First the minimum time:
- audiobooks while commuting (mostly walking to work). Even if it's like 30-40 minutes some day at most, it still adds up.
- add to that lets say ~15 minutes each night before sleeping.
And on top of that:
- sleepless nights, when you want to get back to sleep: 30 minutes - ...
- just having a good series to grind through.
- audiobooks during some manual labor (home restoration works for example).
So for me audiobooks + capability to read at night without disturbing others (dark mode + backlight on e-reader). And from that it adds up.
This comment slightly terrifies me. My reading has dipped this year, but generally this is a small amount of reading for 12 months. I think the norm on reading quantity has shifted.
Is social media to blame? TikTok and meta videos are extremely addictive. I have perhaps the strongest willpower of anyone I know, and the only way I can avoid losing hours to them every day is to delete these apps from all devices, and have a separate browser on my Mac for them.
I think it's quite hard to talk about norms for reading quantity, because it varies so much between people. There are a lot of people (more than half the population) who read basically no books in a year, and a tiny slice who read a huge number: so your intuitive take on what's "normal" is going to depend a lot on whether your social circle happens to have voracious readers in it. I suppose you can statistically determine some point in between as the "norm" but I'm not sure that point would reflect many people's experience...
I consider myself a fairly slow reader (see other comment) and nothing on this list took very long to read, other than LotR and The Count of Monte Cristo. One of my goals for 2025 was to replace parades of endless distractions (social media, hn, Reddit) with books. I found that if I only read even for just 5min during morning coffee, I was far, far more likely to open a book when waiting while my car got smogged, kid at dentist, school pickups, etc. Those little between moments are so easily stolen from us and monetized, and they add up to a frightful total.
One of the best pieces of advice I got was from my English lit teacher: always carry a book with you. You never know when you’ll have down time to read.
But seriously, I had the same thought, considering the general lack of guardrails surrounding high-profile Chinese genAI models... Eventually, someone will know the answer... It's inevitable...
Yeah a lot of the WLB complaints seem to be team based with around half the people I talked to seem to have acceptable WLB (40-45) whereas others are working 50+ hours
At some point if I transition to FAANG/something closer to my ideal, I'd definitely like to grind so I doubt I would have time for much outside of work.
At some point if I transition to FAANG/something closer to my ideal, I'd definitely like to grind so I doubt I would have time for much outside of work.
If you want to make that transition, you're gonna be competing with people who work hard from day 1, and not just when it's time to make the jump to FAANG. It's really hard to beat people who put in the time for their craft, in the long-run
You don't have to work at a "name-brand" company to have an enjoyable, challenging and rewarding career. Most people don't. Ignore everyone who tells you that the name of the company you work for, or length of your title are what matter in life
How does WLB change over time for most people?
I think for a lot of people, they tend to have the fewest commitments immediately out of college. Life responsibilities tend to pile up as you get older, which makes it nice to have "banked" a bunch of good will, hard work, and connections from earlier in your career
Both are still 55 h/w of grinding. Worrying about WLB and not keeping your head down would be, "I'm off the clock, no more working on anything related to work in any capacity today".
Prepping for interviews outside of work would still very much count as "grinding" in my opinion.
As someone who has a CS background but would like to learn more about finance but not get too deep into the weeds of math & statistics, would this be a good resource? Or is this more for people who want to break into quant and practice/learn concepts for interviews?
Yep, no stats or advanced math is needed. My primary focus is to cater to beginner and intermediate users.
For beginners, it is a good tool to understand the basic finance and accounting concepts. It is interactive, you can practice the formulas via quizzes, much more fun than reading a textbook. I suggest you try financial statement module.
For intermediate users, you can practice financial modeling by solving generic modeling problems (3-statements, DCF, LBO, M&A). It will help you build the muscle memory of using the functions/formulas.
For advanced users, I am planning to onboard more industry specific modeling content and practice cases.
After installing the extension, go to youtube. There is a "Sign in with Google" button where "related videos" are usually located. If something went wrong, please send a screenshot to me at [email protected]
