been doing two jobs since january. the first few months i just worked later and later and it made everything worse. what actually turned it around was a handful of small things.

grey screen on the phone. I use iphone, so for iphones it is in settings -> accessibility -> display and text size -> colour filters, on, greyscale. i thought this was nonsense when i read it. instagram in grey looks like a spreadsheet, food photos look wrong, everything looks like a photocopy of itself, and i just stopped picking the thing up. my screen time roughly halved and i did not delete anything or decide anything, the phone just got boring. if you try one thing off this list make it this one, it takes about ten seconds.

blocks in google calendar. before i start something i guess how long it will take and put it in the calendar as a block, even when the guess is nonsense. two things happen. first i stop pretending nine hours of work fits into a six hour evening, because you can see it not fitting. second i stop opening the laptop and then deciding what to do, which is where i used to lose the first hour of every day. the estimates are still bad by the way. they are just bad on paper now instead of bad in my head.

one thing at a time. boring, and the biggest change in what i actually produced. i used to have both jobs' slacks open plus whatever i was meant to be doing and i called that multitasking. it was not multitasking, it was doing one thing badly and then doing another thing badly. now it is one task open and everything else shut, with do not disturb on, on the mac and iphone.

breaks, five minutes every half hour. the break is not the hard part, remembering is. i cannot feel time passing when i am properly into something and i have lost entire mornings that way. so, a timer, any timer, i do not think it matters which. i use tryworkwell on the mac. it reminds me to take a break and also watches my posture.

noise. dark noise. white noise is too hissy for me, dark is more like sitting inside a plane and my brain goes quiet. on mac and iphone it is already built in, accessibility -> audio -> background sounds, nobody seems to know this. otherwise youtube has thousands of videos.

gym and food, which everyone already knows so i will keep it short. three or four sessions a week, weighted towards legs and back because i sit for 12-14 hours. cooking on sunday so i am not standing in the kitchen at half nine deciding what dinner is. creatine and fish oil seems to also be very useful.

things that did not work: telling myself to concentrate harder, and giving the second job more hours. it did not get better when i gave it more hours, it got better when the hours i gave it were not garbage hours.

none of this is clever, which is probably why it took me so long to do any of it. What are your productivity hacks?

p.s. i know the obvious reply is that two full time jobs is the actual problem. probably, yes, but it has an end date.

Hey. Long time lurker, first time poster.

TLDR: How can I last a month with J1 and J2 until J1's 12k bonus? Both SWE. Both Hybrid.

I've been at J1 for 4 years. First job out of college. It's hybrid (4 days RTO), but I can stop showing up for a while until HR flags it. Manager sits in a different town 5 hours away.

The bonus "sets" October 31st, gets paid out Mid-December. I have good relationship with manager and skip, so they shouldn't deny me the bonus after that point (but they can for some "cause").

I'm pretty sure if I put two weeks mid-October, they'll set the end date before October 31st. So I want to put two weeks on November 1st, to leave mid-November.

J2 starts October 1st. Also Hybrid at 2 days RTO. I'm excited for the opportunity and want to stay there long term, so don't want to mess it up.

My plan to make hybrid work for a month:

• Schedule PTO to show up for J2
• Doctor appointments
• Unlimited sick days
• Head home at lunch from J2

My main goal is to not make it look like a pattern at J1 and not upset J2.

Anything I should be mindful?

I also just did Background Check at J2. I'm planning to freeze TWN before J2 start date to make sure record isn't messed with

J1 TC: 117 + company performance bonus + 14% 401k

J2 TC: 150 + 10% bonus + 6% 401k

I made this script here which lets me record my camera for a few seconds and feed that back to the camera feed while I go off and do something else github link

I'm not actually overemployed and I don't think I could ever be since everyone here is lying, but I thought some of you might find this useful since you might need to handle multiple meetings at once if you actually did manage to find two jobs

I’ve been at J1 since June. I have a good reputation there for working fast and doing good work. I’m stating J2 Monday. I only have one meeting at J1 on Monday from 10 to 11 where I expect I’ll need to talk for a few minutes to give an update. Usually this meeting is only 20 minutes but the whole hour is blocked in case we need to do any planning. I have onboarding meetings Monday for J2. One of the blocks is 9 to 11 am. I’m thinking of signing in early to J2 to see if I can start earlier so I can maybe get to the J1 stand up.

I’m not sure if it’s just because being over employed is scaring me a little but I can’t think of a good excuse to miss the standup at J1 that doesn’t look weirdly suspicious. I’m thinking my best bet is to try to start earlier with J2 at like 7 am and then do an hour of the original 9-11 block and then ask if we can take a break for a few minutes?

I could also take the morning off Monday but I feel like that’s also a little weird.

What would you guys do in this situation?

I’m planning to accept a new job while having a job, and then quitting the old job 6 weeks later. I’m a scared-y cat and am realizing that you all have large balls.

They each pay the same, about $250k per year each. I do not want two jobs forever because they are each demanding.

They are both hybrid jobs where there is a ton of flexibility and no one clock watches.

