[HN Gopher] On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons le...
___________________________________________________________________
On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from
others
Author : lawrjone
Score : 140 points
Date : 2021-07-04 14:45 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.lawrencejones.dev)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.lawrencejones.dev)
| [deleted]
| jokoon wrote:
| I'm chronically unemployed at 34, and I really feel incapable of
| competing in the labor market when I see how people consent to
| overwork.
|
| I don't have anything against workers, but I really resent that
| some people believe I deserve to die alone and poor while they
| consent to overtime without taking a step back.
|
| Some people want to participate in society not for money, status
| or because they like to work, but just to exist for 5min.
|
| Competition becomes an horrible side of society.
| indogooner wrote:
| I guess a lot of this should be driven by leadership team. On the
| contrary I see leaders themselves staying late in office,
| scheduling late evening status update meetings. And the
| developers also contribute to this. They stay up late, send
| status updates past midnight and then in the next company all-
| hands they are lionized for this. No one even bothers to
| retrospect what inefficiencies are causing everyone to work crazy
| hours. And that how can someone remain productive with this.
| joehandzik wrote:
| This is great, and covers aspects of work
| balance/integration/whatever-you-want-to-call-it that I haven't
| seen talked about as much.
|
| A big problem I see on an ongoing basis is the confusion between
| time spent working and work produced. After ~10 years in this
| field, I feel like a pitcher who loses their fastball sometimes,
| and have learned when to sense that and pull myself from the game
| (stop working). I feel for people who don't see or sense their
| performance deteriorating in a way that just calling it a day and
| coming back with fresh eyes could improve.
|
| Should you just plow through sometimes? Definitely. But if I find
| myself needing to consider that for more than about a week a
| quarter, someone probably planned poorly or is taking advantage
| of the fact that I care about completing my work.
|
| There are other comments about work vs personal/skills
| development - the latter I do not consider work, personally, even
| if they're inter-related at times. I have actually noticed a big
| difference between my previous employer and current employer. I
| had enough slack at my previous employer to pack in quite a bit
| of high value personal/skills development after I finished my
| work and on weekends. Ironically, its this slack that gave me the
| time to learn skills that I was eventually hired for at my
| current employer - however, I have none of this mental bandwidth
| or time at my current employer. I can't figure out how much of
| that is pandemic-related, new child related (had a baby while at
| the new employer), or new employer culture/balance issues with
| how I work best. I guess it's just hard to track the true cause
| when the world goes into a blender while one's life changes
| significantly too.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Author of the post here: what you say about pulling yourself
| away and recovering really resonates with me.
|
| What I'm working on is absolutely a factor in my interest, and
| how much energy I'm able to give- equally, how much the work
| pulls me in.
|
| But I've noticed I increasingly work in ebbs and flows,
| probably as I become more aware of my energy levels and how I
| want to commit my time. It doesn't help that my calendar has
| become terrible for engineering work over the last year, and I
| actively schedule weeks of "get properly involved in the
| building" alongside all the other responsibilities my role
| entails.
|
| Personally, I find the flexibility to distance yourself like
| this is really important. It helps me recover my energy and
| make sure I'm properly there when it matters.
|
| > new child related
|
| On this note, I think you might have found your smoking gun.
| This is hard enough by itself, but alongside all those others
| changes- I hope you're holding up!
| joehandzik wrote:
| I consider that ebb and flow a totally acceptable part of
| human reality - as long as you find yourself not self-
| destructively procrastinating in the lower energy times, it
| seems sustainable to go at 75% (making up a number) sometimes
| and 125% later when the time or energy is available to you! I
| like feeling like it's my choice to go at 125% though -
| personal agency has always been key to keeping myself
| invested too.
|
| The behavior modeling you describe in your post most
| resonated with me at the present moment - as I become more of
| a senior employee, I feel pressure to perform from
| management, but also pressure to model sustainable behaviors.
| The Netflix culture book covered some of this with respect to
| time off. Top-down is important for culture setting.
|
| I am holding up well, thank you! But ~6 months at the new
| company, I wasn't holding up great and needed to seriously
| rethink my time management (hence a lot of this being fresh
| in my brain). I'm fortunate to have been able to fix this to
| the best of my ability before my son arrived - but at a
| company with a pride for startupiness (read: at times a total
| lack of planning), the balance I have needs pretty regular
| maintenance.
| lordnacho wrote:
| Kinda depends on what you mean by work. Early on in my career I'd
| read books on the weekend, and after work. Relevant books like
| "Reminiscences of a Stock Operator" and that genre. I wouldn't
| say it was work, but it definitely helped with work. Likewise,
| coding things on the weekend helped develop some skills that were
| useful for my work as well.
|
| The thing is, it didn't feel like a struggle, in the way that
| writing an assigned essay might feel. It was just a number of
| work related things that added a bit of context to what I was
| doing, giving my work meaning. It also provides the links to all
| the adjacent topics in a field, giving you the keywords/hooks for
| further learning.
|
| There are of course jobs where you literally are working, doing
| the same things that you do during the week, in the same office.
| That kid of thing leads to burnout, and if you're thinking about
| that perhaps gather some more experiences before you decide.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Worked as hard as I could, for 20+ years, until I couldn't
| anymore. No attempt at balance at all; life was arranged to make
| the job easier; I was doing just what I wanted and that was
| great. then not so great but nothing lasts forever. People
| honestly thought I didn't sleep most of that time.
|
| Now I've had 15 years and running of family life and being the
| home maker and that's great too. I wish I had some of the
| physical fortitude I spent earlier but I'm sure that'd be the
| case regardless.
|
| Have I achieved "work-life balance"? I didn't get rich when I was
| working, but I got to do things that made me happy and I can
| argue made the world better, in some small way. Since then,
| pretty much the same.
| dmje wrote:
| Anything that suggests that work is the beginning, middle and end
| of life is utterly and completely misguided in my humble opinion.
