
Give yourself permission to have work-life balance - matthewwarren
http://www.hanselman.com/blog/GiveYourselfPermissionToHaveWorklifeBalance.aspx
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maxaf
I've had only one job in which work/life balance was non-existent. "Crushin'
it" was part of company culture, and I, as an early employee, was a poster boy
for it. It never occurred to me that I could have (and should have!) taken a
step back & allowed myself to live like an actual human being. My work and my
family life suffered, while I continued to wonder why I wasn't doing as well
as I could be.

Turns out that the main barrier was me. After leaving the land of "crushin'
it" I've gone on to be part of other companies where it became clear that I
have the power to push back against unreasonable demands without harming my
performance at work or my prospects at the company.

All it took was a quick experiment: I went home at 5pm one day, then the next
day, and before I knew it I was no longer logging into work after dinner.
Weekends miraculously cleared up, too! Vacations became about having fun, and
I no longer even remember what a corporate-issued LTE modem looks like.

This lead to all sorts of other realizations, such as: I thought I was in firm
control of many aspects of my life, whereas in fact I hadn't exercised as much
control as I could have. I've gained lots of happiness points by running small
experiments like the above.

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fastbeef
Somewhere between job #2 and job #3 I discovered that the reward for work
isn't O(n) as I've been taught my whole life - it's O(log n). This was a total
game changer for me, because I relaxed, lowered my expectations, was happier,
and - ultimately - did better work.

~~~
pjungwir
This is a fun way to think about it. A more "economics" way is that you value
your time more when you have less of it, so you might sell the 9th hour at a
higher price than you'd sell the first. And that's why workers in many
industries require overtime.

As a freelancer, something I think about is this: I have 3 ways to raise my
income: work more hours, bill more per hour, and hire people to work under me.
Option 1 is pretty limited. Option 3 is attractive, but brings a lot of
headaches, and if I have employees I have to sell enough projects to keep them
all busy. The most appealing personally is to be the best I can at what I do,
to justify a higher rate.

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joesmo
I think one of the biggest reasons people don't give themselves a work-life
balance is peer pressure and the desire to please others first. People
pleasing, despite its name, is a problem with the person that's doing the
manipulation. It's also a problem for the person that's doing it because
they're doing something that's not in their own interest, simply to please
others and fit in.

A lot of this is justified by startups as necessary and most young people are
just simply too stupid to know any different. When I see a 25 year old who
isn't a founder working 12 hour days constantly despite getting no benefits
and actually causing a ton of harm, I can only attribute that to ignorance and
stupidity. Usually, he has been fooled by the people running the company into
thinking that his work is necessary at the moment and that it will be repaid.
It's neither necessary at the moment, nor will he ever be repaid a single
penny. In fact, when he stops working so hard, he'll be fired.

As Radiohead put it in the song "Just": "You do it to yourself, you do And
that's what really hurts".

~~~
altotrees
>I think one of the biggest reasons people don't give themselves a work-life
balance is peer pressure and the desire to please others first.

This is the root of the issue in my opinion. When I fail to achieve work/life
balance, it is usually due to one of two things:

1\. To please my direct co-workers, manager, CEO. 2\. To please everyone else
— that is, make enough to live the way I envision other people expect me to be
living, and doing the things I imagine them expecting me to be doing.

Living for even the imagined expectations of others can take a heavy toll. It
took time to unlearn that way of thinking.

------
henrik_w
"Saying no is so powerful and it isn't something you can easily learn and just
stick with - you have to remind yourself it's OK to to say no every day"

I am almost finished reading "The Power of a Positive No" by William Ury [1],
and it's very good. The main idea is that because you say yes to something
(e.g. having a life), it's easier to say no to something else (e.g. extra
work). Well worth the read!

[1] [http://www.amazon.com/Power-Positive-No-Relationship-
Still/d...](http://www.amazon.com/Power-Positive-No-Relationship-
Still/dp/0553384260/)

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eganist
Speaking as an engineering manager and _not_ as a founder:

It took me a little while to realize that sometimes, the value of life trumps
the value of money. It also took me a little while to realize that having the
ability to say "no" to unreasonable expectations is worth its weight in gold.

There's also the argument that work/life balance promotes higher quality work,
a position with which I'm inclined to agree especially where quantity of work
output means relatively little compared to quality. As an example, some of the
best work I've done came because I _chose_ to dig deeper rather than having
done so out of a feeling of obligation. These decisions to dig deeper into a
problem came because my brain was still in one piece and both curious and
intrinsically motivated to delve into a problem. In other words, I volunteered
my own time to dig deeper into a problem while my brain was fresh, coming up
with effective solutions of which I could be proud. There was a sense of
accomplishment that came with it rather than a sense of dread, and for all
other standard work expectations, I continued to deliver as usual during the
day while enjoying my life afterwards.

This proved particularly helpful given what I currently do (less engineering
work than before). I've been able to pursue secure engineering challenges more
as a hobby and a passion than as an obligation, keeping my skillset fresh by
choice.

The good companies realize all of these points. There's a common realization
among all of them that giving employees positive incentives (yet still just
the option) to go above and beyond while still rewarding everyone who produces
as expected yields more productive, generally happier people. Granted, this
doesn't work for everyone. The contractor mentality is notable for exploiting
this approach for minimum labor per dollar spent, but elsewhere, I haven't
seen proper work/life balance hinder productivity compared to what we see out
of a lot of companies in the bay.

As for founders... if you're a founder with buckets of equity, it's probably
in your favor to make a mid-term work/life balance trade, but I can't speak to
that. @joesmo's comment on culture and people-pleasing might speak better to
that and to why most other firms expect harder working hours.

