My New Mental Model of Work

Sabbatical experiment conclusions

As I progressed through multiple sabbatical experiments, a clearer picture of my future began to emerge. I hadn’t picked a specific organization, skill, or role. The experiments allowed me to see what I value in a potential career, and a framework for how to select subsequent experiments.

When it’s foggy, things become clearer with forward motion

Four categories emerged:

1. Income

The buyout parachute from my previous career would not last forever. After dedicating many months to learning and serving without regard to income, this needed to become a focus. Thirty-something years of good money habits and one year of meticulous budgeting established a clear picture of my needs.

My savings habits started before grade school. When a relative gave me some cash to buy a Christmas or birthday present, I would walk around the toy store and decide I’d rather stash it in an envelope. I was saving for a mansion so I could have a chandelier. At age five.

I’m not sure how much of this was innate vs. living with a grandmother who was a young adult during the Great Depression. I remember sitting in a movie, The Land Before Time, at age nine. I was so stressed about the $20 I’d just seen my mother spend on snacks that I couldn’t enjoy the movie. I did not want to end up in the “poor house”, as my grandmother called it.

Healthy mindset for a nine-year-old? Perhaps not.

A good mindset to have for 30+ years to provide financial stability? Heck yes.

I need enough income to meet ongoing living expenses. Fortunately I am unshackled by debt or a lavish lifestyle.

2. Intellectual stimulation

While income is a factor, I want to do work I enjoy enough to do for free. My favorite thing about working in aviation was the consistent variety of novel, complex problems to solve. I could play around with Tableau data visualization for hours. I would run and analyze pairing optimization scenarios just for fun.

I love learning, debating, and testing ideas. I also find people fascinating. Work with a good mix of analysis, writing, and people will keep my neurons firing.

I need a career that satisfies my curiosity.

3. Purpose

I began my sabbatical intending to craft a second career with greater social impact. My vague picture of this had to do with nonprofit work.

Prior to leaving my corporate job, I began using 80,000 Hours, a nonprofit offering career advice guided by principles of effective altruism, as my compass. The organization guides career-seekers to make the greatest impact with their skills and interests. I contemplated careers in AI ethics or supporting operations at a high-impact organization.

Over time, I loosened my mental model of a career with purpose. Rather than optimizing for maximum impact, I wanted to feel confident my work was easing others’ suffering and avoiding harm.

I want to serve something other than money and status.

4. Autonomy

A year of freedom was an oasis after 20 years of fast-paced corporate work. Full autonomy can be in direct conflict between income and purpose. The essence of work is serving others. However, I wanted more agency in how, when, and who I served.

• My spouse has a non-traditional work schedule, and I want to spend time with him when he’s home.

• My parents live nearby, and I want to provide care and support when they need me.

• I built healthy nutrition, sleep, and fitness habits during my time off. I am unwilling to sacrifice these for my work.

• I want the autonomy to select my work based on how it fills the intellectual stimulation and purpose categories listed above.

Many work environments do not offer the level of autonomy that is now non-negotiable to me.

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Using the Framework

I have no illusion of finding a career that perfectly fits all four of these categories. Rather, I plan to view future experiments and opportunities through the four lenses. Evaluating my previous sabbatical experiments this way helped me create the framework.

Here’s how some of them scored (removing income since all were unpaid):

Learning to code Python

Coding lit up the nerd part of my brain, but lacked human interaction. A future career in coding could provide autonomy, but without a clear purpose I couldn’t get excited about it.

Intellectual Stimulation 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦

Purpose 🟦

Autonomy 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦

Meals on Wheels Driver

I loved seeing new neighborhoods in Dallas, meeting people, and serving some of my community’s most vulnerable citizens. I appreciated the ease of using the app to pick up routes that fit my schedule. However, I might have enjoyed this more if I also worked on an algorithm to optimize the route assignments.

Intellectual Stimulation 🟦 🟦

Purpose 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦

Autonomy 🟦 🟦 🟦

Vaccination Site Volunteer Coordinator

I thought this would be a fun logistical problem to solve. I mainly greeted people and sprayed safety vests. I’m glad I was part of something so important, and I was really glad when it was over.

Intellectual Stimulation 🟦

Purpose 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦 🟦

Autonomy 🟦

Emergency Response Training

I had the autonomy to walk away from this opportunity. Optimizing towards fear is not my thing.

Intellectual Stimulation 🟦

Purpose 🟦 🟦 🟦

Autonomy 🟦 🟦

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The Next Phase

In a future career, I may fluctuate focus between the four, depending on my strongest need at that time. Ideally, a role will satisfy each of these to some degree. Where it falls short, I can look to meet that need in another way.

For example, I might seek more interesting, higher-income work for a period of time to gain more freedom and time off later. I could then pause and take another unpaid sabbatical to volunteer abroad.

I’ve learned my career doesn’t have to be everything to me. Perhaps I’ve moved my work relationship status from “it’s complicated” to “in an open relationship”.

Wandering but not lost