Modern economies have gone away from the 40-50 hour work week and focus on per project pricing, residual incomes, economic modeling, personal budgeting, and savings. This may seem like a lot of things to do but government workers, large corporations, and ngos do most of the economic modeling so there is not much to focus on besides finding something to do for money, and making sure there is enough money for basic expenses and fun stuff during time off.
This is in contrast to older economies that had work requirements, benefit plans, stock options, mortgages, payment plans for nearly everything, and very little time off. Those economies are mostly a thing of the past and existed heavily in the US between the 1970s and 1995.
Since the Bill Clinton Welfare Reforms, work has increased in pay and time off, and the College Challenge Act helped more people decide to work for themselves. This led to various services that could revolutionize the world. Too many services for all of them to actually see regular use but enough services that could be combined into something that works well for long term financial stability in the USA.
Currently, independent work from home or remote work is popular and experiencing growth as a preferred style to get income for neccessities, wants, and desires. This can include various job roles including copy writer, editor, graphic artist, photographer, videographer, system manager, computer programmer, lawyer, medical researcher, accountant, bookkeeper, and even hr specialist or representative. There is an increase in modifying job roles so that they are work from home or remote work compatible. This includes roles like doctor, psychologist, car diagnostics technician, and teacher, tutor, or skills trainer. While some of the roles have an augmented reality or non virtualized component, most can be done completely online or over the phone.
Even retail has seen advances in modern work lifestyle through the use of drop shipping, online craft stores, and market places that only require setting up a website with an ecommerce store that uses an existing product distributers pricing feed and delivery network.
This means that every year, there are less workers going to work regularly and full time but people are still making enough money to pay their bills, have enough food, beverages and utilities paid; plus have money to go out when they are not working and have some time off.
Despite all of this, many workers do not have time to help everyone that requests their services, and many products are limited quantity or intermittent supply. That is normally ok because it helps deal with things like pollution, recycling of older materials, and helps with better long term planning for work needs and resource distribution needed for humans to survive and live well.
Overall, work is at a slower pace, pays more, prices have gone down for basic necessities and even luxury items, and people are removing ongoing subscription costs in favor of pay when its necessary, saving money, and stocking up. Like on clothes, food, and beverages.
With workers not having enough time to get to everyone that needs their assistance, self help is a big topic in professional development. This focuses on people learning how to do the simple and most basic things that a professional can do instead of hiring a beginner to potentially make a lot of mistakes, upset the customer, and likely get a source of income shut down.
Distributed teams are popular, as are job training programs like university and college degrees that come with a rating of what can be expected when a new worker starts in a job role.
These are examples of how self help works with professional services:
Medical
- Web MD to look up symptoms and causes
- Over The Counter Pharmacy (OTC) to treat symptoms
- Doctors visits when the OTCs don't work
- Write the notes down in a personal medical notebook so the next visit with the same symptoms its just a request for prescription and verification of symptoms.
What about regular checkups?
- Track height/weight, BMI, even blood sugar at home with personal medical kits and health apps.
- Share the data voluntarily with a doctor and talk about concerns, observations, health plans, and successes. Don't forget to mention health failures which often fall under concerns.
- Compare doctors advice with data from Web MD or magazines such as Very Well Health.
- Visit doctor for things that are not self discoverable or for emergencies that are not self treatable through bandages, and OTC.
Vehicle
- Quick 30 minutes or less oil changes every 3,000 miles. Stay in the car in a comfortable service area.
- Ask auto parts stores about toping off fluids, ask if you can borrow a screw driver or wrench, see if they will check your battery levels, ask for interior cleaners and fuel additives. Ask for an air filter, or car seat covers.
- Car rotation and changes in under an hour at tire shops, a lot of times without an appointment.
- Stay in the car, washes. Get out afterward only to clean and vacuum or do 10 minute car wash that includes vacuum and drying for a $2 to $3 tip.
- Major repairs done at dealers or at reputable car shops
- Transmission.
- Engine
- Frame
- Body
- Weird noises
- Car Parts Stores
- Autozone
- O’reilly
- Advanced Auto Parts
- Walmart (tires and more)
- Dedicated tire stores vary by location
Computers
- Support Forum like Bleeping Computer, Windows Forum, Microsoft, Google, or Apple.
- In store or mail in hardware replacement if necessary.
- iFixIt - upgrade and fix your own computers.
- Blogs and Computer Magazines to learn about new software and computer interfaces without a huge expense. Often less than $10 to $15 for several tutorials, tips, and guides.
- Read the manual and help file that came with the software.
- Call a professional if its a larger project or there is a specific issue that falls under consumer rights. Try an Office Supply store or Entertainment store for quick fixes and additional plug and play parts, usually over USB, Bluetooth, or Wifi.
- USB is often preferred to reduce electronic signals in an area that can lead to cyber trancing.
Psychology
- eBooks on anxiety, depression, anger, jealousy, envy, obsessiveness, communication barriers, confidence, self esteem, and relationship building.
- Blogs to fill in information with new data, different perceptions, and how the same advice can work differently in various contexts.
- Forums to ask if anyone has dealt with certain issues, or has trouble implementing advice or guidelines from self help books. Don't give out too much information, talk about what was read in a book, blog or magazine and what the concerns are with trying it.
- Go to therapy to specifically talk about things that are being experienced, the resources that were read, what was tried, what worked what didn't, ask for further advice or different resources.
- Suggestions
- eBooks with specific keywords from list
- Psychology Today
- Openpath Collective
- Togetherall
Sociology
Focuses on skills necessary to build relationships and obtain skills necessary for healthy human expression in adult environments. Can help young persons think about the world outside the home and how they will fit into it one day. Can help build thinking and assessment skills for professional development and good work life balance.
- Social Media - don't be too friendly or overly annoying. Focus on topics that are interesting or that are new.
- Event Bright - this can help create contexts and experiences to talk about on social media. Don't give too much information online like locations, times, phone numbers, or emails. This can be separate from social media.
- Meetup - These are often group events on a specific topic like book club, nature walks, hobby practice, professional skills development or activities like dancing or food testing. This can also be separate from social media and can give people something to talk about if confidentiality wont be breached.
- Augmented reality - meeting up with someone met through DM on social media can lead to interesting situations or to dangerous ones. Either meetup or eventbright can be used to ask a social media acquaintance to meet in person. Its usually polite and implied to not follow the new friend from the event. Wait for another invite. Ask someone else if you don't hear back from them or they are not available before you are ready for another augmented experience.
The majority of professional services are going towards self help, independent work, remote work, and distributed teams. A lot of things are still under development but this is unlikely to change any time soon.
Work is usually based on a monthly personal budget, once that requirement is met, there is not a need for additional work that month unless there is a desire for savings or to accumulate work and take more time off.
Many people are planning on rent only and circling back to home purchases every 10 to 15 years throughout their life. The projected age of retirement is now closer to 50 years old with optional and consensual work after that age. Most people are exhausted from working as early as 35. Its important to keep good work life balance and put work down more often in order to survive until 50.