|
| As the great sages tend to say, you're not going to be on your
| deathbed wishing you'd signed that extra deal, you're going to be
| lying there thinking of your family, your love, the time with
| your kids.
|
| Now that's not to say there aren't moments in your life when
| you're up for working hard. And your 20's can be a good time for
| this: you're full of energy, you're free of encumbrances like
| kids and mortgages, and it can feel pretty great to bust your
| balls doing something you enjoy.
|
| But let's not forget that it also feels great busting your balls
| actually enjoying yourself properly, too. When you're in your
| 20's that can be sex or travelling or socialising or a million
| other things.
|
| As a whole though, the ethic of "gotta work hard all through your
| life" troubles me. There aren't enough spaces for creativity,
| relaxation, debate, books, or simply doing nothing.
|
| It's these things that make a life worth living, not (just) some
| meteoric rise through a career.
| 9530jh9054ven wrote:
| I think that only really applies if you're 'normal' though.
|
| I'm what you might call an incel, though it's not so much the
| lack of sex as it is the lack of being able to bond
| emotionally. So unlike most people I've never been able to make
| friends beyond superficial politeness. Combined with the fact
| that 'family' has no happy connections for me; growing up time
| 'love' meant getting hit across the face because that's how you
| showed that you loved family. Wasn't until it was too late that
| I realized that might not be the case.
|
| So friends has no meaning to me, and family has no happy
| meaning. I'm not good with hobbies; they just don't seem
| interesting to me.
|
| So I'd say it's not misguided. Perhaps not applicable to you
| but to some of us, it's all we will ever have.
| tveyben wrote:
| I think my brain is working hardest either in the shower or in
| the early morning just before waking up.
|
| Why? Because my best ideas for work(!) typically appears at these
| 'non-working' times.
|
| How to balance this - I don't know... The ideas 'just' arrive at
| that time, likely because the mind is relaxed and
| 'subconsciously' is working harder than while 'actively' working.
|
| The ideas are then refined and implemented during normal business
| hours.
|
| PS.: There's a lot of positive talk about the so-called 'four day
| work week'.
|
| I have tried burning the midnight oil, it's only feasible for
| short periods of time, so I do not believe that hard work ===
| many hours!
| nicbou wrote:
| Have you tried extending those shower thinking sessions a bit?
|
| Walking or riding a bicycle for a while without headphones
| usually do the trick for me. I also like to sit on my balcony
| and just... think. Things that need thinking about naturally
| float to the top, as long as your mind isn't stimulated 100% of
| the time.
|
| It's easier said than done in a world full of feeds and
| notifications, and although I struggle to maintain this habit,
| I find it really rewarding.
| tisthetruth wrote:
| "He got nothing out of his wealth for himself" writes the
| sociologist Max Weber, "except the irrational sense of having
| done his job well" :)
| hamstercat wrote:
| Balance is extremely important, and can usually only be
| appreciated with hindsight which makes it hard to judge when
| you're in the moment.
|
| I'm in the same boat as the author as far as working too hard,
| but I've never done it on my salaried work, only on my own
| projects. Most of them went nowhere and a few gave something
| useful, but in the end I learned a lot. And it's easy to just
| drop whatever you're working on when it's just for you.
|
| I can't say if it's out of principe or out of spite, but I
| actually despise the very idea of doing unpaid work for my
| employer. If they want more work they can pay me for it, or more
| likely hire someone else to soak the extra efforts. I work as
| hard as anyone else during my work hours, and I stay up to date
| so what more do they want of me. I've actually had managers, who
| were good managers otherwise, subtly told me I was not doing much
| (unpaid) overtime compared to other people during my annual
| review. Funny how things work out, I found another job right
| after that paid me 50% more and didn't care about my after hours
| work.
| maccard wrote:
| I found myself nodding along to almost everything in this
| article; Two comments:
|
| > The problems pulled me in, and I'd get so involved I'd be
| unable to sleep until I solved a problem, sometimes escaping into
| my dreams if I hadn't found a natural pause point.
|
| I can relate to this, so much. It's an incrediblely productive
| time period when my brain is like this at 7/8/9pm, but inevitably
| I lose out on a day or two following it. It sounds cliched, but
| exercise + mindfulness are a hard requirement for me, and not
| doing either of those inevitably has my brain racing on whatever
| I'm working on at 4am.
|
| > Grey found me at exactly 5pm and forced me to logoff.
|
| Nobody ever told me to work late, but nobody ever told me to
| _stop_ working. If my boss/bosses boss/<etc> came up to me a once
| or twice and told me "hey, you shouldn't work past <x> PM",
| particularly in my first few days, _and most importantly_ they
| left too, that would have set an excellent example on how to have
| a work-life balance.
| piva00 wrote:
| > Nobody ever told me to work late, but nobody ever told me to
| _stop_ working. If my boss/bosses boss/<etc> came up to me a
| once or twice and told me "hey, you shouldn't work past <x>
| PM", particularly in my first few days, _and most importantly_
| they left too, that would have set an excellent example on how
| to have a work-life balance.
|
| When I moved to Sweden my first manager did exactly that. I was
| on my 3rd day and working until 18:00, he came to me and asked
| why I was still at my desk, I should've left an hour ago. He
| always enjoyed his time off and allowed us to be flexible
| whenever needed, it was an amazing example to set right at the
| beginning.
| psalminen wrote:
| I had boss who pretty frequently would go around tellong
| everyone to leave and would make sure he's the last one there.
| I always really respected his position of forcing work/life
| balance.
| lawrjone wrote:
| Yep, this type of gesture speaks volumes. It's saying the
| company is expecting you to value your personal life and health
| alongside your work, and demonstrating that it's ok to work
| however works best for you.
|
| As many others have commented, it's not useful or desirable to
| force people to distance themselves from work they're energised
| by and want to immerse themselves in. But it's important that
| the whole company is onboard with that being a choice, not an
| expectation.
| baby wrote:
| One of my previous coworkers who was senior said one day "I try
| to leave around 5pm. It sends a message that people don't need
| to stick around."
