Three Delusions I Learned

from Quitting My Job That

Could Stop You from Doing
the Same
Right before I quit my job it felt like the start of a fairytale.

I imagined my ideal day. I pictured sitting in local cafes with my

laptop and eating black forest cake with a chai latte. My work
colleagues joined in on the fairytale. “You’re going to have the
best life mate.”

A few weeks into this change in work, there a few delusions I’m
starting to see about quitting a job and going solo that you can
learn from.

Delusion 1: Without a job you will have extra

time

Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted.

I always thought this quote was stupid. Then I tried the no-job
life. It can easily become true. Without a job you can waste the
extra time.
Here’s a look at my Monday-Friday schedule so you can see how
quickly time gets away from when there is more of it to spend.
(It’s rough and obviously I don’t sit down with a stopwatch.)

6:00–6:30am

Before I quit my job I’d wake up at 6 am and bounce out of bed.

Why? Fear.

My worst nightmare was wasting the time before work. The time
before work was when I worked on my side hustle. It was my
ticket out of the rat race and catching trains to crowded offices.

Soon as I quit my job, I still woke up at 6 am. I’d walk to the

other side of the bedroom and turn my alarm off. But then I
went straight back to bed. I used the excuse “I need to get warm
again — it’s winter.” Before I knew it thirty minutes of my day
was gone. It’s not a lot of time. But losing time creeps up on you
as the days move on and your new routine takes over.

6:30–7am

Between this time I have a nice hot shower to shake off the
Australian winter and relax. The showers get longer each day.
Then I do a ridiculously silly beauty routine, even though I have
no office to go to or people to see.

7:00–7:30 am

This is where I eat breakfast and procrastinate while watching

Youtube videos. I call this Youtube watching “research.”
It isn’t really. Again, it’s fear.

7:30–8:30 am

This is the time slot where I read. I scour through the Pocket
App or go down an endless Twitter rabbit hole. Like a
programmed factory worker, as 9 am gets closer my fear level
starts to increase.

“You’ve gotta do work, buddy.”

The work I often choose is maintaining social media accounts.

Why? Marketing your work on social media is hardcoded into
all writers. We think social media is a money-making tool that
can further our careers. The truth is a little harsher. Building
followers on social media doesn’t make you money directly,
especially if you already have an audience.

9:00–10:00am

Having meetings with people feels like work — given my entire

9–5 job was a series of back-to-back unnecessary meetings that
sucked the life out of me and created zero progress. My salary
worker programming kicks in once again and forces me into bad
routines.

10:00–10:30 am

This is where I typically panic for thirty minutes. The fear kicks
in again. My mind starts predicting all sorts of terrible endings
to this phase of life.
“You’ll be back at work before you know it, you lazy ass.”

Or — “No company is going to hire you now you big douche bag.
Social media will be the death of your career. You’ll be forced
into hibernation.”

10:30–11:00

A series of unexplainable tasks occurs here.

11:00–12:00 pm

The first real work gets done for the day. I actually write
something. I actually sit down and compile a business plan for a
new idea. I actually send email pitches to people who can help
me. I actually write a new article that becomes the outline for a
new eBook. I actually write the title for the new eBook. I actually
come up with the chapters for the eBook.

I feel slightly alive again.

12:00–1:00 pm

Time for lunch because my fiancé says so (I used outsourced

accountability to pull me back into relaxation mode, and away
from doing the work).

I eat slower than when I had a job because I can. I talk a lot to
my partner. I drink extra cups of tea as though it’s normal.

1:00–2:00 pm
I do more high-value work. Momentum is building.

2:00–3:00 pm

“Let’s go walkie,” says my fiancé who talks to me like a dog,

because I like dogs and mine died in 2005. I say yes because
exercise is a cardinal rule all good little self-help believers
follow. Walking is another excuse.

3:00–4:00 pm

I attempt to restart work. Fail. Fake Youtube research creeps in

again.

4:00–5:00 pm

Productive work happens because the usual 5 pm salary worker

psychology tells me it’s almost time to end the day and catch an
imaginary train home to a pretty crappy apartment next to a fire
station that has sirens going all through the night.

5:00–6:00 pm

End work. Read a book and call it research to pretend-work.

6:00–7:00 pm

Eat dinner with my partner (used to take 15 minutes).

7:00–9:00 pm

Watch tv with my partner and call it ‘couple time.’

9:00–10:00 pm
Race back to the computer and do my usual LinkedIn work.

10 pm

Sleepy time.

Time slips through your fingers when you have more of it

Look how much time I wasted. Before I quit my job I had a

sense of urgency in everything I did throughout the day.
Without the threat of an angry boss, I turned into a Youtube-
watching hermit crab.

The lie is, having more time will help you work on your dreams.
The truth is, having more time isn’t the answer to working on
your big goals.

Delusion 2: You won’t get lonely working by

yourself
I miss my work colleagues. As soon as you leave a job you think
they’re going to be thinking about you every day like a lost lover.

The truth is most of them will forget about you within a few
weeks. They want to stay in touch, but they simply don’t have
time. They’re stuck working 12-hour days from home, trying to
make up for the lost revenue your former employer is bleeding
because of a global health crisis.

The good news is there’s always one. I have one work colleague
who has become a close friend. I realized you don’t need lots of
ex-colleagues to stay in touch with. One colleague who becomes
a friend is worth all of the other relationships you shed when
you quit your job and take an unconventional career path.

Delusion 3: You won’t regret your decision

On some days I do. I had it good. A 4-day workweek, a brand
new Macbook, a fancy job title, cool customers, a job in tech —
working with machine learning, AI, robotics, blockchain.

Regrets are normal after you quit your job. That’s fear, yet
again, showing up at your mind’s door to focus your attention
on the work that matters, that you quit your job to do.

Fear is normal.

Channel your fear into your new line of work.