
Ask HN: How do you manage work/life balance? - zsection
I tried searching HN but couldn't see this discussion anywhere...
Wanted to know how you guys, particularly founders, manage work/life balance? In an ideal world, only people who actually successfully manage it respond...
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jmtame
"If you're going to half-ass your startup because of some 'work-life balance,'
you're going to lose." - Michael Arrington

Mark Cuban was known for working 7 years straight on Broadcast.com (originally
known as AudioNet) and that was at the time the largest IPO in history, sold
to Yahoo for $6 billion in stock. He didn't take vacations, holidays, or leave
work during these 7 years.

It depends on what you want out of life. I think too many people get into
entrepreneurship because they think it sounds fun, but they don't realize it
requires everything of you. If you're the CEO or President of your startup,
you set the example. Every single person on your team will only work as hard
as you will.

If you're unwilling to sacrifice friendships, family, weekends, holidays, then
you're not very competitive to others who are. I'm not trying to say that in a
sleezy way, I'm just stating the facts. A lot of people are willing to
sacrifice everything to be successful, so if you only want to be self-employed
and do your own self-startup, then you can probably get away with as much or
little work-life balance as you want.

~~~
mattmaroon
That's so wrong in every way. A proper work-life balance makes you more
effective at both. Hours worked is shown very strongly in studies to follow
the law of diminishing returns, to the point of even turning negative.

If you're sacrificing friendships and family, you're not doing it right. And
not only that, even if you succeed you'll end up wishing you didn't. I've seen
this happen.

For every Mark Cuban there are 1,000 entrepreneurs who succeed without working
90 hours a week.

~~~
nostrademons
I found it wasn't really the time that was a problem, it was attention. Even
when I was at parties or with my families, I wasn't really mentally there,
since there was always this cool algorithm or new approach that I was turning
over in my head and wanted to try out. That tended to make parties not all
that much fun for me, and me not all that much fun for the party. So even
though I was only working 5-6 hours/day of actual coding, the mental effort
spent thinking things through was all-consuming. It was depressing enough that
I'm going back into the corporate world again - I'm not much of a work/life
balance guy by nature, but I'd like _more_ work/life balance than I had as a
founder.

FWIW, none of the startup founders I know have much in the way of work/life
balance, at least for the first 5 years or so of the company's life. It was
not uncommon for them to work 12 hour days, 7 days a week, and take their
first vacation when the company was about 4 years old. This doesn't mean it
was a daily grind - just that their life _became_ the company, and that's what
they wanted to be working on even when they weren't officially at work.

Edit: I should make a distinction here between _startups_ (organizations that
are intended to grow really fast) and _small businesses_. I know several small
business owners with good work/life balance: you kinda need it, since a small
business is a long haul that'll consume you if you don't have some other sort
of life. I don't know any startup founders with a life, _during the startup
phase_.

Know what sort of business you want and be honest up-front with family,
friends, investors, employees, and yourself. You aren't going to get rich in 4
years with a small business. But you can make a good living for yourself,
sacrificing less of your personal life, with significantly less risk. If
you're going to shoot for the moon, figure out what it would take to prove
that you're aiming right, and bail out before you sacrifice too much if you're
not.

~~~
mattmaroon
I know a lot of startup founders. Most of them work hard, for sure, but also
have some balance. Some more than others. The two aren't incompatible, but it
takes some work to make them otherwise.

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speby
Pre-founder: 9 to 5 work, 5 to 8/9 part-time startup, 8/9 to 1 life. Mon-Sat.,
usually Sundays are full-life.

Full-time founder: 9:30 to 11 work/coffee/eat, 11:30 to 3 work, 3 to 4 gym, 5
to 8 work, 8-11 eat/life, 11-1 work. Mon-Sat with Sunday usually being the
most life and most relaxed.

You read that right... technically, I work the same or slightly less hours
than with a full-time job _and_ part-time founder responsibilities. Either
way, it's about 60-70 hours a week.

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lionheart
I work when I feel like it. I don't work when I feel like it.

I don't have a separate office and I haven't been able to stick to any
schedule more concrete than that.

Its probably not an ideal situation, but it seems to be working out pretty
well so far.

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mattmaroon
Step 1: think about your priorities. This is something you should have done
before starting up, of course. For instance I'm married, and my marriage comes
before my business. If I had to choose one to fail, it would be the latter. My
wife is very supportive, so I don't have to choose. If yours isn't, you will.
Same to a large degree with friends and family.

Step 2: I call it Agile Life Development. Apply the same principles you do to
your startup to your life as a whole. Start with a routine you think might
work, run it for a few weeks, see if it does. If you find it's not keeping you
both happy and productive, and working toward your goals while keeping your
priorities in order, try to determine why and make some changes. Test again.
In this case your product is your life and your user is you (and friends and
family) so good feedback is really easy to come by. And you're definitely
making something you want.

It'll take a while, but you'll get there. Just don't stop working on it. I've
been attempting it for ~7 years now, and I'm still not where I would consider
it perfect, but it's pretty damn good.

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vaksel
9 to 8 work

8 to 2 life

2 to 9 sleep

Monday through Saturday, with Sundays off.

Sure if there is some emergency all bets are off, but I find that this gives
me the most productivity, w/o really doing any damage to my personal life.

------
hardik
I would like to add another dimension to this question, how do you pre-
founders manage work life balance? (Pre-founders being those who are still
working their day jobs, hacking away at nights/weekends)