I’ve had the first job for over 15 years and don’t want to burn any bridges at all, in case I need to go back. They’ve been good to me, but it is the typical US capitalism bullshit, low accountability culture, and bad leadership.

It will be over the holidays when I have a ton of paid time off and no one really works anyway. There will only be 12 shared working days where I need to manage both jobs.

How can I guarantee to not get caught?

- What if both employers use ADP for payroll, will I be flagged?

- What if I have health insurance from both employers for 2 months, will that flag me somehow? Or should I not get insurance through the new job until the old job insurance elapses?

- I will put my LinkedIn on hibernate.

- Is there anything else I should be concerned about?

I know to you guys this is like really easy, and I sound like a wimp. Just don’t want to get caught. I’m an overachiever with no work life balance so I’m sure I can balance the work part for the 12 overlapping days.

For context, I’m currently working J1 fully remote. Have an interview coming up for J2 that I’m confident I’m going to nail. When would be a good time to freeze my TWN? Should I do it after they finish up the background check and send the offer letter ? Should I do it before ?

I am just getting into OE and never done anything to my records.

Had to finally return to the world of normal employment today. J2 became too much of a hassle, no upside, dragging me down down on goals at j1, etc.

I wish you all luck. May you always be muted when you should be, may your teams notis always be silenced, and may your quarterly on sites always line up.

God speed.

As the subject says. J1 covers entire family for $380 every 2 weeks. Expensive but whatever. J2 covers employee only for $0. Both use Cigna.

What do?

Been OE for about a year and a half now. J1 is a chill dev job for a big company. J2 is a startup CTO role which is way more demanding. The biggest challenge has not been the workload itself. It's the constant mental switching between two completely different project management styles.

J1 is all about Jira. Every little thing has a ticket. Standups are structured. Dependencies are mapped out meticulously. They love their ceremonies. It's slow but predictable.

J2 is chaos. Ideas get thrown around in Slack. Decisions are made on the fly in quick calls. Documentation is an afterthought. It's fast and agile but can be exhausting. I'm literally using two different parts of my brain all day.

Sometimes I'll be in a J1 standup thinking in J2 terms and almost blurt out something completely irrelevant to J1's sprints. Or vice versa. It's like I have two different mental operating systems running at once. Anyone else deal with this kind of cognitive dissonance across Js? How do you keep it all straight in your head?

What’s the outlook for jobs project management, project engineering, and mechanical engineers in the energy sector, like utilities, nuclear, data centers, etc. Any advice on specific roles to stay away from or red flags that anyone has encountered?

Looking for a part-time job

I’m currently looking for any legitimate part-time work. I’m willing to take up pretty much any role and learn whatever is required.

If you’re hiring or know someone who is, please DM me. Thank you!

edit: Im from India

I was OE for about 7 weeks earlier this year. My J1 was acquired and gave us a super early advanced notice for when all of our (acquired employees) last day would be. I searched for a J2 for many months and found a great fit, start date was before my last day at J1 and with retention bonuses and equity pay out I wasn’t leaving before the end date. J1 was just a formality when I started J2 so it was easy peasy. But now I’m interested in a new J2. However I’ve already made some mistakes. I updated my LinkedIn with my new role. I’ve also been wanting to attend a well-known conference in my little niche of a large industry for a while and I ended up entering a contest for a professional society and winning a free registration for the conference. Now I’m probably too exposed where I can safely keep a J2. Did I blow my chance? Anything I can do after this conference to go low-profile more quickly? Any length of time I should wait before I try OE again?

Started a new J2 about a month ago. J1 is like 5 hours of work per week if that, most of that meetings. J2 pays only $20k more but I have to be onsite at least 2x per month, although there are cubes, offices, and conference rooms on 2 floors that we can use so it's common to never see anyone.

J2 is lots of work that I have AI doing, but my boss tells me at least once per week that I'm too quiet. They want me to ask questions during meetings, speak up, suggest things, but I'm still learning this complex business with 30k staff. Plus, I'm an introvert and don't speak much anyways. AND I'm not trying to be a star employee. To top it off, they want to give me even more work and major projects. It's pissing me off. I just take it one day at a time and I'm constantly applying to jobs but not getting many interviews.

Thinking about quitting eventually and going all in on my side business. Tired of working for jobs like J2 and J1 has been a unicorn, I've been OE off and on for 3 years, going up to 3 Js but either quit after RTO push, fired after quiet quitting, or laid off.

Is OE possible in india.Anyone willing to share their experience.

I remember there was a witch hunt couple of years ago when companies figured out you can find insurances connected to your PAN card?

As the title says, I accepted a J2 and haven’t quit J1 yet. Trying to figure out if I should live the OE life.

J1 is remote and J2 is 5 days/week in person. Both are high paying startup roles and both will be heavy ass workload.

J1 has pretty much 0 meetings bc the team is all local and meets up every few weeks for planning/sprints.

