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Underestimated a job and paid with my free time
I agreed to a project assuming it was quick, but it ate up my evenings and weekends. Some people say I should have asked for more money, others say I need to learn to say no. How do you balance this?
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nina8341mo ago
Honestly, this taps into a much wider thing where we all lowball how much effort something needs. Like, I'll agree to help a friend move thinking it's just a few boxes, but it turns into a full day affair. It's that same optimism bias that makes us say yes to extra work without seeing the hidden hours. The fix isn't just money or no, it's getting better at guessing time upfront, maybe by adding a buffer for surprises. Once you see this pattern in small stuff, you start applying it to big deals like your project. Saves a lot of evenings down the road.
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leo_hart131mo ago
Ugh, this reminds me of the time I decided to repaint a single bookshelf as a fun little weekend thing. I figured it was just sanding and a quick coat of paint, lol. It somehow turned into stripping old varnish, fixing a wobbly leg, and three trips to the hardware store. My whole Saturday was gone, and I was so mad at myself for not seeing the mess coming. It's that same feeling of a small task secretly being a huge time pit.
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Tell me about it. I once tried to just tighten a loose doorknob and ended up taking apart the whole door because the latch was broken, then the screws were stripped, and suddenly I'm watching a 45-minute YouTube tutorial at 10 PM. I feel you, @leo_hart13, these little jobs are total liars. You start with a screwdriver and end up needing a whole new set of skills you never asked for.
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