~~~
brlewis
Selective neglect: My closet is a mess. So is my basement. I spend time with
my wife and kids.

Efficiency: I keep my priority list in front of me so I'm always coding the
most important things. I use a Lisp dialect so that I can make effective use
of short coding sessions. A lot of my progress in the past few years has been
during 35-minute train rides.

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markbao
7am to 3pm, school.

3pm to 12am, founder stuff.

12am _panic about homework_

~~~
rms
I very rarely did homework at home during high school... therefore my panic
time was reduced to schooltime as I frantically tried to do the homework
during other classes.

~~~
rms
Did other people do this? Or was the upmodding to say "I should have done
this"?

~~~
a-priori
I don't know about other people, but I certainly did this in high school.

------
iamdave
I don't bring my work home with me. Under _any_ circumstance.

Period.

~~~
lallysingh
On a more general note, a few hard rules like this are important. They do
wonders.

For example, I'm off liquor until the PhD's finished. Permanently: no
delivered pizza, and nothing but regular coffee or espresso from coffee shops
(specifically, no mochas, which I take like liquid crack).

I can ignore the rules for special occasions, which helps keep me in
moderation even when I'm in these unusual circumstances.

------
catone
I recently wrote a blog post about something similar that might be applicable
here: [http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/12/19/12-ways-to-keep-
sa...](http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2008/12/19/12-ways-to-keep-sane-while-
working-from-home/)

The article was geared toward home workers and focused on tips and tricks to
avoid getting stir crazy. But a lot of it talks about how to keep work and
personal lives separate, which is especially difficult when your home is your
office. So much of the post may be helpful to you.

Short version of my tips of things to do during the work day to stay sane:

1\. Clearly define your work space. 2\. Take a walk. 3\. Take a nap. 4\. Have
lunch with a friend. 5\. Join a local user group. 6\. Engage with a community
online. 7\. Use Twitter. 8\. Subscribe to a trade magazine. 9\. Keep work and
personal contact info separate. 10\. Get a cat (or a dog). 11\. Take regular
breaks. 12\. Schedule time off.

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ideamonk
6am - 5pm : for college

5pm - 12am : trying to manage work/life balance

that 5-12 includes trying to take rest, managing college assignments if any...
and basically trying to do too many things... so work/life balance hardly
exists :(

If I play some backetball in the evening I haven't the energy to do much that
night. the "/" in "work/life" sometimes seems to translate to "work" OR
"life".. choose any :P

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siong1987
9am to 3pm: study 3pm to 1am: work <\- Work is my life.

Enjoy your work like you enjoy your life.

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justinchen
I just make sure that when my wife has time off, that I take time off to spend
time with her. I close the computer and don't try to multi-task. Makes work
and life more productive.

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juliend2
Quality of time is the key. I wake up early (around 5h30 am) because it's the
best time to get things done. My mind is clear and it goes fast.

I never work during sundays. That's my only limit.

------
known
<http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=00/07/25/0329226> for an IT worker.

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pasbesoin
Make sure your home environment is one that you want to spend time in. If you
are "avoiding home", you are at work for the wrong reason.

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cubicle67
badly

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henryw
i used to believe in working lots of hours. reading 4 hour work week changed
my mind some. one thing i took away was: do the 20% of things that gives you
80% of productivity and skip the rest.

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sharjeel
By calling work my life

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auston
i dont, my girlfriend does it for me.

