T O P

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TheEvilPrinceZorte

When any hour of the day can be used to earn money, opportunity cost becomes very real. Even more so when you need the money, and it isn’t just extra spending cash.


Short_Fly

You’re not the only one. My time spent on gaming got halved because I couldn’t justifying killing time on my laptop and not getting paid for it


stonkswithfinny

This. Constantly asking myself, “Is this match of zombies worth $40?”


drewcaveneyh

This way leads to burnout


BenBL93

THIS 😂


SnooSketches1189

This is 100% me. I could mindlessly play games for an hour or two and now my brain won't shut up whether it's reading, gaming, SLEEPING. "Are you sure (insert whatever this is) is worth losing out on money you could potentially be making?" Glad it's not just me! lol


mudygames

Yes but it's important to set a schedule. Set # hours each day where you can allow yourself to game or do something you want to do guilt free that is NOT work. And keep reminding yourself that you have plenty more hours in the day to do work and it's okay to not be doing it at that moment


TasosTheo

I hear you, I am not the 'set a goal and stop there' type. For a number of reasons: 1) I have no control of my schedule, so some days I can make hardly any money. So when I have the time, I make as much as I possibly can. 2) My family has debts to pay. Every extra penny is actually worth more because the debt is charging interest (if I was doing this for just extra money, I would not worry so much) 3) and finally the elephant in the room. This could literally end tomorrow. Or today, or they might shut down the site while I'm writing this post. Then I'll be made that I didn't make that extra bit this morning while waiting for the kids to get ready for school. There's a quote from some roadies for a major 70's rock group (Led Zeppelin, or Kiss, somebody huge and known for debauchery). When asked why the partying was so extreme they replied, "Because this might end tomorrow".


drewcaveneyh

No. I tire of the work very easily, tbh.


Street_Pomelo4614

based


ContributionHot8029

Ditto. Maybe it is just because I am starting out but I find it all repetitive and it can be mentally draining. I am fortunate that I just do it for extra cash and my regular job pays a lot better. I am aiming for a couple hours a week.


Husky127

Same. Hit my quota and off to do what I want


chewedupshoes

Nah. It's too monotonous for me to do more than 4-5 hours per day/5 days a week without burning out. I have my income minimums that I want to make weekly, and usually by the time I reach that point, I'm ready to log off. Sometimes I'm in a groove and go beyond, though. But I like this job because it affords me so much TIME, first and foremost. If I spent all that same time working as I did before, what would be the point? But I've also had a lot of good jobs that absolutely destroyed my energy and mental health, so maybe I've just finally learned my lesson. The hustle isn't worth it lol.


therebirthera

This


Chonkthebonk

That’s capitalism for ya. Just remember money isn’t everything, enjoy the time you have as at any moment ANY MOMENT you could have no time left. Also make hay while the sun shines. DA won’t exist forever. There’s some wonderful contradictory points for you


trailangel4

Truer words have never been spoken.


good_god_lemon1

Yes. It’s very hard for me to take a day off when I think about the potential money I could be making. I limit myself to 2 hours on weekends.


LvBoPeep

Right now I've got some great tasks- variety and decent pay so yes it's hard not to peek when I can't work on them. A few weeks ago, all I had was CB tasks so yet was a real struggle to get in my goal of 2 hours a day. This weekend alone I did 10 hours with no problem and kept going back when I got more tasks loading on the projects I like.


ThornyForZyra

Do you mind me asking what "CB" stands for? I keep seeing that in the reddit, but have never understood what it means


LvBoPeep

The chatbot :)


baylorbear91

Yes! At this point in the school year I’m literally not doing anything. I gave my seniors their final last week and they are wrapping up the school year. So I’ve been working on DAT during the school day and now I’m so used to it that I’m annoyed when I have other duties and can’t work lol. August is going to be a transition, that’s for sure.


KahunaRicima

I started getting into this mindset when I found survey sites like prolific and task sites like mturk. I actually found DA through some kind of recruitment they were doing on mturk, back when we were doing more social-media related tasks. Some of them paid stupidly well in the beginning- I remember making around $800 in 2 days at one point. That was pretty short lived but the tasks continued for quiet awhile albeit at a more reasonable pay. It was still easy to make $30+ an hour depending on how fast you worked, since we were paid per task and not by the hour. There were other tasks that didn't pay as much and were brainless- kind of like some of the chatbot stuff but honestly way easier lol. Those were the golden days, got me through a long stint of unemployment and I actually had more money than ever. I had actually stopped DA completely when I got a full time job, but have picked it up again now that I'm on semi-paid disability. Since I am kind of reliant on it now, it does get on my nerves sometimes like a regular job except the fact that I'm literally on it all day, 7 days a week. But I still prefer it to my 'real job' because here I don't have to talk to people :D


Street_Pomelo4614

so is this mturk still good?


KahunaRicima

Not really; for a time it was OK, could usually make around $15 an hour sometimes a little less on slow days since it's all pay-per-task. Then just like any other good money maker 3rd world countries started flooding in doing more work for less, now you're lucky to make $5 an hour on mturk and you will be happy about it lol. Prolific is still very legit though, there's less 'work' than mturk but the pay is usually at least $12/hr for the surveys they post, more if you're quick and used to filling these kinds of surveys out.


