Must have skills to become overemployed

I used to think working two developer jobs at the same time was impossible. I was afraid of ending up working 16-hour days and being constantly stressed. And for a while, it was overwhelming. I spent six months juggling two full-time developer jobs, dealing with parallel meetings and constant deadlines. It was tough, but it taught me how to work smarter, not harder.

Here’s what I learned.

Handling Meetings

Meetings were the biggest time drain. My main goal became to avoid as many as I could.

• Skip what you can: I started skipping all the non-essential meetings, like company-wide "all hands." If you don't say a single word in a meeting, you probably don't need to be there.

• Multitask during meetings: If I had to be in a redundant meeting, I’d mute myself, turn off the camera, and get some simple coding tasks done. Things like testing changes or answering emails don't need your full attention.

• Take control: In meetings I couldn't skip, like debugging sessions, I learned to lead them. I would volunteer to share my screen and drive the process. This helped us get to a solution faster, saving everyone time.

• Dealing with parallel meetings: Overlapping meetings will happen. I had daily stand-ups at the same time for both jobs. It was a nightmare of muting and unmuting, trying not to get caught. My advice? Find a creative but believable reason to reschedule one of them, even by just 15 minutes. Maybe you have a food delivery that you can't reschedule—in my country, that's a real thing.

Coding Smarter

I had to become more efficient with my coding time.

• Find your minimum pace: When you start a new job, the company gauges your productivity based on your initial pace. I learned to start slow. Find the minimum amount of work you can do while keeping your manager happy. For me, this ended up being about two hours of focused work per job each day.

• Stretch your tasks: If you finish a task on the first day of a five-day estimate, don't report it immediately. Break down the work and report a piece of it each day at the daily stand-up.

• Focus on priorities: I made sure to ask my managers directly what the most important thing for me to focus on was. On one job, my manager was obsessed with people being present, so my priority was just keeping my camera on. On the other, it was delivering one endpoint per day.

• Keep it simple: You don't have time to think about the perfect variable name or the most elegant solution. Pick the simplest approach that gets the job done. Your team isn't your family; you're selling your time for money, so it's okay to be a bit selfish here.

Protecting Your Free Time

The goal is to work eight hours a day total, not sixteen. If you're working more than that, something is wrong.

• Delegate household chores: I realized that my free time was just as important as my work time. I started thinking about my salary in dollars per hour. If I make $50 an hour and a cleaning service costs $30, it’s a no-brainer to delegate that task. It saves time and energy.

• Keep a diary: I spent five minutes every morning writing down what I did the previous day. This helped me see where my time was going and gave me a sense of accomplishment. It’s proof that you're actually getting things done, which helps with the anxiety that comes with this kind of work.

Working two jobs isn't about working more; it's about working smarter.

I explain all of this in more detail in my new video. If you've ever wondered how to juggle two meetings without having a meltdown, you should probably watch it.