It depends how you define success. I consider myself successful professionally and personally... I’m the CTO at a startup where I work on problems I find intere

It depends how you define success. I consider myself successful professionally and personally... I’m the CTO at a startup where I work on problems I find interesting, with a team I love, at a company I really believe in. At home I have a wonderful wife and two beautiful kids (3 year and 1 year old). I’ve been working in tech professionally for 14 years. I worked very hard during all of those years and before. I’ve never thought of work and life as something that should be balanced. To me balance means the pursuit of those things being even. Instead I think of it as “work life integration”, where both things need to coexist at the same time. Sometimes the push or pull Needs to be greater on one side than the other. My typical routine is waking up at 7am (unlesd the kids get up earlier). Every morning I make breakfast for my boys, walk the dog, and get myself ready for the day. I drop my oldest son at school and walk 35 min to the office. I’m usually in the office around 9:30/45am. When I’m at work I’m 98% focused and dedicated to work. 2% of the time is a mental break or personal thing. I try to leave the office around 6:30/7pm and make it home just in time to read to the boys and tuck them in to bed. I don’t make it in time every night (I FaceTime for 5 min if I won’t be home). When I do make it back after we put the kids down I spend the next 1-2 hours min with my wife eating dinner and hanging out. Then I’m usually back on the computer for 90-120 min doing some more work. The weekends are family time, Sat and Sun from 7am-7pm is dedicated family time. I don’t do any real work with the exception of checking email when there’s down time, like during naps or if my wife and the kids run out for a few without me. Fri and Sat evening I try to spend the evening with my wife (we don’t go out a ton right now because of the young kids). From time to time work takes up one or both of those nights. If I’m giving up Fri/Sat with my wife it’s because something important needs to be done and I don’t take that choice lightly. Sunday evening is usually work / prep for the week after the kids go to bed. I’ve found a good routine where I can work hard and spend time with family. My job is flexible enough where I can go to a morning or mid day appointment for the kids, or go on the occasion field trip, or leave the office at 5 to pick up my son from school from time to time. A typical work work day usually averages 9-11 hours with the occasional flex up or down. My routine doesn’t leave a lot of time for anything but family and work. I watch between 0–2 hours of tv a week and if I do watch it’s usually during spouse time. I’ve integrated work and life together and try to modulate depending on what’s going on in either world and either time. I have no interest in a perfect consistent balance.