But you should consider not trying so hard. I suspect that's not going to be a popular thing for a lot of people. I agree with the advice but I'd re-word it s

But you should consider not trying so hard. I suspect that's not going to be a popular thing for a lot of people. I agree with the advice but I'd re-word it slightly because -- at least for me -- it's not about trying. I'm paid, so I will do the work and it will be solid but I might also destroy myself in the process which kind of defeats the purpose. So I'll go with "Do something that the effort/reward properly matches how much it will drain out of you to complete" I used to be an absolute minimum 50-hours/week guy, often around 60-80, and I did it without much pain, but I also didn't realize what I was missing out on. In my last two positions, I have managed to rarely work more than 40 hours (he says coming off of a 75 hour week last week). I'm accomplishing more on every front. This would not have been possible a few jobs ago. My new responsibilities are no "less important" in the grand scheme of what I think of should be "important in life" and they're far more important/fun for me, personally. I found an employer that operates in a more Agile fashion, with fewer deadline emergencies and I'm mentoring more, writing less code but getting to tackle much more difficult problems (which is why there's less code -- it takes a lot longer when you have to refer to docs/RFCs because there's no answers from the usual corners of the web). I've learned that if at least two out of every five days of the week (averaged over a month, maybe?) I don't get out of bed at least reasonably motivated to work on the thing I'm working on, it's time to evaluate where things are in my life. The last two jobs I've had, "reasonably motivated" has typically been "bolt upright excited" to get up and start work. Don't put everything into your job It's probably not a good idea, especially if you work for someone. They won't put everything in to you, so it's going to be a very uneven relationship. But it is a stupidly important thing in your life (especially if you're supporting a family and working full time). It occupies a large portion of your waking hours so if you're miserable there, the rest of those hours are probably not going to be great, either.