with me because this was my perspective six months ago, one I have slowly stepped out of every day watching people starve to death in an inflicted famine that my government funds. One day I asked myself what the point of anything I do will be if I don’t do anything about this - how can I view my life as sacred, or any life as sacred, when I stand by as the very sanctity of life is insulted so obviously and loudly - and seeks to conscript me in it through my tax dollars and silence. I was afraid of making the biggest mistake of my life too — I like you work in a field where the stakes are high — but in retrospect I see that the biggest mistake for me would have been to do nothing at all. My fears, and I suspect your fears, came from a place of cynicism - that the world would turn its back on me if I received backlash or lost professional opportunities, and so threatened the economic privilege I held. But what I learned is that my willingness to stay uninvolved was feeding and making that mindset true in my life - it would always be true as long as I stayed the same - for how could I think otherwise when I myself was turning my back on people at very real risk of being exterminated. What is the point of the ambition I seek in this world when this world is okay with a six year old dying a prolonged death trapped in a car as her family is sniped around her? Truly what does it mean to be human, and what is the value of our humanity - this is the question being asked of us right now.
Whether we like it or not we have the power now to influence the course of history and I fear we are answering the question to ourselves either way, either through our silence or involvement. I received a fancy education that gave me fancy opportunities but with that comes a cost, I think - the understanding of the implications of what is happening, and who that makes us to history. I suspect you see it as clearly as I do, because your blog post reads exactly like the conversations I was having with friends 6 months ago.
Whether we allow fear or radical hope to guide us right now is something that will follow us for the rest of our lives; at some point we have to account for our own actions to ourselves. And most compellingly, scarily, the younger generations now seem to have, bravely, chosen the latter and will be reminders to us for the rest of our lives of what we could have done.
I’m obsessed with how lawyers stay organized and always looking for tools/suggestions to improve my game - thank you for sharing!