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Nobody ever told me to work late, but nobody ever told me to
| _stop_ working. If my boss/bosses boss/<etc> came up to me a
| once or twice and told me "hey, you shouldn't work past <x>
| PM", particularly in my first few days, _and most importantly_
| they left too, that would have set an excellent example on how
| to have a work-life balance.
|
| I've had managers try to nanny my working hours like this. It
| wasn't fun. I know they thought it was a good gesture, but if I
| have a spare hour or two in the evening and a good idea I want
| to try out before bed, I don't want anyone telling me I can't
| work right now.
|
| In fact, I don't want my manager policing my working hours at
| all, in either direction.
|
| What works better is for managers to gather honest feedback
| about how long tasks took and how many excess hours were being
| worked during their 1:1s with employees. It's not hard to ask
| employees how their workload looks and adjust schedules or
| resource allocation to compensate.
| lawrjone wrote:
| > I've had managers try to nanny my working hours like this.
| It wasn't fun. I know they thought it was a good gesture, but
| if I have a spare hour or two in the evening and a good idea
| I want to try out before bed, I don't want anyone telling me
| I can't work right now.
|
| Author here: I didn't make this clear, but Grey only forced
| me to go home once.
|
| The important message was that I could, if I wanted, claim my
| own time back. I was free to clock off early, help a friend
| move out, whatever it might be that my life asked of me.
|
| When I wanted to work hard I did, and was never forced not
| to. But provided I wasn't harming my team, I was free to pick
| and choose when I did that and disconnect past the hours I
| was strictly required to be available.
|
| Definitely not nannying, in fact I think this is the most
| adult way you can treat your employees.
| maccard wrote:
| I thought I was clear that in my comment it particularly
| applies at the beginning of a job, and _most importantly_
| they're not working after.
| [deleted]
| aerosmile wrote:
| A point that's often missed is: some people don't perceive
| certain types of work as work. I know it's a cliche, and if this
| sentence doesn't immediate resonate with you, you're probably not
| a part of that group I am referring to - and that's ok. Don't
| feel like you somehow are not as cool or special, quite to the
| contrary - you're probably more balanced and overall healthier.
|
| But that doesn't change the fact that the group I am referring to
| does exist. In the first 20 years of my life, I couldn't really
| be motivated to do much. And then my college roommate invited me
| to start a company together. On day 3 or 4 into this venture, I
| remember being so excited by what was happening that I literally
| couldn't sleep and instead stayed up all night. Once the sun went
| up in the morning, I was looking at the fruits of my labor and
| had the type of endorphins flowing through my body that I had
| never experienced before.
|
| I was genuinely shocked that I loved this project as much as I
| did. I had never thought about starting a business before, had
| never stayed up before for work, and never looked up to people
| who seemed to work really hard. In hindsight, the only sign of
| some type of an inclination towards entrepreneurship that I had
| exhibited before was a strange admiration for the characters in
| Douglas Coupland's Microserfs. We read that book as a part of an
| English class, and most of the students were highly critical of
| the lifestyle described in the book. I too could tell that those
| characters were highly out of balance, but I couldn't shake off
| the feeling that I would have loved to be a part of that group.
|
| 20 years later, I am looking back on a successful entrepreneurial
| career, and can more accurately trace back that fascination with
| entrepreneurship to a personal trauma that I experienced as a
| child. As it turns out, that trauma caused a lot of discomfort in
| my development years, which led to this unhealthy obsession for
| entrepreneurship, which in turn gave me passion and motivation to
| push myself to the limit, and which somehow resulted in success
| that made the whole thing somehow... worthwhile. As I grew older,
| I did thankfully find a way to diversify my life and interests,
| and today you would describe me as fairly average in my work-life
| balance.
|
| Just wanted to share this because PG's "How to work hard" essay
| caused a lot of discussion, and I think many people didn't take
| away from it one important bit: if that essay didn't resonate
| with you, it's ok - your life didn't include the same type of
| influences that shaped PG into becoming the person that he
| became. That might be a good or a bad thing, but it's a thing and
| let's all just realize that each one of us has to find a recipe
| that's authentic to us and fits the exact right formula of our
| individual lives.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I think you make some really good points here. I had a few
| experiences like the one you describe: I recall a small side
| project where I would wake, work for ~14hrs until I slept, then
| rinse and repeat for a few days until I got the work done.
|
| It wasn't deliberate, I just really loved what I was doing.
|
| > obsession for entrepreneurship, which in turn gave me passion
| and motivation to push myself to the limit, and which somehow
| resulted in success that made the whole thing somehow...
| worthwhile
|
| If you haven't watched it, there was a Diary of a CEO episode
| the other week with Tom Blomfield. He mentions how he felt
| driven by a need for success and recognition, and how weird it
| was that after Monzo this seems to have disappeared.
|
| I think those motivations are quite common, and expect you'd
| recognise a lot in that.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gP2_QOCrVO4
| aerosmile wrote:
| Fascinating podcast!
| luffapi wrote:
| The thing is, if you're an entrepreneur you're also likely a
| manager and working more than 40 hours a week is _bad
| management_. You may enjoy it, but no one wants a boss who's
| always working. It also suggests you're not delegating or
| building scalable systems.
