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I had a mentor at GE who loved this line, and her big point was less about the excitement and more about engaging and living in the moment. When we make a stron

I had a mentor at GE who loved this line, and her big point was less about the excitement and more about engaging and living in the moment. When we make a strong split between work and life, we tend to just check out and coast, to not engage and be present during work because you feel like it doesn't matter. Her big push was that it's all life. Work is a big portion of your time, so if you ignore it you're missing a huge portion of what finite time you have. Hearing it that way made a huge impact on me. With a workout analogy, it's the difference between exercise and a planned workout. With exercise, there's not much plan or engagement; you might run or lift a few weights absent-mindedly. By engaging with it, you can get much more out of your effort, planning to workout different muscle groups or help increase endurance.

borroka 5y ago
"Her big push was that it's all life. Work is a big portion of your time, so if you ignore it you're missing a huge portion of what finite time you have. Hearing it that way made a huge impact on me." I disagree. It is not black and white. The options are not between working 14 hours a day or not working. There is a huge space where someone can find the best position for them. I am one of those lunatics who between making x for 3 hours a day and x for 14 hours a day, prefers to make x (it is not a typo, it is the same money) working 3 hours a day. Call me crazy. Then, if I want to work more or I get "wired in" for 3 days, fine. But another day I may want to go fishing. Most of us, myself included, are cogs in a machine in the workplace and thinking otherwise is delusional. Getting fired is the best lesson one can take from work. Which does not mean one has to be unprofessional or a slacker. I am very professional, I take care of people working with me, and I take pride in a good presentation, piece of code or model. After all, if you want a job badly done, it is counterintuitively not the worst idea to give the job to someone with a strong passion for the job or a volunteer. At least, that has been my experience. If we continue my analogy with sports, I have found that "getting the job done" is not strongly correlated with having the most passion for the activity. Not not having none, to be clear, just not the strongest. Now, if someone finds a job with agency, building an infra that have they have been thinking about forever, with a fantastic upside and little downside, that's another ballgame. That's the alignment of personality and work that make work feel like play. And someone may say, if you don't have that blend of work and life is because you did not find the right job for you. Which is equivalent to say that people who are crashing on the couch with a bag of Doritos every night just have to find the right sports for them.
- sheepybloke 5y ago
  I agree that's not black and white; rather, that the separation into work and life pushes you into the mentality to see it as black and white. I agree that there are options between working all the time and not working. As I discussed, it's all life. You're interpretation is that I said that everything is work. You conflate "there's no such thing as work/life balance; it's all life" with "work is what brings me satisfaction," mostly because a lot of people that push the mantra are people like PG who are that way. But it's really deeper than that. It's closer to not discounting yourself or your time and being present in the moment at all times. It's realizing that despite the fact we are cogs in a machine, we still have the opportunity to be mindful and engage with life around us. Even if you only work that 3 hours a day, that's still 10% of your week that you'd just discount from your life. You don't have to like it. You don't have to yearn for it or enjoy it. But it's part of your life, so be present for it.
randomswede 5y ago
I am one of those who insist on a strict separation between "me at work" and "me not at work". Mostly because over the last few decades, I have identified that spending almost all of my time in "work" mode is basically not good for me. Doesn't really matter if whatever "non-work" activity I am doing is superficially similar to what the work activity may be. Doesn't mean I don't care 9or coast, or whatever= about work. Doesn't mean I religiously drop work at HH:MM (but, unless there's something that is urgent at HH:MM, then I probably will push that to first thing tomorrow). I would instead make the workout analogy that proper work/life balance is akin to taking rest/recovery time between working a specific muscle group. If you are always working out, with no time for recovery, you end up with injuries that eventually will make workout impossible.

borroka 5y ago

"Her big push was that it's all life. Work is a big portion of your time, so if you ignore it you're missing a huge portion of what finite time you have. Hearing it that way made a huge impact on me." I disagree. It is not black and white. The options are not between working 14 hours a day or not working. There is a huge space where someone can find the best position for them. I am one of those lunatics who between making x for 3 hours a day and x for 14 hours a day, prefers to make x (it is not a typo, it is the same money) working 3 hours a day. Call me crazy. Then, if I want to work more or I get "wired in" for 3 days, fine. But another day I may want to go fishing. Most of us, myself included, are cogs in a machine in the workplace and thinking otherwise is delusional. Getting fired is the best lesson one can take from work. Which does not mean one has to be unprofessional or a slacker. I am very professional, I take care of people working with me, and I take pride in a good presentation, piece of code or model. After all, if you want a job badly done, it is counterintuitively not the worst idea to give the job to someone with a strong passion for the job or a volunteer. At least, that has been my experience. If we continue my analogy with sports, I have found that "getting the job done" is not strongly correlated with having the most passion for the activity. Not not having none, to be clear, just not the strongest. Now, if someone finds a job with agency, building an infra that have they have been thinking about forever, with a fantastic upside and little downside, that's another ballgame. That's the alignment of personality and work that make work feel like play. And someone may say, if you don't have that blend of work and life is because you did not find the right job for you. Which is equivalent to say that people who are crashing on the couch with a bag of Doritos every night just have to find the right sports for them.

sheepybloke 5y ago
I agree that's not black and white; rather, that the separation into work and life pushes you into the mentality to see it as black and white. I agree that there are options between working all the time and not working. As I discussed, it's all life. You're interpretation is that I said that everything is work. You conflate "there's no such thing as work/life balance; it's all life" with "work is what brings me satisfaction," mostly because a lot of people that push the mantra are people like PG who are that way. But it's really deeper than that. It's closer to not discounting yourself or your time and being present in the moment at all times. It's realizing that despite the fact we are cogs in a machine, we still have the opportunity to be mindful and engage with life around us. Even if you only work that 3 hours a day, that's still 10% of your week that you'd just discount from your life. You don't have to like it. You don't have to yearn for it or enjoy it. But it's part of your life, so be present for it.

randomswede 5y ago

I am one of those who insist on a strict separation between "me at work" and "me not at work". Mostly because over the last few decades, I have identified that spending almost all of my time in "work" mode is basically not good for me. Doesn't really matter if whatever "non-work" activity I am doing is superficially similar to what the work activity may be. Doesn't mean I don't care 9or coast, or whatever= about work. Doesn't mean I religiously drop work at HH:MM (but, unless there's something that is urgent at HH:MM, then I probably will push that to first thing tomorrow). I would instead make the workout analogy that proper work/life balance is akin to taking rest/recovery time between working a specific muscle group. If you are always working out, with no time for recovery, you end up with injuries that eventually will make workout impossible.