
Startup work-life balance - hippo33
http://hippoland.tumblr.com/post/33235630505/youre-thinking-about-startup-work-life-balance-all
======
crazygringo
I used to program _all the time_ in high school. I thought I was happy.

Then I went to college, met all sorts of people, had lots of experiences, and
realized how narrow my life, and concept of happiness was.

So when I hear people talk about how much they love their work, that's their
own balance... I can't help but wonder if they just haven't learned how great
the other parts of life are. And how much a wider range of experiences can
make their work part better as well.

~~~
mberning
Absoutely. I was similar to the author all the through college. Then I got a
job, which was a brutal entry level programmer job. It killed what little
social life I had at that point. But the upside was that I was pretty good at
it and started making some decent money. Over time I was able to use my
professional capital to switch to a company with much healthier expectations.
I was able to go out and explore the world after being caught up in the daily
grind for years. I was able to associate with a much wider set of people. I
got 'real' hobbies to replace my 'geek' hobbies. I got a girlfriend. One day I
realized that I cared more about being a good person, a good partner, a good
lover, a good friend, etc. than being a good programmer/scientist/etc. I
realized that the chance of any 1 person making a breakthrough contribution to
a company, science, or the arts is vanishingly small. The chance to be a good
person and positively impact the people in your life and community is 100%.

I'm very thankful that my experiences have allowed me to put my professional
life in perspective.

~~~
trhtrsh
Sounds like you had a bad job, not a bad time programming/sciencing.

~~~
mberning
Yeah, I did.

The point I was trying to make is that the lifestyle I led through college in
some ways fed in to my willingness to do the same thing professionally. I
never knew any better.

If things had gone differently, I could still be killing myself on a daily
basis. And for what? The possibility of making a few more bucks?

------
mapgrep
Wait, why is Elon Musk being used as example of someone who doesn't need
vacations? We don't know what his personal life is like, in comparison to all
we know about his professional life. There is no data.

Digging into his personal life is widely considered off limits. Reporting is
not done on it. If I were, for example, to assert that Musk has had two
divorces in 2.5 years and that this may in fact reflect that his personal life
is a mess, I'd probably get voted down. And maybe that would be fair, because
who knows, maybe in that scenario both he and his ex wives are happy to end
the lifetime marriage vows early. My point isn't that Elon Musk's life is a
mess, my point is we don't know, so we shouldn't be using him as evidence of
not needing to "balance" work life, unless we're ready to have an in-depth
conversation about what most people consider (rightly or wrongly) to be off
limits private matters.

~~~
keeptrying
Two divorces in 2.5 years. And since divorces arent "same day service" type
things I'm pretty sure the dude is "unhappy" with his private life.

~~~
guylhem
Let the ones who never took a bad decision in an area they are not very
familiar with (like personal life when you're all about work) cast him the
first stones

~~~
keeptrying
I'm not judging dude. But it is what it is...

------
mratzloff
People don't exist in a vacuum, though. Unlike when he was a teenager, his
workaholic attitude affects others in a workplace environment. It affects the
company culture and puts pressure on people to work more to keep up. It makes
otherwise good workers feel guilty that they don't work more.

~~~
jayferd
Thank you for this. I have a life and other priorities, and I find it
difficult to work in an environment where everyone sticks around the office
until 8pm. It's difficult to see how our behavior affects others, and how
important it is to be a model of balance.

------
ojbyrne
In my opinion startups are about speed. That doesn't mean you have to work 14
hour days 7 days a week. It does mean that if some obstacle clears at 5:05 pm
on a Friday, then you do the work to get to the next obstacle, even if it
means you miss dinner with the family.

But if you're ahead of the game on a Monday morning at 9am, then sleep in, or
go to a movie, or whatever. Because the best way to go fast is to be
enthusiastic about what you're doing.

~~~
hippo33
This may be true of YOUR startup. There are plenty of startups out there who
have different thoughts about speed. And, so long as expectations are properly
set with everyone on the team: co-founders, investors, et al, then whatever
you need to do is the right thing regardless of what other startup founders
around you are doing.

~~~
nugget
This is why his startup beats your startup.

------
Sumaso
I didn't see the life part of her work life balance.

I always imagined that work life balance meant you had things that you wanted
to do in your personal time, and you had the time to do them.

Not 'I love working so much that my balance is all work and little / no life'.