| cherryturnover wrote:
| I learned that working hard isn't the ticket to wealth. It's
| knowing people and putting on a good show that you work hard. I
| used to work hard and never really got "respect" for it (like
| promotions or whatnot). While I got shit done, it didn't give me
| what I wanted. Eventually I started coasting and chatting with
| coworkers more. I didn't sweat making mistakes either. It was
| literally the moment in Office Space where the guy just "doesn't
| care anymore." Like I really had no fear of losing my job,
| reprisal, or anything. Obviously being a single guy I could
| afford that, but it was frighteningly one of the most eye opening
| experiences of my life. I don't have some philosophical belief on
| life that I think others should follow, but playing pretend and
| winging things with confidence has done me far greater wonders to
| my career than being blatantly honest about everything and
| working very hard.
| nicbou wrote:
| A less cynical approach is that you are paid based on the value
| you create (or the perception thereof).
|
| Besides, I think people just want to put in their hours and get
| paid. As long as you don't make their 40 hours a week more
| unpleasant, you'll do just fine.
|
| Otherwise, I completely agree with your comment.
| cweill wrote:
| Exactly. One of the biggest things I keep in mind these days is
| that most people, myself included, are bad at knowing what's
| most important to get done. It may seems that more code is more
| work is good, but the banter with colleagues improves
| communication and cohesion which can have a much higher impact
| than writing that additional code. If a higher up tells you to
| do something, you can be pretty sure it's important (at least
| to your report chain), otherwise it can be tough to identify
| relative importance of work activities.
| cherryturnover wrote:
| Even letting a higher up down is expected. You have to feel
| it out though if the certain thing is one of those. But if
| you know it can't be done or you got time, one of the best
| things you can do is abandon ship. It's really absurd and
| kind of a bad thing to lace your coworkers with, but if
| you've got references elsewhere and people within whom you're
| on good relations with, it won't affect your career one bit.
| Not only will you not get the blame for it when things aren't
| done presently, but you don't have to deal with the
| impossible task management gives you! Which in the grand
| scheme, if you can stick it out long enough before they fire
| you and get a job elsewhere, on paper, you never failed! You
| always achieved your goals.
|
| The entire Gervais Principle goes into detail on this and
| it's a fun read. A lot of it sounds like just general office
| politics written in a funny way, but there are some nuggets
| that a lot of people who aren't in the "sociopath" category
| (the authors words), aren't willing to do. It's kind of like
| "the best time to be looking for a new job is now" philosophy
| in work.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I've been lucky to have a number of great role models in my
| career, some of which shaped my opinion on hard work and how to
| find balance. I know the concept of "hard work" has come up
| recently, so figured I'd share my experience and some of the
| advice I received.
|
| This is a polarising topic, and I won't be surprised if a lot of
| people disagree. These opinions are shaped by my experience, my
| context, and I'd be shocked if everyone found them equally
| applicable.
| scandox wrote:
| Why do we believe people when they say they work hard or used to
| work hard?
|
| Most successful people I've observed at close quarters box clever
| and definitely never fully switch off with respect to their
| interests. But work hard as in slogging on something where there
| is no proportional reward? Never seen that.
|
| Of course they all say they work so hard, or that they once in
| the mists of time worked very hard. But what evidence is there?
| Usually none.
| hshkdkkajdjdm wrote:
| I think it makes sense to work 60 to 120 hours a week when you
| work for your dreams.
|
| There is no sense working that many hours to fulfill someone
| else's dream.
| luffapi wrote:
| It makes sense to work ~40 hours a week (or less) on something
| you love, because to work more means degrading your performance
| especially in software development, _especially_ over time. If
| what you are working on is growing that fast to suck up that
| much of your time, hire and learn to delegate. That's also good
| leadership.
| touisteur wrote:
| Hiring and delegating, although necessary, can also be a
| recipe for frustration, transforming something you love into
| something that's not really yours anymore (everyone wants to
| put their stamp on your thing). If you enjoy _doing_ ,
| delegating won't help... Maybe automating is a better fit? Or
| using some SaaS thing with as low friction as possible...
| luffapi wrote:
| If you want no employees, sure. As soon as you hire one,
| your job is leadership.
| DavidVoid wrote:
| > There is a risk of losing your ability to be present and enjoy
| your life when you're not at a desk making 'progress'. Years
| after when you want to rid yourself of this itch, you may find it
| far more difficult to shake than it was to acquire.
|
| Apart from the salary, this is the thing I enjoy the most about
| having a job as opposed to being a University student. When I was
| a student I wasn't all that organized, so I often felt guilty
| about spending time on other activities than studying. But now
| that I have a job, I can get my 8 hours of work done during the
| day and then feel guilt-free about spending my evenings and
| weekends on whatever I want.
| jbothma wrote:
| This touched on a productivity hack I used when I was younger
| which really bites me now:
|
| > Paul advocates cultivating a sense of "discomfort" when you're
| not working. I'm not going to question it's efficacy- this is an
| extremely effective way of compelling yourself into a variety of
| habits- but this advice extends beyond that.
|
| >
|
| > Doing this might help you work more, but it may permanently
| impact your ability to enjoy yourself outside of work. This type
| of mental trick is addictive, and it alters your perception of
| normal, developing a need to work that is disconnected from your
| personal goals.
|
| To finish even my boring or tough studies, I oriented myself in
| such a way that every problem or sub-problem is a puzzle, and
| every solution is an endorphin hit.
|
| Now I'm so addicted to this hit that my work can reliably give
| me, that it's extremely hard to stop work and be in the moment in
| the rest of my life.
| jsdwarf wrote:
| Let me ask you a question: if you had the choice between drinking
| 4 espressos or 1 cappuccino, what would you choose if you wanted
| to sleep well at night?
|
| If you follow PGs logic, it shouldn't matter because 1 cappuccino
| is the same amount of liquid than 4 espressos, but we all know it
| does, right?
|
| Same goes for working on weekends. If all you need to do is
| solving a super-interesting engineering problem then go for it.
| If you are firefighting customer escalations in four failed IT
| projects at the same time, then I'd recommend to take a break.
