Time & Money

In the final episode of Time & Money: why we choose to squeeze more in over taking time off. I share how The Squeeze works, why work gets more intense over time, and some of the economic incentives that keep us from making different choices.

Resources:

• “Feeling The Squeeze? Why Your Business Feels So Tight” by Tara McMullin
• “Busy vs Squeezed: How To Tell The Difference & Why It Matters” by Tara McMullin
• “Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren” by John Maynard Keynes
• Capitalist Realism by Mark Fisher
• Protestant Ethic & The Spirit Of Capitalism by Max Weber
• “When Time Is Money: Contested Rationalities of Time and Challenges to the Theory and Practice of Work” by Barbara Adam
• Can’t Even by Anne Helen Petersen
• Wintering by Katherine May

This episode is also available in essay form.

A lot of the work we do today doesn’t much look like “work.” The divide between work-life and life-life is flexible and porous. So what does that mean for the way we spend our time? Or how we earn a living? In this episode, I share designer, coach, and consultant Anne Ditmeyer’s story of rethinking how she works thanks to a big move to Paris. And, I argue that perhaps we need a radically different way of thinking about what work is—instead of a better “work-life balance.”

Resources:

• Learn more about Anne Ditmeyer
• Lost In Work, by Amelia Horgan
• Episode 349 with Brittany Berger

This episode is also available in essay form.

The systems we operate in all have different incentive systems: our business models, the social media platforms, our economy, the culture at large… And many of these incentive systems have become simplified and gamified—changing the way we view the results of our work and the goals that we hold. In this episode, I explore how the philosophy of games can help us identify when we’re just trying to “game the system” instead of taking effective action based on our own values and goals.

Resources:

• C. Thi Nguyen at the Royal Institute of Philosophy
• Nguyen on The Ezra Klein Show
• How Twitter Gamifies Communication
• What Tech Calls Thinking by Adrian Daub
• Games: Agency As Art by C. Thi Nguyen

This episode is also available in essay form.

Most of us learn the value of our time in our first jobs. Even as we get more experience and our hourly jobs turn into salaried jobs or freelance projects, the specter of selling your time for a particular wage looms. In this episode, I talk with Wealth Over Now founder & Money Files host Keina Newell about how she thinks about the intersection of time and money. I also offer up a light history of wage work and how that history influences business owners.

Resources:

• Wealth Over Now — Keina Newell
• Money Files — Keina’s podcast
• What is the domestic system?
• What is the Fair Labor Standards Act?
• Further reference: Labor writers Kim Kelly & Sarah Jaffe in conversation
• EP 341: Taking Better Care Of Each Other with Kate Strathmann
• Games Against Humanity: C Thi Nguyen on the Conspirituality podcast

This episode is also available in essay form.

I’ve been talking about the “new economy” since about 2010. But more and more, I recognize that the economic possibilities created through the internet aren’t nearly as new or innovative as I’d first thought (and hoped). It seems that the old economy is just making itself over as the not-so-new economy. In this episode, I explore 3 processes of the old economy—speculation, financialization, and liquidation—to pinpoint how they’re showing up in our digital world of independent work.

I weave together the housing market, creator economy, Great Recession, and crypto promises to help you situate yourself in this strange, not-so-new world. At times, it’s a bleak story—but ultimately, understanding where we’re at gives us a better opportunity to make different, more humane choices.

Resources:

• CNBC Interview with NewNew Founder Courtne Smith
• Investopedia on financialization
• The Big Short by Michael Lewis
• Michael Lewis on 60 Minutes
• “How the financial crisis changed jobs” from Marketplace
• Gig Economy explainer via Marketplace
• NFTs explainer via Marketplace
• “How Money Became The Measure Of Everything” by Eli Cook
• “The complicated reality of doing what you love” by Marian Bull
• Greater Fool Theory on Investopedia
• “I crowdfunded a novel using cryptocurrency” by Elle Griffin

This episode is also available in essay form.

There’s more than one way to measure success—and there’s more than one way to measure time. How do you account for the time you spend working? And is it really the most effective—for you—to spend it? In other words, what constitutes quality time when it comes to the way you work? I talked with business operations coach Elisabeth Jackson about how she changed her overwork habit, how she measures quality time for herself & her clients, and why she doesn’t love the word “productivity.”

Resources:

• Find out more about Elisabeth Jackson
• More about Frederick Winslow Taylor
• Lost In Work, by Amelia Horgan
• EP 373: The Eggbeater Effect, listen or read

This episode is also available in essay form.

We spend money on lots of tools designed to save us time and work. But all too often, those tools just end up raising our expectations. Why do work in less time when you could do more work in the same amount of time?! In this episode, I examine “the egg beater effect” and why we should, just maybe, lower our expectations a bit.

Resources:

• You’re Wrong About: The Stepford Wives
• More Work For Mother by Ruth Schwartz Cowan
• Episode 371: What is the creator economy? with Gina Bianchini
• Episode 364: The Abundant Value Of Virtual Assistants with Janice Plado Dalager
• Economic Possibilities For Our Grandchildren by John Maynard Keynes

 
This episode is also available in essay form.

“Time is money.” Ben Franklin gave us that chestnut in 1748—and ever since, we’ve been trained to think of our lives as opportunities for making a buck. This week, we start a series exploring the “time is money” construction. But before we think through how we spend our time, we’re going to think through money: what it really is, how we relate to it, and some of the factors that make it “weird.” I talk with Paco de Leon from the Hell Yeah Group and the author of the brand-new book, Finance For The People.

Resources:

• Finance For The People, by Paco de Leon
• The Hell Yeah Group
• The Nerdletter

This episode is also available in essay form.

“Time is money.” It’s a phrase we take for granted in the 21st century. Every hour of the day is a potentially monetizable unit. It’s another client you can serve, another social media post you can create, another trip you can drive, invoice you can send, or errand you can run.

Ben Franklin penned the phrase “time is money” back in the 18th century. It’s a sort of semiotic turning point from the piety of vocation—the heart of the Protestant work ethic—to the pragmatic striving of industrialized capitalism. 

Both time and money seem predetermined and standardized. A dollar is a dollar. An hour is an hour. But they’re modern inventions. And their standardization defies our lived experience. A dollar can have considerably different value depending on your circumstances or the transaction you want to make. An hour can seem like an interminably long time when you’re in labor or feel like an instant when you’re engaged in an activity you love.

Our livelihoods revolve around time and money. The way we navigate the world and even relate to others is influenced by our access to time and money. So how we think about time, money, and how they intersect has an immense influence on our lives.

Welcome to Time & Money—a special presentation of What Works. I’m your host, Tara McMullin. In this 8-part limited series, I take on critical questions about our relationship to time and money. I talk with experts, dive into the history of work, consult philosophy, and explore social and political theory. 

It’s a multidisciplinary journey designed to help you question your assumptions about resources we often take for granted.

All 8 episodes are available now with links to each episode in essay form in the show notes.

If Time & Money helps you think about, well, time & money in new ways, share the series with a friend. And check out What Works on your favorite podcast player for more insights into navigating the 21st-century economy with your humanity intact.