4 ms·

I have a hard time getting out of my head that those people could be putting more time into furthering their expertise rather than participating in a fashion sh

by bane 7y ago

I have a hard time getting out of my head that those people could be putting more time into furthering their expertise rather than participating in a fashion show. I've had similar experiences with people who pursue very intense fitness activities. You can't train for a marathon while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field for example. Sometimes, on a day off, I see people out in the road training for intense cycling or running activities and I can't help but think to myself "those people must be impossible to work with...why aren't they at work now?" Then I also temper myself to realize that work isn't all of a person's life, and I also spend a great deal of time in non-productive pursuits that aren't help to me at work. Working all the time at all costs isn't healthy. It reminds me to go out and take a walk, or a sculpture class or something.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
acdha 7y ago
> while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field I think this association is believed to be true more than the evidence supports, helped in no small part by companies which profit from employees donating unpaid overtime to the bottom line. You need to put some time in but diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, and creative work often significantly benefits from a balanced lifestyle.
- bane 7y ago
  Personally, I've definitely noticed a large improvement in mood and burnout symptoms by reducing focus on work and moving focus to "useless" hobby pursuits (the further from my day-to-day work the better).
erpellan 7y ago
The same OCD tendencies that are conducive to technical expertise can also be aimed at other aspects of life. I go through occasional boughts of dressing smarter, just for the satisfaction. And the nice shoes. Life's too short for boring shoes.
losteric 7y ago
> You can't train for a marathon while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field for example. Why not? I always try to tackle big challenges at work, switching teams / companies when finding challenges becomes the challenge. Hands-on learning 9-5 is enough to maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth - any more would lead to burn out. Commute jogging (10mi/day) and weights at the gym takes 2h/day. That leaves another 6 hours/day for happy hour, cooking, movies, guitar... excluding all the free time of weekends. What are you doing with all that time?
- icpmacdo 7y ago
  This seems like the ideal balance and what I try to maintain as well. I like how you outlined 'maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth', that's a good way to put it. Generally related to this thread I got more into fashion once finishing school and having money come in. This comedy podcast served as an introduction to the world https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/barstool-sports/failing-upwards https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/barstool-sports/failing-upw...
- bane 7y ago
  Not taking the time to read all of the original comment provides a nice compact example of the point. Perhaps you were too busy lifting? (I'm being sarcastic, please don't take offence!) > What are you doing with all that time? Working! Why are you spending all that time screwing around? You've just told me you have another 10 hours a week you can be working that you use exercising. And another 30 hours a week you spend watching movies and playing guitar! That's like a whole other full-time job you could be putting into work! (for the record I'm being very sarcastic) In responding to dec0dedab0de's original comment, I agreed that I share his superficial feelings -- but I don't think those feeling are right. My point is that while for some people like myself, grinding as hard as possible as long as possible, is both natural and not healthy. For some people, work is not naturally the thing they spend all their time on, and they gravitate to other things as soon as the clock hits 8 hours for the day. For people such as myself, my natural tendencies to overwork can, at times, unfairly extend to other people and I often have to resist the temptation to think that they should be doing the same as me -- and if they aren't that they aren't putting in 100%. These are very unhealthy thought processes and one that I personally have to spend time, effort and discipline to temper. The problem is, for me, work is fun. On the flip-side I've also really worked with people who become incredibly unreliable at work (during normal work hours) while they train for <sporting event> and it's absolutely intolerable. I also say this as somebody who intensely pursued a sporting activity very heavily in my younger years at about 20-25 hours a week. People really minimize the amount of time they spend doing these things. And to dec0dedab0de's original point, I've also worked with people of impossibly limited technical capability who fly up the corporate ladder, often to disaster, because they have good looks and dress well.
scruple 7y ago
I train for ultramarathons on ~4 hours of running a week (on average). Another ~3 hours a week of home gym strength conditioning. I have colleagues who waste more time than that in a single day at work.

by bane 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

acdha 7y ago

> while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field I think this association is believed to be true more than the evidence supports, helped in no small part by companies which profit from employees donating unpaid overtime to the bottom line. You need to put some time in but diminishing returns set in pretty quickly, and creative work often significantly benefits from a balanced lifestyle.

bane 7y ago
Personally, I've definitely noticed a large improvement in mood and burnout symptoms by reducing focus on work and moving focus to "useless" hobby pursuits (the further from my day-to-day work the better).

erpellan 7y ago

The same OCD tendencies that are conducive to technical expertise can also be aimed at other aspects of life. I go through occasional boughts of dressing smarter, just for the satisfaction. And the nice shoes. Life's too short for boring shoes.

losteric 7y ago

> You can't train for a marathon while also putting in the long hours to be at the peak of your technical field for example. Why not? I always try to tackle big challenges at work, switching teams / companies when finding challenges becomes the challenge. Hands-on learning 9-5 is enough to maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth - any more would lead to burn out. Commute jogging (10mi/day) and weights at the gym takes 2h/day. That leaves another 6 hours/day for happy hour, cooking, movies, guitar... excluding all the free time of weekends. What are you doing with all that time?

icpmacdo 7y ago
This seems like the ideal balance and what I try to maintain as well. I like how you outlined 'maintain my personal maximum sustainable career growth', that's a good way to put it. Generally related to this thread I got more into fashion once finishing school and having money come in. This comedy podcast served as an introduction to the world https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/barstool-sports/failing-upwards https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/barstool-sports/failing-upw...
bane 7y ago
Not taking the time to read all of the original comment provides a nice compact example of the point. Perhaps you were too busy lifting? (I'm being sarcastic, please don't take offence!) > What are you doing with all that time? Working! Why are you spending all that time screwing around? You've just told me you have another 10 hours a week you can be working that you use exercising. And another 30 hours a week you spend watching movies and playing guitar! That's like a whole other full-time job you could be putting into work! (for the record I'm being very sarcastic) In responding to dec0dedab0de's original comment, I agreed that I share his superficial feelings -- but I don't think those feeling are right. My point is that while for some people like myself, grinding as hard as possible as long as possible, is both natural and not healthy. For some people, work is not naturally the thing they spend all their time on, and they gravitate to other things as soon as the clock hits 8 hours for the day. For people such as myself, my natural tendencies to overwork can, at times, unfairly extend to other people and I often have to resist the temptation to think that they should be doing the same as me -- and if they aren't that they aren't putting in 100%. These are very unhealthy thought processes and one that I personally have to spend time, effort and discipline to temper. The problem is, for me, work is fun. On the flip-side I've also really worked with people who become incredibly unreliable at work (during normal work hours) while they train for <sporting event> and it's absolutely intolerable. I also say this as somebody who intensely pursued a sporting activity very heavily in my younger years at about 20-25 hours a week. People really minimize the amount of time they spend doing these things. And to dec0dedab0de's original point, I've also worked with people of impossibly limited technical capability who fly up the corporate ladder, often to disaster, because they have good looks and dress well.

scruple 7y ago

I train for ultramarathons on ~4 hours of running a week (on average). Another ~3 hours a week of home gym strength conditioning. I have colleagues who waste more time than that in a single day at work.