Back in 2018, fresh out of training, I was asked, along with some physician finance bloggers, to contribute an answer to an article about early-career financial mistakes (my post about that post is here). That site is now defunct, but my answer (referring to my work as a student and pre-moonlighting resident) at the time:
“The ‘correct’ answer is usually to spend less on a car, not buy a house, put more away for retirement, and get disability insurance. But looking back, my biggest real regret is not being more purposeful with my discretionary time. Time outside of work obligations has both a monetary and nonmonetary value, and I was very free with spending too much of it to ‘maximize’ my income at rates that are trivial to me now. I was worth more on a per-hour basis back then, even if I didn’t realize it.”
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What sort of mindset do you think helped you shift from “needing to spend as much time as possible being productive” to actually enjoying leisure time?
I think it’s hard to make that change straight out of training in your early career without the constant thought in the back of your mind that you could be earning $X while watching a movie or going for a walk, as examples. With the widespread use of home workstations and increasing volumes nationwide, it’s an ever increasing pressure as it’s so easy to log on and almost instantaneously be able to turn on that money faucet.
I’d imagine that there is a breakpoint where you realize that the extra money you’re making has no material impact on your day to day life or even long term life plans/retirement for that matter. However, being able to get there takes time, I think. Straight out of training, we are used to working long hours for relatively little, so seeing the big hourly rate for moonlighting once we are on the other side makes it hard to not want to take advantage of it now that we are able.
Did it take a certain amount of savings and regular paychecks coming through (at a 5x+ multiple compared to training, for most radiologists) to finally feel comfortable taking your foot off the gas, as you knew that retirement was taken care of, and the extra money you could be making would not provide any material difference to your life satisfaction?
A real problem, often exacerbated by remote work and flexible pay-per-click moonlighting. Work easily bleeds into the rest of the day, and we take a billable time approach to everything. A little bit of that is helpful (knowing when to outsource tasks you don’t like), but too much is essentially just sad.
I don’t think I’m necessarily a good example of having had figured it out. I definitely do a fair bit of moonlighting during my early caree as well as related endeavors (consulting, expert witness work, etc). I think one cheat code for some people is having a generative hobby. I think for many people who are inclined to overwork, having “productive” leisure time can be a bit of an enjoyable loophole.
For me, writing is part of that hobby. Writing, in some cases, also has outputs that have economic value, but I am not a professional writer, and the vast majority of my time spent writing does not lead to any direct income like reading scans does. But it does hit differently than, say, watching a movie. I think parenting can also fall into that category as well, in terms of being something that can feel “worth” spending time on that work can detract from.
A second facet is a variation on the work-smarter-not-harder mode of productivity, which is that grinding gears for incremental gains at the margin can actually be counterproductive in the long term. Leisure time, balance, physical fitness, etc., are all important ingredients to a long-term career. Maximizing long-term income is a marathon, not a sprint. I will say that I found this argument difficult to internalize when I was younger. Everyone always talks about diet and exercise and sleep as being important, but it wasn’t until I hit my personal rock bottom of fitness after doing COVID with two young children that I really doubled down and revitalized myself physically (though even now, I have a truly horrendous caffeine habit).
Lastly, and most directly to your point, wealth accumulation is the difference between income and spending. “Number goes up” has some real novelty, and I don’t think it’s inherently bad to do extra work to get your financial house in check. I would say that living below your means is extremely helpful in taking the pressure off. Having student loans paid off, for me, was a great relief. Becoming debt-free except for a mortgage that we could easily afford was probably the biggest threshold. I found the cashflow more reassuring (bank account still goes up every month despite saving appropriately) than the number in my 401k etc (which is prone to fluctuations and set aside for future-me).
There’s a good quote from Amos Tversky, the late Israeli psychologist, that we “waste years by not being able to waste hours.” He was talking about doing high-quality research, but I think it applies to high-quality living as well.
Life is what’s called an Infinite Game. You can’t win it. There is no “end” that we are trying to achieve and no conditions for victory. Living it well is the whole purpose.