11–20 of 112 posts
I cut down personal projects to a minimum after reading "Why we sleep", and it helps with overall well-being.
Commuting via Bike is also a big health-win for me. One hour on most work-days (sometimes the temperature or other circumstances require the car).
8 Hrs max at the office, 5 days a week. Rest is mostly family and sleep. I cut down personal projects to a minimum after reading "Why we sleep", and it helps with overall well-being. Commuting via Bike is also a big health-win for me. One hour on most work-days (sometimes the temperature or other circumstances require the car).
If you work more, you get abused and low-balled by salary negotiations
I used to work 10-14 hours a day, plus 24x7x365 oncall. It was miserable and my health (mental and physical) suffered greatly.
Mostly now I lift weights, run, and try to practice portion control.
The only remaining bad thing in work-life balance is my 8 hours of work is bookended by perhaps an hour each way commute, and it's getting worse every year. In another year or two there's going to be more mass transit in my area so at least I can play games on my phone instead of driving.
Non-US. I work exactly 8 hours. Unless there is an emergency. I never want to lose family time so the days I need to go to the gym I skip lunch (I eat something while working) and use the extra hour after work to go to the gym.
Which country ? In Asia-pacific region this is a dream! (to work exactly 8 hours) Likely Europe ?
For health, gym at 5:30am 4 days during the work week and an occasional Saturday workout. I try to eat healthy but not to the point where I'm not looking forward to a meal. Cooking for my SO is also a big stress reliever after a long day or if she's about to start a 24 hour call shift or something.
Productivity wise, I'm personally a fan of the "Nike" approach: just do it. If you're at work, do work. Don't sit on HN or Reddit or Facebook. If you need to use RescueTime or change your hosts file or whatever, fine. But just doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're supposed to be doing it is about as crucial a piece of the puzzle to your success as you'll ever find.
I average 40/week. Some weeks I need to surge, rarely I need to work weekends, but my ability to put in long hours is capped by my home situation (and my desire not to be a workaholic).
I wake my kids and get them ready for school each day. Sometimes they need homework help. We eat dinner together every night, and of course I have them all the time so we get to spend time together regardless of whether we want to. :)
I do strength training at the gym 2x/week, before the kids wake up. I run 3x/week, again before they get up.
I am as productive as I am required to be, but often no more productive. Meaning that the demands of life force productivity on me but I don't go crazy with the extracurricular activities.
I do spend time each day thinking about what my most important tasks are, just to make sure I'm making the best use of my time. I don't let other people take over my calendar, but I work for a small company so we're not meeting-heavy anyway.
All things considered, I am doing fine. I am fortunate to have understanding coworkers, good friends, and two really wonderful children.
Typically I do Pomodoro and spend the breaks having tea, talking with my partner, etc.
My plan is to take several months off each year.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes Europe, I think it's pretty common around here not to overwork. I've had 3 jobs and all were similar. Do your work, no one checks your hours as long as you are not obviously underworking and on occasions you will have to stay a couple hours more just to make sure the servers don't die.
In Europe, this is very common to overwork. I am french and everybody that did not stay after 5pm was considered as "underperforming" and blamed for it. In the USA (at least after working in 3 companies in different states), if you stay after 5pm, it means you might not be able to complete your job in the allocated time and therefore, might be "underperforming". This is a simplification but this is the overall sentim…
Absolutely not in my experience. And ironically even less so in France. Have worked in Dublin, France, Switserland, and Belgium. The workweeks as a contractor were respectively (38,38,42,40)
(US, Northern Virgina) it's taken me 15 years but now I work about 8 hours a day; sometimes I help with after-hours tasks related to my job but that's rare (roughly, quarterly). I used to work 10-14 hours a day, plus 24x7x365 oncall. It was miserable and my health (mental and physical) suffered greatly. Mostly now I lift weights, run, and try to practice portion control. The only remaining bad thing in work-life bala…