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There is no universal "good work life balance". What works for one person, does not work for another. Even the phrase "work life balance" implies a particular

There is no universal "good work life balance". What works for one person, does not work for another. Even the phrase "work life balance" implies a particular solution, which I think is often damaging to people. It implies that there is work, which when I'm doing it suspends my life. It implies that work is inherently bad for your life goals. Interestingly, I taught English as a foreign language in Japan for 5 years. I had a colleague who was giving a class on different professions and she asked the students (first year high school/grade 10) what profession they wanted. Many girls in the class said, "I want to be a mother". This infuriated my colleague who chastised the students and told them not to "waste their life". Of course, being a full time parent is actually a risky proposition in your career. You have to depend on your spouse for making money. If things don't work out, you don't have a lot of security. From that perspective, I completely understand my colleague's reaction. What I find interesting is the feeling that the choice of "full time parent" is considered an unfit career, regardless of risk. Had the students said they wanted to be musicians, a career with considerably more risk, my colleague would not have reacted in such a hostile way. When put in that light, what is your career to your life? If you spend your time lounging on the beach drinking pina coladas all day, have you "made it"? What if you sit on the street corner drinking cheap whiskey? Are you wasting your life if you achieve nothing in your career? How much of your time on earth should you devote to that work? If you spend your time simply amassing money, have you failed since you did not spend that time curing cancer? Do you need to make up for your complete waste of time making money by donating it at the end of your life? Of course, I'm being facetious. Your choice of what your want to accomplish and how much of your time your want to spend on it is up to you. Some jobs require considerably more effort than others. Look at the life of the average rock star. Many of them do 300 or more concerts a year. That's a work load that would bury the average software developer, but it's generally necessary at the top end of that profession. My advice, for what it's worth, is to try to find a job that is satisfying to you and for which the time spent does not seem to be wasted. Don't partition your life between "things I want to do" and "things I have to do". Yes, there will always be things that you have to do that you may not want to. But instead of trying to avoid the things you have to do, try to find things that you want to do and make them things you have to do.

quickthrower2 7y ago
Are you suggesting there are no rockstar developers?
- mikekchar 7y ago
  I suppose the simple answer to your question is that, you don't find musicians posting on fora asking about unhealthy work-life balance -- despite the fact that the average working musician's schedule is insane. We get these questions as programmers because there is a schism between the "rockstar programmer" who is obsessed with programming and the 9-5 joe who is looking to make a 6 figure salary in an office. They irony is that the 9-5 is much more likely to be promoted than the rockstar simply because they are more likely to value people skills over technical skills. But it's funny, because I mentored a person once who was really upset about the fact that he couldn't compete against the top technical people on the team. He didn't want to put the hours in to get to the next level and somehow felt that it shouldn't be necessary. I kept trying to tell him that he should focus on things that he enjoyed rather than trying to be the best at something he didn't want to do. Nobody needs a team completely full of obsessed programmers. There are lots of other ways to provide value to the team. However it was absolutely useless. Anyway, it's a thing you've got to work out in your own head and according to your own values. But you can't be upset when you don't get the rewards for the path that you didn't choose.
  - quickthrower2 7y ago
    Nice answer. The musicians might complain in person than on the web. But also if you are a musician with a hecktic schedule I guess you are probably doing well and there is hope to be famous and successful if not already. A lot of programming jobs just pay the bills and hit a glass ceiling. Once that happens who wants to do 60h if you can do 40h instead? I also think that programming is specifically mind taxing or can be and I can do 60h of work a week but not 60h of programming.

quickthrower2 7y ago

Are you suggesting there are no rockstar developers?

mikekchar 7y ago
I suppose the simple answer to your question is that, you don't find musicians posting on fora asking about unhealthy work-life balance -- despite the fact that the average working musician's schedule is insane. We get these questions as programmers because there is a schism between the "rockstar programmer" who is obsessed with programming and the 9-5 joe who is looking to make a 6 figure salary in an office. They irony is that the 9-5 is much more likely to be promoted than the rockstar simply because they are more likely to value people skills over technical skills. But it's funny, because I mentored a person once who was really upset about the fact that he couldn't compete against the top technical people on the team. He didn't want to put the hours in to get to the next level and somehow felt that it shouldn't be necessary. I kept trying to tell him that he should focus on things that he enjoyed rather than trying to be the best at something he didn't want to do. Nobody needs a team completely full of obsessed programmers. There are lots of other ways to provide value to the team. However it was absolutely useless. Anyway, it's a thing you've got to work out in your own head and according to your own values. But you can't be upset when you don't get the rewards for the path that you didn't choose.
- quickthrower2 7y ago
  Nice answer. The musicians might complain in person than on the web. But also if you are a musician with a hecktic schedule I guess you are probably doing well and there is hope to be famous and successful if not already. A lot of programming jobs just pay the bills and hit a glass ceiling. Once that happens who wants to do 60h if you can do 40h instead? I also think that programming is specifically mind taxing or can be and I can do 60h of work a week but not 60h of programming.