I strongly agree with the essence of this post, considering I’ve spent quite some time recently thinking about the value of my time and trying to somehow put it into reasonable numbers in order to make everyday decisions easier and more well informed.
About a year ago I took the clearerthinking test and ended up with ~32€, which seemed high, and looking back I think it wasn’t particularly accurate. I’m thus not a great fan of that test personally and think getting a correct value requires much deeper thought than this small questionnaire prompts you to do (although thinking about the issue at all is of course already useful). One benefit it has though is that it clearly shows the asymmetry in our intuitions (aka loss aversion), so that was very helpful at the time, yet the number that came out provided me with a false sense of certainty.
Thinking through things further these last few days, I revised that value now to very roughly 12€ (varying from around 6€ to 18€ depending on the type of action, although I assume EA work should very likely be rated much higher than that). But just as the earlier value, it still is mostly based on intuitions and inner simulation regarding what price I’d accept for e.g. somebody asking me to simply do nothing at all for a week. So it’s still on fairly shaky grounds. Calculating the external value my time has on the world is difficult as so far I’m focusing more on learning and developing than on generating actual output (the latter only making up 1-2 hours per week so far).
One difficulty is that it’s not easy to look at the marginal value only, plus the consequences it has on one’s behavior could easily shift spending in a way that the marginally value itself changes significantly. If I spend 200€ more per month, money suddenly becomes more scarce and thus valuable. If I reduce my day job work time from 5 to 4 days a week, the same thing happens. So after any major change or decision I have to reevaluate and come up with new numbers.
Despite these difficulties however, thinking deeply about this and reducing one’s uncertainty however far possible is certainly time well spent. Thanks for the post!
I strongly agree with the essence of this post, considering I’ve spent quite some time recently thinking about the value of my time and trying to somehow put it into reasonable numbers in order to make everyday decisions easier and more well informed.
About a year ago I took the clearerthinking test and ended up with ~32€, which seemed high, and looking back I think it wasn’t particularly accurate. I’m thus not a great fan of that test personally and think getting a correct value requires much deeper thought than this small questionnaire prompts you to do (although thinking about the issue at all is of course already useful). One benefit it has though is that it clearly shows the asymmetry in our intuitions (aka loss aversion), so that was very helpful at the time, yet the number that came out provided me with a false sense of certainty.
Thinking through things further these last few days, I revised that value now to very roughly 12€ (varying from around 6€ to 18€ depending on the type of action, although I assume EA work should very likely be rated much higher than that). But just as the earlier value, it still is mostly based on intuitions and inner simulation regarding what price I’d accept for e.g. somebody asking me to simply do nothing at all for a week. So it’s still on fairly shaky grounds. Calculating the external value my time has on the world is difficult as so far I’m focusing more on learning and developing than on generating actual output (the latter only making up 1-2 hours per week so far).
One difficulty is that it’s not easy to look at the marginal value only, plus the consequences it has on one’s behavior could easily shift spending in a way that the marginally value itself changes significantly. If I spend 200€ more per month, money suddenly becomes more scarce and thus valuable. If I reduce my day job work time from 5 to 4 days a week, the same thing happens. So after any major change or decision I have to reevaluate and come up with new numbers.
Despite these difficulties however, thinking deeply about this and reducing one’s uncertainty however far possible is certainly time well spent. Thanks for the post!
Good points—these heuristics are much better than nothing, but probably shouldn’t be taken at face value without some additional thought.