| egypturnash wrote:
| A friend of mine who fell for the "work hard forever" idea just
| wrote a lengthy post venting about what this did to her: when you
| spend all your free time working/studying, and constantly turn
| down invitations to go do stuff with friends, people stop
| inviting you to things. And you drift out of friend groups
| because of this. Your social skills atrophy, you have no idea how
| to try and make new friends on the rare occasions you pry
| yourself away from work. Work becomes your life. And even if your
| work is something you love to do, that never involves a toxic
| workplace or moral qualms or any other problems, there's still
| emotional needs work will never, ever fulfill.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| There's a difference between working hard with balance and
| working hard to the point of excluding everything else in life.
|
| > when you spend all your free time working/studying, and
| constantly turn down invitations to go do stuff with friends,
| people stop inviting you to things.
|
| If we consider a strict 40-hour maximum workweek on one end of
| the spectrum and what your friend is describing (100-120 hour
| workweek that leaves zero time for anything else), there's
| still a huge middle ground.
|
| We don't have to choose between working so hard that our entire
| lives fall apart or not ever doing hard work at all. Many of us
| do work longer weeks when necessary, balanced with a healthy
| dose of social activity and things we enjoy. If someone is
| working so much that they lose all of their friends and even
| their social skills, something else is going on. Burning
| yourself out and withdrawing from society isn't what people
| mean when they say "hard work".
|
| Like the author said, balance is important. Your friend's
| struggle wasn't necessarily with hard work, but with a complete
| lack of balance.
| Scarblac wrote:
| I work a strict 40 hour work week, but I hardly know anybody
| else who works that much in my social group in the
| Netherlands. 32 is far more common; I think only about 4 of
| the 80 people in the company I work for work the full 40. I
| only work this much because my wife is jobless.
|
| So it's strange to see it described as the low end of the
| scale. I'd pick 24 hours per week.
| mettamage wrote:
| We Dutchies have one of the best flexible part-time work
| systems available I think. I think that because when I read
| HN or read job postings from other countries, or ask US
| people then I'm noticing that 40 or 40+ hours is much more
| common.
|
| I've noticed that a 4 day work week has outsized mental
| health benefits compared to 5 days. Especially when your
| free day is at Wednesday. There's only so much "damage" a
| consecutive 2 days of work can do. That break on the
| Wednesday is truly a life saver. With that said, I'm
| noticing that if you want to upskill and immerse, then 5
| days is better, but it comes at a cost, which is: not
| having a lot of time for much else since a lot of free time
| is actually spend on recuperation from the work day! That
| cost isn't there when you work 4 days since recuperation
| happens much faster.
|
| Also, if you have remote possibilities at work, you can
| basically start doing what Tim Ferriss wrote in the 4 hour
| work week years ago. It's quite easy to travel and see the
| world in this mode. I guess even with kids? You have 3
| whole days per person to figure stuff out. Well perhaps not
| anymore, but being able to determine your own work location
| is always beneficial (even if all you want to do is go to
| the office).
|
| I think with a 3 day work week something even strangers
| happens. You're now capable of completely living a second
| live that can truly eclipse your work week (e.g. 4 day
| "work" weeks in your other life). I haven't experimented
| with this though.
|
| A lot of fun can be had when you and your significant other
| both work 3/4 days per week :)
|
| It won't make you rich, but the upside is that you get to
| enjoy life now and practice your mind every now and then at
| work ;-)
|
| In that sense, I think Dutch people that truly fine tune
| this with regards to their needs, location expensens and so
| on can live a really rich life.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| As an American, Inhave never had a job (whether hourly or
| salaried) that allowed me to control how many hours (or
| when) I worked beyond part/full time.
| luffapi wrote:
| Working more than 40 hours a week has diminishing (or
| negative) returns. Proper scaling means delegation and
| systems. Grinding away isn't just unproductive, it's a sign
| of a poorly run company.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >Working more than 40 hours a week has diminishing (or
| negative) returns.
|
| This can be so true. In the 24/7 operation it's important
| to recognize how this can occur and do whatever it takes to
| work around it.
|
| OTOH making progress with unique electronics (which is not
| going to last forever anyway) can be done in an ordinary
| company if the ordinary company work can be accomplished in
| 35 hours instead of 40, and the resulting surplus 5 hours
| devoted to the unique electronics.
|
| The equation says you have to actually work harder and more
| effectively for this to be true within the same 40 hours.
|
| Resulting in the perfect example of positive returns.
|
| Then if you put in 20 hours of overtime what have you got
| to show for it?
|
| Well you could get five times as much accomplished per week
| on the unique electronics if you were so motivated.
|
| The equation now says you have to actually work way harder
| and more effectively for this to be true and that 40 hours
| is out the window from the get go.
|
| Only you can decide whether that kind of accelerated
| progress is more positive or not, and compared to what.
|
| Probably your average job you could put in 80 hours and not
| even get nearly twice as much done as 40 hours, so why
| bother?
|
| >Proper scaling means delegation and systems.
|
| Ideally there would be backup gear and backup staff to
| insure 24 hour progress using only 40 hour weeks, but too
| many business operations are nonideal and build upon a
| relatively defective or incomplete foundation.
|
| >Grinding away isn't just unproductive, it's a sign of a
| poorly run company.
|
| I just can't let that bother me sometimes, most companies
| are not going to be that far above average if at all.
|
| Usually little or no progress is on the agenda for being
| deployed.
|
| If you're an innovator almost everything's always going to
| be underleveraged anyway since there's only so much
| resources to begin with.
|
| Plus progress takes time & effort, how much progress would
| you like to make?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.thebalancecareers.com/work-life-balance-and-jugg...