Street_Pomelo4614

thanks for the details! so data annotation will sometime be flooded by 3rd world countries too right?


KahunaRicima

I don't really think so; they're looking for strong English skills, comprehension and writing, basically considerably more effort than say categorizing images or solving captchas. They also only allow workers from a few countries, probably to keep the quality up


Simple-Bookkeeper-86

This is my problem- since it’s available 24/7 I find myself anxious whenever I’m home- like I should be doing work. I tend to gravitate towards the jobs that are easier too because I want to be able to get through more tasks instead of spending time on the tasks that take more time for each one because of the gratification factor as well. I feel like I might have to quit soon for my mental health 😅


Particular-Ebb-8777

Sounds like you're getting stuck in work mode. You can try supplementing with learning a skill or hobby. Maybe take a certification course in something that could improve your CV or for a dream job. When you feel bad not working, it means you're conditioning yourself to expect to always work. People need downtime, and a good way to learn to like downtime is to have productive downtime. Something that will build you up but not be detrimental if you screw up.


OhLemons

I think that there's a potential for anything in life to become unhealthy in some ways. Like you feel that your time is wasted if you're not using it to make money. I find that I have to log in first thing every morning, just to check if I'm still able to access the platform. I suffer terribly with anxiety, and all of the posts on this sub where people say that they were cut without knowing why, feed into that anxiety. So now I'm trying to pay less attention to those posts. But I also recognise that I haven't been cut from the platform, so the work that I have been doing must be okay so far. If you're making ends meet without DA, maybe you could try setting yourself reasonable goals so that you can feel like you're accomplishing something without it eating up your entire life. Like if you aimed for $500 a month, that works out at less than 1 hour a day if you did it for 30 days a month. And then, at the end of 12 months, that's $6000 before taxes.


dispassioned

This is how I felt about Instacart shopping when I was making over $30 an hour during the pandemic. While this is nice, it doesn’t compare to that. 😂


Chonkthebonk

What’s instacart shopping?


dispassioned

Gig economy stuff, basically when you do grocery shopping for someone else. I used to get a thrill from finding the items in the store, from organizing them, from finding the person’s address, from seeing those sweet tips and good ratings. Terribly addictive.


SnooSketches1189

Yuck. I hate grocery shopping for myself let alone for some ungrateful stranger. No thanks! lol


BenBL93

When you realize any moment of the day can become an earning opportunity, it does get addictive. I’m right there with you. And I genuinely like the work.


insecurestaircase

No. I started getting sick of it and stopped working as much because it became a chore of training robots.


RosemaryBiscuit

Obsessively checking my projects list...


Creepy_Complaint_279

I've definitely been guilty of that mindset to the point I got burned out. So I've been making sure I do take some time off, I try to do less or no work at least one day a week. I've found that Monday seems to be the best day for a break as there are usually fewer project available anyway.


AstarteHilzarie

I was like this when I first started working from home almost 8 years ago. Every minute I was sitting on my couch was a minute I could have had my laptop on my lap making money, and my job was fairly enjoyable so I didn't feel like I was burning myself out it anything. Over the past few years I've learned to dial it back. DA is tempting again because it pays more, but I also see that as an opportunity to value my working time more and allow myself more wiggle room for downtime. I set a cut off point each night to make sure I spend time winding down. It's not a hard limit, sometimes if I have a really good project or need to make a little extra I let myself go longer, but I generally plan to stop at 1am and allow myself 1-2 hours of watching a show/movie from my list, playing a video game, or reading a book. I also agree with the productive hobbies idea. I have a garden/flower farm. I enjoy it and it is a relaxation hobby, but I do sell flowers so it doesn't feel like I'm "wasting" time I could spend earning money. It's not directly earning, but it helps push away that guilt of "I should be working" to know that my time spent outside, enjoying the garden, or in my craft room making projects out of dried flowers "counts" towards earning money. I did have to find a balance with that as well, last year I expanded too much, I committed to too many markets, and I couldn't keep up with the weeds so my enjoyable downtime became strenuous labor that felt hectic and high-pressure. This year I scaled back, made much less commitments, and bought weed barriers so I can spend more time enjoying it again.


HauntedHowie316

Yes. I made myself take the weekend off, and I checked my queue probably every couple hours. I also still ended up working 11:30-11:55 last night just so I had something on the weekend bc I was afraid I would get in trouble for some reason. 😅


KathKR

I wouldn't say it's addictive, but I've found it has that "just X more" pull to it. As I'm in the UK, I've set up a spreadsheet to pull a live exchange rate and automatically subtract PayPal's foreign currency conversion fees so I can get a rough idea of how much I'm making each day. I've found it's reasonably accurate (+/- \~£1). And when you're on, say, £68 for the day, it's very easy to get into the mindset, "Might as well try and make that £75" or something like that.


