Things you're allowed to do

December 13, 2020, updated November 23, 2021

This is a list of things you’re allowed to do that you thought you couldn’t, or didn’t even know you could.

I haven’t tried everything on this list, mainly due to cost. But you’d be surprised how cheap most of the things on this list are (especially the free ones).

Note that you can replace “hire” or “buy” with “barter for” or “find a DIY guide to” nearly everywhere below. E.g. you can clean the bathroom in exchange for your housemate doing a couple hours research for you.

Learning and decision making

• Hire a researcher or expert consultant
  • I hired a researcher (Elizabeth Van Nostrand, whom you can and should hire too) to help write this very post, which is largely about how to hire people to do things!
  • They can:
    • Help validate whether a crazy idea is possible
    • Do epistemic spot checks of your work
    • Map the landscape of opinions on a topic
    • Write literature surveys
    • Find people worth talking to about a potential topic and writing briefs about them
    • Opposition or market research
    • Find options for big purchases like houses or insurance
    • Compile datasets
    • Find un-Googleable things
  • To find one:
    • Look for books or scholarly articles on the topic, and email the author
      • Graduate students are especially good, and often know more than the “experts”
      • If you find someone genuinely interested in what you’re working on, you might be able to collaborate and not pay
    • Look for interested individuals in the long tail of blogs
      • E.g. by Google searching with "site: medium.com" and finding the authors
    • Use a matchmaking service (see Appendix)
    • Search through professional organizations directories (e.g. Bar Association, American Academy of Pediatrics)
    • Google the topic +
      • “blog”
      • “podcast”
      • “expert witness”
      • “book”
      • “consultant”
      • “reddit”
  • What do I pay them?
    • Some post their prices online
    • If you’re hiring a grad student you can pay them at or above their school’s graduate student stipend, which you can Google.
    • Make sure they get something out of the project (and other tips)
• Ask obvious questions
• Ask questions online
  • You know those answers you enjoy reading on Stack Exchange, Reddit, Quora, etc.? Someone had to ask those questions. It can be you.
  • If you’re embarrassed by the question, it’s easy to be anonymous
• Run surveys
  • Twitter
    • Or ask someone with a larger following to do it
  • Google Surveys
  • Amazon Mechanical Turk
• Buy advertisements, especially in legacy media
• Run genuine randomized control trials on yourself

• Buy research or data

• Hire someone to pentest/doxx you
  • Or put out a bounty for it, like Gwern used to
• Hire a graphic designer to turn your appalling sketches into beautiful diagrams or slides
• Host small gatherings or conferences on topics you care about
  • These are much easier to set up than you’d think, especially in the age of Zoom
• Hire a tutor
  • Language tutors are surprisingly cheap and better than any app
  • Wyzant and many other sites exist for general tutoring
  • For niche tutoring you can try general freelance sites like Fiverr or Upwork
  • Services like Sharpest Minds exist for professional training
• Hire someone just as an excuse to make yourself complete a project
  • Sure you could proofread your own document. But if you hire a proofreader, you have to actually deliver them something at some point.

Interpersonal

• Say “I don’t know” or “I don’t have an opinion” when you don’t
• Not tell white lies
  • You can be nice and tell the truth at the same time.
  • Especially to kids when they annoy you.
• Don’t drink (alcohol), even when you’re expected to
• Buy goods/services from your friends
  • It’s not weird unless you make it weird
  • Everyone knows some starving artists and needs to buy holiday gifts
  • Doesn’t apply to every service obviously: don’t take out loans from your friends
• Travel to friends just to visit them
• Move close to friends
• Live in multiple places with multiple people
  • Rent spare rooms or couches part-time in multiple homes
  • Arrange your own timeshare system with friends
    • E.g. a group of nine friends can rent three three-bedroom apartments in three cities
    • This also gives you flexibility over which jurisdiction you’re taxed in
• Be a nomad
• Ask your acquaintances, “Hey, I want to leave my house more, are there any cool events you’re going to soon?” (HT Sasha Chapin)
• Romance
  • Ask people out on dates
  • Ask your friends to set you up
  • Hire a matchmaker
  • Buy premium versions of dating apps
  • Get couples therapy
• Give to charity
  • You really can, to the best of our knowledge, save someone’s (statistical) life with not that much money. This is a big deal.