|
| "Imagine life as a game in which you are juggling some five
| balls in the air. You name them - work, family, health, friends
| and spirit - and you're keeping all of these in the air. You
| will soon understand that work is a rubber ball. If you drop
| it, it will bounce back. But the other four balls - family,
| health, friends and spirit - are made of glass. If you drop one
| of these, they will be irrevocably scuffed, marked, nicked,
| damaged or even shattered. They will never be the same. You
| must understand that and strive for balance in your life." ---
| Bryan Dyson, then the President and CEO of Coca-Cola
| Enterprises, delivering a commencement speech at Georgia Tech
| t-writescode wrote:
| I hear more about the American hatred of redemption in that
| speech than the harmability of oneself from overwork.
|
| A person that has truly amended his relationships seems to
| have stronger ones than one who always had 'fine' ones, in
| many cases.
|
| Scrooge may not have become as beloved and loving a person
| without his repentance journey.
| watwut wrote:
| > A person that has truly amended his relationships seems
| to have stronger ones than one who always had 'fine' ones,
| in many cases.
|
| And in many cases, there is no amending anymore, cause
| other people got enough of it and trully moved on.And in
| even more cases, those seemingly strong relationships are
| actually noticeably damaged forever. They seem good because
| they are shelfes hanging together by sheer effort and often
| only out of inertia.
|
| No matter how repetant you are, you cant unhurt other
| people. Repetance is about you, but they in the meantime
| made own decisions.
|
| And if your plan from the start was to be repetant later to
| get back things you decided to sacrifice, it is smart from
| them to not accept it.
| username90 wrote:
| Friends and family bounce back as well. As you get more free
| time you go out and get new friends, or you contact your
| family or old friends again. The only problem is health, you
| don't really get that back easily.
|
| Of course it is harder to get them back than the keep them
| constant, but the same applies to jobs as well, the longer
| you have been without a job the harder it is to get back, but
| it is still not that hard.
| brailsafe wrote:
| Friends and family don't bounce back though, you need to
| repair them, glue them back together etc..
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| Balance, or the lack thereof, is one of the most common pain
| points for the juniors I've worked with.
|
| New college grads can really struggle with finding balance after
| transitioning out of college. The undergrad environment has well
| defined start and end points for each class and everyone gets the
| same or similar workloads, so it's possible to calibrate off of
| peers and consult with advisors or mentors who have gone through
| the same system.
|
| Not so with the working world, where there are always more
| objectives than time and you can't always look to peers to
| calibrate your progress. Ambitious juniors often see this and
| decide to go all-in, working as hard as possible on as much as
| possible for as long as possible.
|
| This leads to burnout in some, though not all, of the people who
| get swept away in it. We read so many articles about burnout and
| recovery from burnout that the topic of hard work evokes strong
| reactions online, as evidenced by this article and the comments
| section. However, as the author points out there are multiple
| sides to this story. Hard work isn't always _bad_ , especially if
| you find yourself enjoying it and learning a lot.
|
| If I'm being totally honest, working hard in my early career paid
| off significantly down the road. Not necessarily in immediate
| dollars paid out by my employers at the time, but the network,
| reputation, and skillset I built along the way are extremely
| valuable to this day. I didn't even hate the hard work or long
| hours at the time, because I made a point to surround myself with
| peers I liked and work I enjoyed. I also made an effort to get
| plenty of exercise and social activity, which can't be neglected.
|
| In my opinion, too many online discussions around burnout are
| centered on the idea that work is inherently _bad_ and something
| that should be minimized as much as possible. An understandable
| reaction from authors who might be burned out, but framing
| everything this way has an unintended side effect: It normalizes
| the idea that work is inherently bad, and that hating your work
| is natural. This mindset tends to trap people in jobs they hate
| at companies they dislike with peers they can 't stand, all
| because they've been led to believe that this is the normal state
| of affairs. They focus too much on trying to tolerate it and
| manage their borderline burnout instead of trying to move their
| career in a direction where they can find a job they like.
|
| In my opinion, we need to stop framing this as a debate about
| whether work is _good_ or work is _bad_ , and start talking more
| about finding a healthy balance and working toward jobs we like.
| No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're hating
| every hour of work and counting down the hours to the end of the
| day every day then you're probably in a below average job.
| lawrjone wrote:
| > New college grads can really struggle with finding balance
| after transitioning out of college > Ambitious juniors often
| see this and decide to go all-in
|
| The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when work
| is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life.
|
| When work is your thing, it only takes one thing to go badly at
| work for it to impact your happiness. Given how much can go
| wrong in a career that is entirely outside your control, no
| matter how good you may be you'll inevitably hit a bump, and
| that can be really painful.
|
| I was lucky in that when I started work, I always had a large
| piece of my life that was outside of it. At first this was
| rowing crew, eventually it turned into cycling and crossfit.
|
| Finding hobbies like this, where your results are almost
| entirely within your own power, I found to be a powerful hedge
| against negative factors at work. It takes a while to figure
| this out, though, and I don't blame anyone for whom this hasn't
| clicked or didn't quite work.
|
| > It normalizes the idea that work is inherently bad, and that
| hating your work is natural
|
| Yes! I have a real problem with this positioning, especially
| because I don't think a solution to not enjoying work is to
| suck it up and do a bit less- I'd love more people to aim for
| work that excites them, and gives them energy.
|
| > No job is going to be fun all of the time, but if you're
| hating every hour of work and counting down the hours to the
| end of the day every day then you're probably in a below
| average job.
|
| Absolutely true. When I first joined my current company, we
| were 35 people in size, now we're ~650. That growth means I've
| worked on so many different things, in several different
| environments.
|
| Sometimes it was great, other times it sucked. Sometimes it
| sucked even while it was great- finishing an infrastructure
| migration into Google Cloud was an awesome achievement, but
| after a 18 month migration, I was fairly exhausted.
|
| If you get the balance right, there's an amount of flexibility
| and distance you and afford with your work that helps you get
| through the difficult parts, and maximise what you get from the
| good.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > The most common issue I see with dedicated juniors is when
| work is, by a large margin, the biggest thing in their life.