~~~
hippo33
Good point. Working on becoming a better blogger...

My situation these days is that I have a spouse, no kids. I didn't realize it
at the time, but choosing a spouse to share a lot of the work-life with you is
really important. We probably don't spend as much time together as other
couples, but it works well, because we share the same kind of life. He works
at a startup, and I have LaunchBit. So on a given weekend, we might spend time
"together" by working on our respective work at his office. And our hours are
roughly the same, which makes it easy to work a 10-12 hour day, because no one
is sitting around waiting for the other to come home. I think most people
would say that this isn't very balanced at all -- we're mostly working. But,
it is balanced because expectations are set and met on both sides.

Now, to your question about wishing that you had more time to pursue other
hobbies and whatnot. If that's what you need, then I think that's perfectly
fine too as long as everyone else on your startup team is onboard with that:
co-founders, employees, investors.

~~~
robryan
Not everyone will agree but I do feel that getting together for a work session
like this can be a social thing, even though it is still work. You are likely
a little more relaxed about the work at this time too.

------
jusben1369
It feels like the author picked the 8 hour work day. I don't see that as part
of the overall discussion on balance.

The main point of balance is that you are a more complete human being when you
participate in a wider range of activities. Even if that just means you're a
better developer because you stepped away for an hour or a week and got a new
perspective. Just because you're not miserable only doing primarily one thing
doesn't mean you wouldn't be happier if you forced yourself to learn or see or
try new things at regular intervals. You'd most likely be much more
interesting to those around you too.

~~~
hippo33
Balance is what YOU as an individual need to be balanced. You are projecting
your opinion on everyone else that you need to do other things to be happier.
That is what makes YOU happy. So go do it! But, it doesn't mean that everyone
will be happier doing that. The point of this post is that everyone needs
balance and needs to do what they think will make them feel balanced. And
rather than adhering to dogma of others, we should each individually do what's
best so long as expectations are set with those in our company.

~~~
freshhawk
Nope. Balance has a reasonably well defined meaning.

You can argue that balance isn't necessary for everyone or that the "balanced
life" dogma is wrong. That's an interesting conversation. Better than trying
to redefine balanced to mean "either balanced or the opposite, whatever you
feel like", that seems rather silly.

~~~
hippo33
What you need to make your life feel balanced is different from your peers. If
you need to take more time off, then do it. But if you only need 1 week of
vacation like Elon Musk, then that's his balance. That's the point -- let's
not create one standard set of rules for what balance is because people
operate differently.

~~~
freshhawk
What? No.

A balanced life means you split your life among all different areas of life.
That's what that phrase means.

Elon Musk has rejected the idea that work/life balance is necessary and
_that's just fine_. That's how he feels happiest. It seems to be working
pretty damn well for him.

I'm not saying there's any kind of standard set of rules, I'm saying that if
you reject the dogma of balance then say so, don't try and redefine what it
means because people are dogmatic about "balance = good, not balanced = bad"

~~~
quacker
If the goal is to be happy and if some people find greater happiness doing
'work' while others find greater happiness devoting time to 'life', then
surely there will be some people who will split their time accordingly.