Support and accountability

• Hire a coach

  • For your professional area

  • Personal trainer
  • Nutritionist
  • Meditation guide
• Visit a physical therapist
• Buy task-specific devices that prevent multitasking
  • Kindle
  • Freewrite Traveller
  • Dedicated music players
  • Dedicated notebooks for specific purposes (day planner, exercise log, etc.)
• Engage a human productivity monitor
  • I know two people who have hired people to sit next to them or frequently contact them to keep them on-task
  • Examples: focusmate.com and coding-pal.com

Making the most of your resources

• First, figure out how much your time is really worth to you, and then act/spend accordingly
• Modify your stuff
  • Tape over annoying LED lights
  • Remove logos (example)
  • Write in books
  • Rip off tags
  • Rotate your monitor to portrait
• Repair your stuff, or get it repaired
  • Shoes
  • Clothes
  • Luggage and outdoor gear
  • Furniture
  • Car
    • You can buy at-home car care
• Grocery delivery
• Cleaning services
  • Can be regular or just when you need a big spring clean
  • Don’t forget carpet cleaning, vent cleaning, and air filter replacement
• Laundry service
• Nannies over daycare
• Write on a post-it note affixed to a greeting card rather than on the greeting card itself, so the recipient can throw away the post-it and reuse your card
  • Employ similar logic for any disposable/consumable item
• Ask for free upgrades or coupons
  • At checkout you can just ask “Do you have any coupons I can apply to this?”
• Treat fines like payments
  • E.g. park illegally and let yourself think of the (expected value of the) fine as a parking fee
  • Obviously don’t break rules that matter like blocking a fire exit
• Contest unjust fines
  • DoNotPay offers lots of services like this, like unsubscribing you from services or sending faxes digitally
• Don’t pay, or renegotiate, bills
  • Example with hospital bills
• Call/email executives at company to complain about things
  • E.g. using RocketReach
• Telemedicine
• Surgery for appearance or comfort
• At-home vet care
• Enroll yourself (or your pet) in a clinical trial or research study
• Generate your own audiobooks
  • gutenbergreloaded.com
• Generate your own ebooks
  • 1dollarscan.com

• Get verbal things written down

• Personal assistant services (or a real PA if you can afford it)
  • Magic, TaskRabbit, Fancy Hands, and similar services can approximate many of these. There are also more serious services like Double.
  • Manage email
  • Helping you move
  • Getting visas and arranging travel
  • Stand in line for you
  • Errands
  • Filing paperwork
• Hire a personal stylist
• And if you grew up in a thrifty family, like me:
  • Paying for parking in convenient location
  • Hotels where you can sleep comfortably
  • Non-public transportation, especially when traveling
  • Buying comfortable mattress, shoes, etc.
  • Buying clothes for appearance or comfort instead of just the lowest price
  • Bottled water when you’re thirsty
    • And in general fulfilling any bodily need for < $5 (restrooms, buying a hat when you forgot yours, etc.)
  • Buy your way out of advertising on e.g. Spotify or YouTube
  • Actually turn the heat/AC on
    • And in general, being willing to spend a few minutes to fix small annoyances
      • You could even get someone to observe you to help figure this out
    • Seriously, just put WD-40 on that squeaky hinge already

Professional

• Ignore what’s on the jobs page and directly pitch someone at a company on hiring you
  • The jobs page is always out-of-date anyway
  • Figure out what their needs are before you make your pitch
• Negotiate for better terms in your job offer
  • Easier than asking for a raise - you have more leverage
  • You can ask for a signing bonus equal to the cost of exercising all your options, which shows commitment to the company
  • Propose a longer vesting schedule to demonstrate commitment
• Ask for a raise
• Ask to waive admission or graduation requirements
• Drop out/quit your job
  • Or go on leave from your job/school until they kick you out. They often won’t.
• Live off your savings while trying something new
• If you can’t live off your savings, get a grant
  • Emergent Ventures
  • ACX Grants
  • Kickstarter
  • These days there are always new microgrant programs starting, here’s one list
• Work for yourself
  • Coaching, contracting, etc.
• Cold contact people
  • Yes, even famous people. Just make sure you have something to say.
• Follow up many times
  • You won’t make people mad if you’re polite.
• Approach a person or group you admire and ask whether they want to cofound something with you
  • “Here’s my story, my goal is to build a company/nonprofit/whatever in this space, maybe I can help you with X role.”
• Propose that a person, group, or company contract-to-hire you
  • Even if you want a cofounder role, this can be done well
• Learn how professionals email by reading leaked emails.
• Use contract-to-hire
  • Even for CEO-level roles, this can be done well
• As mentioned above, buy research or data, e.g. for compensation
• Merge with your competitors, a la PayPal
• Work in public
  • Or mostly in public, a la SpaceX who livestreams everything
• Sell to unusual markets
  • ZetrOZ was building a medical device, but started by selling to olympic horse teams, then olympic human athletes
  • Some biotech companies start in pets
• Charge more
• Write interviews with yourself and send them to journalists
• Fly to people for in-person meetings/visits to demonstrate seriousness
• In general, just ask for things, even if you’ve never heard someone ask for them
  • It’s okay if the things are crazy. You can always mollify afterward by saying “I know that’s a crazy thing to ask for, but I have a rule that I always ask.”

Related, Probably Better Lists

Thanks to Gwern, Stephen Malina, Alexey Guzey, Elliot Jin, iandanforth, Joshua M. Clulow, Kay, zoba, ryandrake, a guy I can’t name who offers “personal assistant concierge services for high-net-worth families,” and Elizabeth Van Nostrand for some of the ideas above.

Appendix: Sources of experts

Appendix: Sources of research and data