When I was working at Ikonic Interactive, err... (let's see: Yahoo, UCB, Eleven, CKS) five jobs ago, One of our interaction designers was a woman named Susanne Goldstein who, among other things, had been an associate producer on the movie Captain Ron, but that's neither here nor there. More to the point, Susanne had a philosophy so profound that my coworker Evan and I coined it "The Goldstein Principle"

The principle worked like this: Susanne was a contractor and figured that she could accumulate as many billable hours as she had available time. Based on the assumption that she enjoyed her work more than she liked most more mundane tasks, she would try to find people that she could pay to do things for her that she would otherwise have to do herself. Housekeeping? Done. Laundry? Outsourced. As long as she was paying less for the service than she would get (after taxes, naturally) at her own hourly rate, and she actually used the free time to work more, she was actually making money by paying others to do these things for you. (It's a good thing she wasn't married. I don't really want to know exactly how far she'd push the principle.)

Anyhow, I've ues the Goldstein Principle several times since then to rationalize paying for professional services (Webvan, Cook Express, laundry services, etc.). Even when I haven't been working for an hourly wage, I've tried to figure out how much my time is worth to me, and how I can make more of it.

Unlike Susanne, I don't use the principle to justify doing some work instead of other work, for net profit. I use it to justify spending money in exchange for unfettered time. The saying goes that time equals money, but for most, this is usually a one-way function. Short of giving up our jobs, there's sparce opportunity to exchange a little money for more time. Sure, laundry, cleaning, shopping, but it doesn't add up to enough time to allow a real lifestyle change.

So, like I mentioned a few days ago, I've decided that if I stay on the Bay Area side of the middle, and continue at Yahoo! for the foreseeable future, I've decided to move. The reasoning for this is my largest application of the Goldstein Principle yet.

Posit:

• I currently leave home at 6:45 am to get to work by 8:45. I leave work at 5:30 to get home by 7:30. Going by car is roughly the same, since on car days I just tend to stay at work around 12 hours instead of 9, and it's still between one and two hours each way to drive. Average commuting time per day: 4 hours. Average commuting time per month (16 days/mo, after telecommuting, vacation, etc.): 64 hours.
• My commuting costs right now are $100/mo for Amtrak (after commuter check discount), and another $150 for the six roundtrips by car (90 mi/day, $0.28/mile 6 days a month). Total commuting costs: $250/month.
• A hypothetical new place would be less than 8 miles from work, and cost $500 more a month than where I live now (giving up rent control is so hard to do...). Commuting costs would be 18 roundtrips, hence 288 monthly miles, hence $80/mo.
• Commuting 8 miles to work would take roughly 15 minutes each way. 30 minutes a day. 16 days/mo at 30 min/day is 8 hours.
• Total time saved per month: 48 hours.
• Total cost change: $500 more in rent, $250-$80=$170 less in transportation. Net cost: $330/mo.
• Result: I can buy 48 hours every month for: $6.87/hr.

Of course it's more complicated than that, but more than three extra hours every workday is a powerful incentive, representing a 75% increase over the 4 hours a workday (7:30pm-11:30pm) I get now, and minimum wage isn't a very high price to pay for it. On the other hand of complexity, I really like my current apartment. I love the light, views on three sides, pizza 'till 2am, and the space that, while currently cluttered, I've spent the last six years slowly shaping into a home instead of a college student's crash space. In a sense, my apartment has been my own chrysalis. I went into it a juvenile with a futon-and-milkcrate mentality, and emerged having graduated to an Ikea mesa. It's like watching Fight Club in reverse.

I also have to think about my friends, and how while those who lived in Berkeley are all gone now (with rare exception), spread all over the bay: Alameda, Hayward, Santa Clara, Mountain View, San Francisco. Maybe something closer to the middle (ugh. ;-) ) like Union City would make more sense.

Anyhow, thanks for listening. It's good to get these thoughts down on paper (err, it feels good to get them down on microscopic ferromagnetic spots on the platter of a hard disk in a computer who knows where. Pasadena, I think).

Meanwhile, I wonder what Susanne's up to. I wonder if she's making enough an hour now to let her justify paying someone else to live her life for her?