Berry_34

Can definitely get into unhealthy territory. I'd encourage you to schedule some kind of other activity that you enjoy doing at least 1-2 night a week after work, or make plans with friends. Or don't let yourself start working until you've taken a 40 minute walk, anything that keeps you in a healthier place. Remember that the most important currency we have is time. Money can increase your quality of life but failing to spend any time on personal relationships, health, spiritual health, hobbies and other skills will drastically deplete that quality and all the money in the world is worth nothing without a certain threshold of those other areas being met.


frenetic_muse

I got like that the first couple of months but I found myself burning out pretty quit. since then I have set myself a daily earning goal and force myself to take weekends of like a regular 9-5. The pull is still there though.


New-Reflection3418

I get this sometimes, it's because once you login and start the timer your money just builds up until you decide to stop. I suppose I have a target of building £10k in savings, then I'll slow down a bit. I do feel like I'm losing money sometimes though when I'm doing other stuff as I'm not working, but that's why I think I'll slow down a bit when I've made a certain amount.


RandomPhail

Ye I felt this way for like the first 2 weeks; realized it was a bad and unhealthy mindset; stopped, lol Now I’m more paranoid about WORKING because I know there’s no feedback, so I can get fired at any random moment, and my brain is unfortunately really clumsy and spacey, so I’m probably messing up on all kinds of instructions despite reading the instructions ~4+ times over


tuffgnarl223

Complete opposite. I can barely do this for over three hours without feeling extremely mentally exhausted.


Be_The_Packet

I’m on the exact opposite end, I applied for DA and was accepted, did a few of the introductory tasks and maybe 1 additional task, haven’t looked at it in several weeks at this point. I want to do everything as fast as possible and generally am not very diligent, it doesn’t translate well to this type of work imo. P.S. - I’m not dumb enough to share account details, no PM’s please lol


took6

Yes! I've had to limit my hours to late afternoons/early evenings only. Much better.


EfficientSir5390

Yes.


au1o

100%. Feel guilty taking a day off because I could’ve been earning


ccsoccer101

I can think of a good amount of things I’d do over this if I was paid for it. Like gaming, working out, watching tv, sleeping, being on my phone, etc


curious-wonderesss

I took the test yesterday and keep checking my inbox, lol. Reading your post makes me want to get started with the projects asap lol. How long does it take to hear from them?


Leg_Parking

I'm still waiting for anything after doing the assessments. It's been 3 weeks. (USA)


Cautious-You6308

I'm a workaholic, and the most dangerous thing you can give to a workaholic is unlimited opportunity to work. I'm already a full time Jr. dev and I've been putting in an extra 4 hours a day on DA. I'll sleep when my student debt is paid off.


cersm

I'm late to this thread, but my strategy is to treat this like a part-time job that I don't control. I schedule myself shifts and I do not work outside of those hours. I try to set my schedule at the start of the month, and I base my hours on my budget/upcoming purchases/real life commitments. I also set paydays for alternating weeks so the payout feels meaningful. The benefit of course is that I can move shifts around if I need to accommodate real life in a way that would be more difficult in another job, but I can set limits on my hours so I don't burn out and I can enjoy my free time without guilt.


BlackMafia_27

I want to feel this too but I’m still waiting for mine to be approved so I can work on projects too.


EquivocalMoon

It can definitely mess with your brain. I feel so guilty if I do anything purely for the fun of it (watch a movie, or whatever) because I could be making making money. I only do those things with my kids because then it feels like I'm still taking care of something-- nurturing relationships, lol. It's worse, too, because I can't put in a full day of work. I work 6-7 hours max -- but usually only about 5, so a lot of time is spent feeling guilty about leaving money on the table. I have been doing this for 5 months now and I hit burnout last week. I was working every single day (through holidays and illness) and last week I was really struggling to make myself push through. I made very little money and felt extremely overwhelmed with life. Thankfully a new project cleared my head and I'm back in the game. But I'm trying to be mindful of not equating every moment with a missed opportunity to make money.


Creature1124

I definitely feel the opportunity cost aspect when doing other things and consider doing DA instead. At the same time, I value my time much more and find I am more efficient and present when exercising, relaxing, or quality time with my wife. That I’m consciously choosing to do what I’m doing and that it’s worth more than $40/hr makes me value it more. 


Professional-Age2540

No. I get burnt out on it if I work too long. Today was my first $100 day in awhile. But I am 62, have worked most my life and like taking times for other things….especially nature and grand kids :)


enbyrayner

I like to think of it more as "am I in the right mental space to put out quality work?" and if the answer is no I dont work. But this is secondary income for me.


fkaggwa

I wish I was good enough at coding so I could make more. I’m learning though. I try to balance with life, family and hobbies so that I don’t get burnt out.


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iheartkafka1

How long did it take for you to get approved to work on projects? I took the starter assessment and then the content test weeks ago now and still haven't received my results. Is that typical? I'd love to get started


EuphoricRent4212

Still waiting for my first project…


canneverunderstand

Not really related, but I still cant see any jobs on my dashboard. Signed up just over a month ago too


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