Exactly. And time invested in developing your skills, like any other education is a real investment. It accumulates over time and has real value down the road.

Exactly. And time invested in developing your skills, like any other education is a real investment. It accumulates over time and has real value down the road. A developer who spends a couple hours a day coding for fun is at an advantage over the others, but by the time he's been doing that for 10 years he/she will be on a completely different level to someone who hasn't. As another example, drinking, smoking marijuana, vegging out in front of the TV, insert whatever "vice" you want here that wastes time/energy, might not hurt you much every now and then - but to excess it's going to accumulate into a serious competitive disadvantage overtime. There are hard tradeoffs to be made between work-life balance and career success - and the results of those tradeoffs don't really become very obvious for a long time.