|
| Great point. The transition from college to work is a
| shocking experience for many. Modern colleges are excellent
| at keeping people socialized, entertained, and surrounding
| them with activities to do and people to meet.
|
| Then they enter the working world and suddenly it's not so
| easy. They need to make an effort to socialize, meet new
| people, and schedule activities. They need to plan ahead to
| find something to do on the weekend and coordinate with
| others to find people to do it with.
|
| I think many of them gravitate toward work because they think
| it will fill the void left when they left the ultra-social
| college environment. It takes time and effort to re-learn how
| to add activities and friends to your life when they're not
| falling into your lap.
| jlokier wrote:
| I actually found the opposite with regard to college, work.
| and socialising.
|
| At college I had few friends, and spent most of my time
| with computers, studying mostly things outside what I was
| supposed to, and staying up far too late by myself or with
| one or two friends in the computer room. We did good
| things, but I wouldn't say that time was particularly
| sociable.
|
| At my first job after college, that's when I started to get
| a decent social life. The people around me were more
| rounded and better connected than those at college, and I
| was invited to things like house parties and outdoor
| activities much more than at college. Perhaps it helped
| that I could also finally afford the costs of socialising.
|
| This was at a games company - low pay relative to other
| programming work, and a reputation for not exactly rounded
| people (I certainly wasn't one), but many of them were fun
| and interesting people.
|
| Fast forward a decade, and in my 30s I found the best
| social avenues ever were through people who ran regular
| house parties, regular enough that substantial communities
| formed around them. That was even better than in my 20s at
| work.
|
| Fast forward another decade, and even ignoring the
| pandemic, unfortunately it's much harder to meet people in
| a sociable way. I enjoyed technical Meetups prior to the
| pandemic but that doesn't lead to the same kinds of social
| relationships as house parties with hot tubs do.
| f311a wrote:
| American culture is so obsessed with work to unbelievable levels.
| We have one life and we are only getting older. A lot of people
| will regret working on weekends. A lot of money or a good
| position won't make you happy in life without the right balance.
| People need to learn how to enjoy different aspects of life.
| p0d wrote:
| Someone said we should take a break from our work one day a week.
|
| Someone said we should enjoy our wealth and health while we can.
|
| Someone said we shouldn't store all our wealth for a later date
| which we may not see.
|
| I think the availability of technology has confused us. It has
| blurred the lines between work and constant activity. There is a
| big world out there beyond the pixels we should be enjoying
| beyond work.
| naveen99 wrote:
| A lot of these things are easier to reason about when you look at
| the full picture: budget over your lifetime. You want to match
| your gear ratio to your situation.
| codegeek wrote:
| Phrases like "Working Hard" and "Success" are relative. To some
| people, working continuous 40 hour week is working hard. To some,
| they don't look at the time. Pros and cons to both.
|
| As someone who runs a business, I can tell you that I don't
| particularly like working on weekends that much but I do find
| some time (3-4 hours ) to work weekends and catch up on few
| things that are harder for me on weekdays. So I couldn't care
| less how many hours I put in. Sometimes it's an entire Saturday.
| It is my choice and I am doing it because I want to.
|
| So find your balance on whatever works for you. I do however
| think that it is not easy to build a business just working 40
| hour weeks but if you want to be an employee, that can work well.
| hyfgfh wrote:
| Weird question, but did anyone felt the urge to start smoking
| when extremely overworked?
| AH4oFVbPT4f8 wrote:
| i can say that i've felt the urge and i've never smoked before.
| i think the urge is your brain/body trying to tell you that
| you're nearing a breaking point. i try to force myself to go
| for a short walk but its difficult as i know there will still
| be work to do and that if i skip lunch, stay an hour later,
| that i might somehow catch up. problem is that i'm well paid in
| tech and the feeling falling behind weighs on me so i forgo my
| personal well being to try and maintain and do more
| 83457 wrote:
| Start smoking or start smoking again?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| _> When I first started my career, I worked a lot. The problems
| pulled me in, and I'd get so involved I'd be unable to sleep
| until I solved a problem, sometimes escaping into my dreams if I
| hadn't found a natural pause point._
|
| Heck this still happens, and I've been tecching for decades.
|
| I am not a fan of "This one thing applies to everyone"
| statements.
|
| Also, I think that we develop a blind evaluation of success
| factors.
|
| For example, a person, hailed as a genius, always writes his/her
| notes in pencil, on a small pad, they take with them, because
| inspiration may strike at any time.
|
| They use a pencil, because they may need to add corrections.
|
| So everyone assumes that having a pad and a pencil with them at
| all times will give them the same success as said genius.
|
| So...how's that working out? Solved FTL yet?
|
| I have also met people that fit the whole "genius" description
| that are absolutely _rigorous_ about stopping work at certain
| times, getting sleep, and taking long sabbaticals with no tech
| nearby. They won 't even _think_ about stuff, until they are back
| on the clock.
|
| Myself, I ain't no gienieyouss, but I manage to get stuff done. I
| tend to work all the time; mostly because I really like to. I
| don't need to do it, anymore, but I do.
|
| I work with folks that can't work the same way that I do, but
| deliver great results. I've learned not to project my own
| workflows onto others.
| chucktingle wrote:
| Yes, you should work more than others - weekends, holidays,
| evenings, etc. And, no, you should not work more _for others_.
|
| People should spend their time working for themselves. That could
| be building new skills, developing your personal brand, starting
| projects/businesses, etc.
|
| Bonus points for aligning personal benefit projects with your
| career, so you can develop yourself while being a team player and
| an esteemed colleague.