Maybe it's not technically 'balance', but do you really think when someone
says 'work-life balance' that they mean 50-50 split between work and life?
When I hear it used it usually means 'spend less time on work and more on
life', and I think hippo33's is correct: not everyone needs to (or should)
spend less time doing work because that's where they may find the most
happiness.

~~~
freshhawk
I absolutely agree.

We both (along with hippo33) agree that everyone does not need to lead a
balanced life. There are other valid choices like a life of dedication to a
specific cause or pursuit. Or anywhere in between that makes you happy.

We disagree on whether you should use the word balance when you "technically"
mean the exact opposite. That's poor communication in my opinion.

------
benlower
I find it odd that we call it "work-life" balance. So work comes first and
life second? I've started calling it "life-work" balance. Not to imply that I
work less but that things are well integrated and stuff that feels like work
comes second :-)

------
padobson
I agree that we shouldn't be looking at it in terms of hours, but I don't know
if it can be measured in terms of happiness (as the author seems to be
indicating) either.

What are your goals? What is it going to take for you to achieve those goals?
Will you be happy working towards those goals? Is the misery that you're going
to have to endure to achieve those goals worth it? Can you sustain that level
of misery and still accomplish your goals?

 _But, it could also mean that you’re just a lot dumber and less efficient
than your peers who could do the same thing without pulling an all-nighter._

You may well be dumber than someone who doesn't need an all-nighter to do what
you're doing, but you may want the prize you're working towards more than the
person getting 8 hours of sleep - so go for it.

~~~
eli_gottlieb
I have a kind of rule that has seen me from one place to another: _you can
always do it without an all-nighter_. It might not have the best software
engineering properties, it might suddenly do something completely different
from all the rest of the code and drag in half a dozen libraries, it might
barely fit the API you're calling.... but there is always some _cleverer_ way
of doing it than just coding all through the day and night.

Of course, many jobs actually want brute-force code versus library-laden,
clever hacks. This is why I struggled to become a researcher again.

------
drp4929
Confucius said, "Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day
in your life."

If you don't work, you don't have to worry about work-life balance.

~~~
jszmajda
I don't think that's a fair argument. There's always a point in projects where
you need to do something you don't want to do. At that point your work has
become an obligation, which makes it something you don't love. You're forced
to undergo the stress that we're discussing balancing. The key IMO is to find
the right balance of working through that stress.

~~~
drp4929
If you loath to do something then it induces stress. However, if you love your
project then you're more likely to ensure that ship moves forward, even if it
means doing tasks that you did not want to do originally.

~~~
bduerst
I think that stress is a relative thing. You could have all the power and
resources in the world, but you'll be stressed about something.

------
codegeek
Not sure if I agree with the author here. Yes it is true that if u love what u
do, it doesn't feel like a burden and might have a feeling of balance there.
But even then, I want my _personal_ life which means being able to spend time
doing _other_ things and not just work.

The author talks about his teenage days when he would rather do math and not
watch x files. That's fine. But what about ppl who have kids and want to go
home and spend time with them instead of working which btw they love.

And that's my point. Just because u love your work, doesn't mean u have a
balance. I will rather call it obsession.

~~~
aeturnum
I think you're missing the point of work life balance.

People do not want a good "work life balance" because it's the "right thing to
do." They're seeking to optimize their productivity and happiness. They don't
want to wake up one day and have no friends, but they also don't want to wake
up and have done too little.

The author's point is that there is no canonical answer. If your friend works
12 hour days (as I'm sure many of our friends do) you shouldn't just say, "Oh,
well, you should work less." Everyone has their own happy zone.

Sometimes all people want to do is work 14 hours a day, and they love it. We
shouldn't say that they're wrong for loving it. We should instead understand
that what is balanced for us is not what will be balanced for someone else.

~~~
codegeek
"there is no canonical answer"

Agreed. But I got the feeling that the author was also advocating a zero sum
game here for work life balance

------
tsotha
You can be happy doing what you're doing at the time, but that doesn't mean
your life is in balance. It just means you're happy _right now_. Well, a
heroin addict that shoots up is happy while he's high.

Think ahead a little.

------
ruswick
I think that this framework isn't applicable to most because people who
sincerely enjoy working are anomalous and in the minority. Even people who
"love" their jobs do so not because the job is "lovable" in and of itself but
because it is the lesser of all evils and affords them more
freedom/time/benefits/money/other happiness-promoting factor, not because the
actual labor is enjoyable in and of itself.

If most people were given a chance, they wouldn't elect to work. For most
people, work is an obligation that they except reluctantly. Given this, "work-
life balance" then becomes a unidirectional effort to drive down the amount of
work and the number of hours down to zero, not to achieve any kind of real
equilibrium.

Additionally, because hours worked is the most common and widely used method
used to determine the amount of work one has done, any attempt to reduce that
amount of work is most likely going to be done by reducing hours works. Hours
are the quintessential "work measurement": if you want more "balance," you're
going to try to work less hours.

I'm sorry, but most people don't like working, and they expend effort
attempting to work less. Because of the widely accepted idea that hours worked
equates to amount worked, the way that they do so is by trying to reduce their
hours.

In the words of Micael Scott, "I would rather live jobless, on a beach
somewhere, off the money from a large inheritance, than have to work in any
one of these crapholes."

That's the mentality that most people have, and that's why they want to work
fewer hours.

------
ogama
Her high school life sounds sad. If she really had a fulfilling social life in
high school she wouldn't feel the need to tell us all how great it was that
she didn't go to parties. It reminds me of people who are constantly
broadcasting to everyone how happy they are. Chances are, they're not.