 _Edit: see @AdamMaras ' comment below regarding exactly the kind of little
culture seeds smaller companies can use as they grow to instill balance.
"life/work balance" is a subtle but valuable way to emphasize life first._

~~~
AdamMaras
These are all good reasons why we call it life/work balance at Stack Overflow.

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Disruptive_Dave
Took me until a few years ago (36yo right now) to really come to terms with
this, and since then the seedling has grown tremendously. That martyr syndrome
ran rampant in my early work years, and it implanted bad habits from the
beginning.

I still haven't been able to fully decouple myself from carrying work around
as if it is my actual reason for being, but the unburdening has commenced. And
anyone trying to figure it out, just spend some time thinking about the title
of this thread. It's not so much about reconfiguring my schedule or "hacking"
my time management (tho that helps), it's was the mindset changed that led to
the "oh, shit" moment(s).

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manibatra
Media extolling people who pour themselves into work does not help. Those are
the people many of us ( at least I ) look up to.

I am working on my second start up. On top of that I freelance for income.
There is little time for "life". The problematic part ( or maybe not ) is that
I am loving it. It has definitely affected my relationships, I have lost a few
friends but I really enjoy work. Maybe it will have a negative effect as I
grow older. Maybe I will burnout soon. Time will tell.

~~~
griffordson
In my experience, the amount of control you have over the time you spend
working is a critical factor. If you can easily adjust your work hours down,
at any time, then it isn't as bad. So try to avoid making hard commitments
that require lots of work and you'll probably have fewer issues.

~~~
manibatra
Interesting you say that. I am able to set my own hours most of the time ( I
work a lot but by choice). Maybe that is why I have avoided being burned out
and work is still fun.

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arca_vorago
The main issue is people have had it ingrained into them from parents and
grandparents who knew what it was like to work at a company for 20-35 years
and retire, and thats not at all how things work these days.

At a base level, employment is a contract for services. They pay me X for me
to do job Y. The real problem is that employers have almost all of the
leverage and power in this forming of the contract, so they generally start
off paying you less than the value you produce because thats how business
works!

What people need to learn to do is how to negotiate from a strong position and
how to understand and edit contracts. Never, ever be afraid to say, "Im going
to read this, make changes, and bring it back to you." Just because someone
hands you a peice of paper and a pen and says sign this doesnt mean you
should!

Also, perks only go so far.

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tekromancr
Serious question. What does work-life balance look like. I genuinely have a
difficult time finding things to occupy my time when I don't work. I am not
really even fully sure where to start...

~~~
emodendroket
I mean, are you really saying you can't think of a single thing you'd like to
do besides more work? Even if you just want to veg out on the couch and watch
TV having some sort of downtime is important.

~~~
tekromancr
Well that's the thing. For a really long time I completely poured myself into
programming. Like, my entire teenage years and most of my 20s. Now I am about
to turn 27 and I don't really have many friends. I have never been in a
serious romantic relationship. I have never left the country. I haven't really
made much of an attempt at making money, so I am pretty much living check-to-
check at a startup that I don't really care about anymore, but can't leave
because I can't stand disappointing anyone. So I am kinda stuck. At this
point, I think the only thing I am good at is just losing hours in code.

~~~
vvanders
Work-Life balance can mean working on programming projects outside of work, to
a lesser degree.

There's a big different between having something you can riff on for a while
and then drop when it doesn't hold your interest and something you _have_ to
ship regardless of what's involved.

~~~
emodendroket
Yes, but I don't think it's the most valuable thing that someone in his
position could do with his spare time to work on side projects.

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moron4hire
I start and end every day with snuggles with my 3-month old.

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NTripleOne
You mean a life-work balance? Because life should always come first.

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chris_hawk
Oooooh. I'm pretty stoked that Scott quoted me!

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dghughes
The way I see it is so-called "work-life balance" assumes 50% work and 50%
life i.e. the balance which I'd say is not desirable to most people. Working
12 hours and then 12 hours for your life which would include eight hours sleep
leaving four hours for your life.

Of a 24-hour day you (supposedly) sleep eight hours, another eight is your
awake non-work life, eight hours is company work so work should be at most 33%
of your day and 66% your life.

You're the fulcrum move that balance!

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master_yoda_1
Work life balance is a propaganda spread by people in tech only. You should
look how hard the doctors and nurses are working in emergency room and getting
paid so much less.

These all talks from tech people sound really idiotic. So just shut up and go
back to work.

~~~
imgabe
1\. Doctors are paid very well. Much better than most tech jobs. Starting
salaries after all residences/fellowships are completed and board exams passed
are $250k+. Doctors can also moonlight even while in residency (after passing
board exams I think) for, from what I've heard, about $1k per 12 hour shift
(~$83/hr).

2\. Nurses are also pretty well paid and eligible for overtime in most cases.

That said, there's a big push lately to limit the number of hours doctors are
allowed to work in a row. It was common to pull 36 hour shifts in some cases
(with naps/downtime but still in the hospital and on call), but now people are
starting to realize that having sleep-deprived people administering medical
treatment is not such a good idea.

~~~
abawany
Re. 2 I learnt to my great astonishment yesterday that that is not necessarily
true: ER nurses in Austin are paid $25/hr since the town pretty much has two
large conglomerates that manage all healthcare [1]. It really makes one wonder
why healthcare is so expensive in this country. My only explanation for the
motivation of doctors/nurses to overwork/burn-out is that compared to a
typical tech job, their work saves human lives.

[1]
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/4emntv/question_for...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/4emntv/question_for_er_nurses_from_one_who_is_moving/)

~~~
imgabe
There's a number of different certifications a nurse might have, so it's tough
to say without knowing if that's for RN/LPN/CNA. $25/hour is ~$50k per year
before overtime. But that does sound low compared to some other salaries I've
seen in other areas. I think around here it's more like $40+/hr for an RN.