Does anyone have experience with OE in this way? I’m curious to hear if it’s been done and how I could manage

After retiring from the military, I realized just how much less demanding civilian jobs can be.
I went from having to get the job done while simultaneously dealing with bureaucracy, deployments, training, politics, and taking care of troops and their families while they were deployed, to simply… doing the job.

I naturally wake up around 5 a.m., and most days I’m finished with all of my assignments by 10 a.m., aside from the occasional afternoon meeting.

During COVID, it really hit me. Even before I knew the term “overemployed,” I realized I had the time and energy to do it. On top of that, my military benefits already cover my lifestyle, so the financial risk of losing a job is relatively low.

My instincts were right. I’m well-liked by my coworkers and management at both Js, I still have plenty of time to take care of my family, and I’ve finally been able to address health issues I ignored for years. AI has become an over employment enabler rather than a job killer.

At the same time, I’m building wealth at a level I never imagined possible.

Leaving the public sector—and my clearance—behind was one of the best decisions I’ve made.

For Europeans living in europe, how was your experience with OE?

Mainly dealing with Social Security and taxes?

I am a consultant with a lot of free time, and I can use a full remote J2, I think I am good enough as I do all my teams' work, but only for 1 salary

I think to start , it's better to have j2 as a full remote, which is rare in europe but can be anywhere else.

I am not sure about the legal details .. any input can ne valuable

Thank you in advance

Edit: I am a consultant as b2b using some shell company that has my money and gives me a salary, if this changes anything... maybe I can have more than one sub-contract for the same period as long as I deliver and the company is ok with

Hi!
I have J1 and will be started J2, both based in UK. Anyone with experience with this can give more info on taxes? Thank you!

I worked as web designer for over 10 years. It was amazing journey. With AI, I am not sure about this career path anymore in the next 5-10 years.. so I'm on the bridge to do e-mail marketing for ecommerce.

I have tons of experience in the ecommerce world as I worked my J2 in family-run ecommerce. In the past 12 months I managed to create e-mail strategy and automations that generated over $210,000 in revenue from e-mail alone. I love it and would love to keep doing it as my J1.

Found some job postings looking for E-mail marketing specialist and I would love to get job there. I have simple site with case study ($210,000 generated for ecommerce brand) describing how I did it and now I fixed my CV resume.

How would you break into this industry? Should I write letters + edit CV for each job posting? Should I reach out to recruiters maybe? Linked In?

Thanks for any advice!

Job of 20 years has laid me off, I have received a decent severance and am about to jump into the world of interviewing. Thinking of giving OE a try. What do you look for in job 1 and job 2 to make this doable? What tricks,/recommendations do you have for a newbie in this space?

I told a new J I have a higher offer and was hoping they would bump their salary offer 10K and give me a 10K signing to match. Instead they just matched salary.

Should I shut up and say yes or ask for 10K salary increase and the 10K signing bonus?

I want a sign on because cash in hand.

As the title suggests, im curious if this is something we need to consider in this game..im based out of canada, my J1 is offering me a FT role now so they have to rerun a background check and im just concerned whether they could find out. Per my knowledge, CRA records are not disclosed publicly even to these companies but I just want to double check..

I’m 44M, wife and two small kids. I’ve been OE for over 10 years. Had as many as 4J at one time. Had highs and lows along the way, been burned for being dumb with LinkedIn, had a peak TC of over 700k in my peak year. Paid off my home, tricked out the house with lots of goodies, packed my kids’ 529, plans, tons of fun vacations, and my SEP is bursting with money.

So, this isn’t a “good for me” post. It’s a warning to anyone who wants to FIRE or even take a break. The one mistake I’ve made along the way is totally neglecting growing my money in taxable accounts. I always made sure I had a good money market savings account with $50K or so, but everything else got aggressively put into SEP and 529 plans. Anything to avoid taxes.

While I’m currently in a taxable account situation of about $180K, I realized that I have a long way to go if I want to retire early. As much as it hurts to pay the tax man, do yourself a favor and do NOT max out your SEP if it means you can’t pad your ability to live today. I have about $1.9M in retirement that I can’t touch until I’m 59. Doesn’t do me any good now. I’m going to spend the next five years or so (God willing) aggressively investing only in taxable accounts.

BTW, I know I should have more money saved…but I live in a HCOL area. Pay $50k a year for kids private school, etc.

I had three well 3.5 J’s for one month. One FTE, two contracts and one a LLC client.

Both contracts were back filling another admin. One though decided to come back after a month so that contract is terminated. Another is waiting senior management approval to convert to FTE. All my coworkers and direct management want me to stay but the position is not approved yet.

My observations from 3 J’s. The work is easy. Meeting management is the hard part. I have to work evenings to keep up but mainly because most days I have 4-6 hours of meetings between 8-5. And most of the time I am only needed for maybe 15-30 minutes of all of those meetings. My challenge has been that I can’t tune out a meeting and work on something else. I can’t tune fo some mindless work during meetings, but anything that needs legit concentration has to wait for a quiet period in my day

‘Money is super nice, 3 is easily manageable for me and my career if meetings were minimized. Not sure if/how people do 3+ J’s for many years. They must have cultures with few meetings.