| codegeek wrote:
| It is not that cut and dry. A lot of times even working for
| others, you are building skills for yourself that you could
| utilize in the future. If you are entry level programmer and
| you work weekends to finish a project for your employer while
| learning a lot, it is still something that will help YOU in the
| future. You are just doing it faster than others who are
| working the bare minimum. It really matters how you look at
| things. You can say "why should I work for my employer on
| weekends" or you can say "I am going to do this on the weekend
| to learn faster and get things for my employer as well". It is
| all about how you look at things.
|
| To get ahead in life, the important thing is to constantly
| learn things and early on in your career, you can do that
| working for others as well. Not everyone can start a side
| project or business at 22. Those who can, power to them of
| course.
| chucktingle wrote:
| > If you are entry level programmer and you work weekends to
| finish a project for your employer while learning a lot
|
| I think that's what I meant by aligning personal projects
| with career ones. I have no problem with this type of work.
|
| I just wanted to bring up the point of making sure you're not
| being taken advantage of.
|
| > Not everyone can start a side project or business at 22.
|
| It depends on the project. There is no need for it to be a
| new business or a groundbreaking open source project. You can
| be a junior web developer that learns more about SQL and the
| PostgreSQL internals. Or packages your app with Docker,
| improves CI pipelines and/or runs it in k8s. Those types of
| projects get you hugely successful at your job while raising
| your programmer market value.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > A lot of times even working for others, you are building
| skills for yourself that you could utilize in the future.
|
| Exactly. Building experience, skills, reputation, a network,
| rapport, discipline.
|
| Technically you could build all of these things on your own
| through freelancing, but freelancing is far harder than it
| sounds when people talk about it online. Especially when
| you're a junior without a strong network or reputation.
|
| Working for others isn't inherently bad, especially if you're
| learning a lot in the process. No one should avoid working
| for a company on principle alone, as working for a strong
| company with strong peers is one of the fastest and most
| accessible ways to improve yourself early in your career.
|
| It's not just about the paychecks. Likewise, a lack of
| paychecks doesn't make the project more valuable to your
| career. It's much easier to ramp up on a technology by
| pairing up with an experienced mentor and developer than it
| is by poking around on side projects that never get finished.
| Shipping real products to real customers is a powerful
| forcing function for learning how to deliver results in the
| real world.
| edferda wrote:
| This post really resonates with me, specially this line
|
| > Just keep in mind the cost you're paying, and be extremely
| cautious if you ever find yourself resenting your downtime.
|
| Currently this is happening to me. Downtime is not an enjoyable
| experience anymore, the pandemic has just made it worse since I
| am not even forced to have social interactions. I have feelings
| of guilt whenever I am not working. And just like the author
| mentions, it is a hard habit to break. What is worse, I am in my
| mid twenties; I cannot imagine how hard/impossible it is to break
| that habit when you have been at it for 30 years.
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| > Downtime is not an enjoyable experience anymore
|
| This sounds more like a lack of anything to do than downtime.
|
| If you prefer to be doing something and you hate when you're
| doing nothing, you need to identify more somethings to fill
| your time with. If the only "something" you have in your life
| is work, then you're going to gravitate back to that by
| default.
|
| Flip it around and start identifying the things you enjoy, then
| make an effort to do those things in your non-work time.
|
| Downtime doesn't literally have to mean sitting around, doing
| nothing productive. If you're the kind of person who must be
| active, then you need to become the kind of person who picks
| activities you enjoy and makes a point to do them.
| lawrjone wrote:
| I really empathise with your experience of lockdown- Covid has
| taken a big toll on a lot of people, myself included.
|
| Especially at the start of lockdown, I developed a habit of
| working on a side project at the weekend. I found myself
| slipping into this 'discomfort', and after some reflection
| decided it wasn't helping me. I work hard enough during the
| week, if I'm working outside my normal hours it needs to be
| because I want to, not because I'm pushing myself into it.
|
| Don't worry too much though- lots of things will change up as
| Covid eases, and you'll get a load of opportunities to reset
| yourself. You have an advantage here, in that you built the
| habit in an artificial environment- the return to normality
| should help you shake it, if you want to!
| rorykoehler wrote:
| I built my side project during the weekends since the start
| of the pandemic, shipped it and then decided I didn't have
| the energy to actually run it. Still glad I did it and I
| could pick it up again if I wanted but at this stage between
| work and family, side projects need to take a back seat.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| I can resent the nannying of how much I should work to prevent my
| burnout.
|
| If I'm driven intrinsically by what I'm doing, leave me alone
| already. I'll naturally take breaks as my intrinsic motivation
| waxes and wanes.
|
| If I'm driven extrinsically to do something not fun, and I keep
| pushing on it, I'll burn out rather easily. In this case, tell me
| something is important/useful, but also let up to give me the
| encouragement to take breaks.
|
| All jobs have a mix of both. But my preferred job has more
| intrinsically motivating work. If I'm gate kept from it, its only
| annoying to me...
| nicbou wrote:
| One caveat is that it sets expectations that my be hard to keep
| up with when your motivation wanes. People might see what
| workloads you handle, and think you'll consistently handle the
| same.
|
| Another caveat is that balance is good even if you're enjoying
| work. You still need to eat, exercise, socialise and whatnot.
| maccard wrote:
| You don't work in a bubble, and if you are a more senior person
| on a team the juniors will see what you're doing and follow by
| example. And when you're a junior, it's equally as important to
| be told by your superiors to stop, so that it's crystal clear
| that it's not expected or even encouraged.
| softwaredoug wrote:
| Yes I get that. My annoyance isn't the only factor in play.
|
| Though with remote work, employees with different time zones,
| and pandemic parenting, it's hard to see someone working and
| say "oh they're working too much"
| maccard wrote:
| Yeah agreed. I think the signals in that case are the same
| people doing things like showing they're taking a Thursday
| afternoon off to take their kid to football, or actually
| taking a lunch break. At a certain point we are all adults,
| and have to be trusted but setting a good example has
| always been a sign of a good manager in my experience
| tpoacher wrote:
| Define "work".
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