~~~
trhtrsh
Poe'd?

If you had a fulfilling life, you wouldn't feel the need to accuse other
people of being secretly unhappy.

~~~
fr84
The person simply sounds defensive, trying to convince themselves that not
having fun was fun. So the reply made a good point.

~~~
Livven
Defensive, yes, but defensive to whom — herself or "most people" who think her
high school years were terrible?

Imagine: You have a different notion of happiness than most others, so people
constantly tell you that you're not happy — even though you are. Naturally,
you'll get defensive over time, but then those same people will see that as a
sign that you're in fact not happy. Catch 22.

In other words: stop being condescending.

------
drallison
How can I take this posting seriously with a significant grammar error in the
title.

~~~
hippo33
In the same way you take Apple seriously for using the slogan "Think
different." :)

~~~
drallison
I don't. But the error is significantly different. English is changing and
adverbs are disappearing. "Your" and the contraction "You're" are
significantly different grammatically but sound the same when pronounced.

~~~
hippo33
The grammatical error is not the contraction. "You're thinking about work-life
balance all wrong" can be extended to "You are thinking about work-life
balance all wrong" The incorrect part is the "all wrong." It should be "You're
thinking about work-life balance incorrectly."

------
kryptiskt
There's no such thing as an optimal work-life balance, life is an infinite
buffet and you can only nibble at a few dishes. No matter what you do, you're
going to miss out on nearly everything.

Somewhat less pretentiously, I wonder about contrasting life and work, because
it's not unusual to have a pretty active social life at work. The absence of
any social stimulation there would at least make me unhappy.

------
ChuckMcM
Would it not be simpler to say 'some things you do adds energy to you' and
'some things you do drains energy from you' avoid deficit energy days if
possible.

I can spend a couple of hours programming and be hugely energized by it, and I
can spend a couple of hours watching TV and be drained by it. The reverse is
also true.

Be aware of your energy flow and balance it.

------
benthumb
I'm glad someone has addressed this work-life balance canard. I would go
further: getting hard things accomplished tends to take over one's life, and I
don't think there's any way around it. Unless, of course, you live in
Norway...

I also think humans on an individual basis are inherently unbalanced; that's
why we're social creatures.

------
aphidbyteinc
Balance is very important for entrepreneurs. However, I do believe in going
the extra mile to make your company succeed. Which means not partying on a
weekend when you could be doing something for your business. Me personally, I
party as a reward for my hard work.

------
bstewartnyc
# there is no 'balance', only this algorithm running my life while(True):
task=getNextTask() if priority(task)>priority(current_task):
backBurner.add(current_task) current_task=task startWorkOn(current_task) else:
backBurner.add(task)

------
paulsutter
I like to work hard for a few years, then take a year off. I'm doing that
right now. I find it a lot more effective than trying to jam too many
different activities into an ordinary week.

------
photorized
My personal observation is that when I got married, I became more productive,
more selective, and also more effective at solving things quickly. Something
about valuing your time.

------
Tichy
I don't think you can even see what you are missing if you never go on
vacation or try other things.

------
anthonyb
"Let me dive into something concrete."

That's a seriously mixed metaphor...

------
jbkring
Refreshing perspective. I agree wholeheartedly.

