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Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

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Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#121

Post by TaylorAlexander »

echelon wrote: post #81
irrational wrote: post #80

I get up at 5am to start getting the kids up and ready for school (high schoolers first, then elementary schoolers, then middle schoolers). Everyone is finally at school by 9:15am and I can head in for work. I get home around 6pm and get the little kids in bed by 8pm. 8-8:30pm is me time. Then I get ready for bed and am asleep by 9pm. I can't imagine what a slow morning (or evening!) would even be like. I'd appreciat…

How do you do this? I would literally die. I can't live life so breathlessly with what sounds like no room for breaks. Are weekends even enough for you to recover? Forget burning out of a job, I'd burn out on life. Mad props to you. You've got a hell of a lot more discipline than I do. Your kids owe you.

I definitely couldn’t do it. After a few years at a corporate gig I’ve taken a new job with extremely flexible hours. I work 20 hours/4 days a week. Four five hour work days a week. It’s a HUGE difference.

It’s crazy to me that people are willing to give so much of their life to their employer. Is your life not worth more to you than that? You’ll sell decades of your life just for a nice paycheck? Aside from the fact that it’s mostly all that’s on offer WHY do people do this?

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#122

Post by echelon »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #121
echelon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do this? I would literally die. I can't live life so breathlessly with what sounds like no room for breaks. Are weekends even enough for you to recover? Forget burning out of a job, I'd burn out on life. Mad props to you. You've got a hell of a lot more discipline than I do. Your kids owe you.

I definitely couldn’t do it. After a few years at a corporate gig I’ve taken a new job with extremely flexible hours. I work 20 hours/4 days a week. Four five hour work days a week. It’s a HUGE difference. It’s crazy to me that people are willing to give so much of their life to their employer. Is your life not worth more to you than that? You’ll sell decades of your life just for a nice paycheck? Aside from the fact…

How much do you earn, if you don't mind my asking? And what sort of work is it?

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#123

Post by lazyant »

bradlys wrote: post #102
irrational wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a nightowl, and so are my kids. They will happily stay up to the early morning hours reading. Getting them out of bed in the mornings is a major pain in the butt. But, they will happily sleep in and miss the start of school if I'm not there.

But isn't learning how to get up in the morning a part of growing up...? (Same with going to bed on time) Couldn't it be taught just like cooking their own food and grooming themselves? I learned pretty quickly the consequences of tardiness by getting detention, lower grades, etc. Now - if they don't care one damn about school then I think that's a separate problem and them avoiding school by sleeping in is just high…

yes, middle schooler and more so high-schoolers should be responsible enough to get up in the morning and be ready by themselves.

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#124

Post by meddlepal »

JohnFen wrote: post #98
echelon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do this? I would literally die. I can't live life so breathlessly with what sounds like no room for breaks. Are weekends even enough for you to recover? Forget burning out of a job, I'd burn out on life. Mad props to you. You've got a hell of a lot more discipline than I do. Your kids owe you.

I thought the same until I had kids. This sort of thing is part and parcel of having children, you really do learn not only to handle it, but to derive enjoyment from the situation overall. If it helps any, my experience is that it's hardest on the day your child is born, but it gets progressively easier as the years go by and the children become increasingly self-sufficient.

In other words you developed Stockholm Syndrome.

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#125

Post by meddlepal »

segmondy wrote: post #96
echelon wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you do this? I would literally die. I can't live life so breathlessly with what sounds like no room for breaks. Are weekends even enough for you to recover? Forget burning out of a job, I'd burn out on life. Mad props to you. You've got a hell of a lot more discipline than I do. Your kids owe you.

This is the real life of folks with kids, so if you have coworkers with kids be a bit emphatic, now imagine them doing all this and having to worry because maybe one or more of them happen to be sick. If you have kids, either you become good with time management or life will beat the crap out of you.

On one hand I agree with your statement, on the other hand, kids are a choice.

Should I also be giving people lots of slack for getting drunk and coming to work hungover? That was a choice too.

Don't respond with some biological need nonsense. Last time I checked we're not automatons that slavishly need to fulfill our biological needs.

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#127

Post by TaylorAlexander »

echelon wrote: post #122
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely couldn’t do it. After a few years at a corporate gig I’ve taken a new job with extremely flexible hours. I work 20 hours/4 days a week. Four five hour work days a week. It’s a HUGE difference. It’s crazy to me that people are willing to give so much of their life to their employer. Is your life not worth more to you than that? You’ll sell decades of your life just for a nice paycheck? Aside from the fact…

How much do you earn, if you don't mind my asking? And what sort of work is it?

$100 an hour as an independent contractor developing farming robots at a place that feels very very good for me.

EDIT: I definitely got very lucky finding this position. I’m not suggesting everyone can just do this. But if people don’t refuse to work 40-50 hour work weeks, then that’s what employers will expect.

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#128

Post by peruvian »

president wrote: post #11
Mikulas0 wrote: post #2

So it seems the "secret" to tech-life balance is choosing more life than tech? Don't get me wrong, I'm all about tech-life balance and work-life balance (which this article and the problem in general heavily overlaps with), but the secret is conciously organizing your life to have more life than tech. Part of this is finding a job that allows you to choose life outside of office hours. Having more free mornings to do…

Do these types of jobs even exist anymore in tech? At least in SV, every job I've come across these days seem to require on-call and an implicit requirement to work into the night hours in order to finish your work. Not to mention super competitive teammates that don't mind working 24/7 and putting pressure on me to work even longer. I would gladly take a minimum 25% pay reduction if it meant I only needed to work 9-…

My job in a tech startup in NYC is 9-5. We are on call on rotation, which usually means two or so weeks a year. I don't look at Slack or email after 5pm nor do I have any notifications on my phone for any work-related app (just Slack for now).

It really hasn't affected my career - I just got a raise/promotion actually. My experience is that the "I love to work!" type of employees just get more work assigned to them instead of rewards.

Re: Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance

#129

Post by peruvian »

jedberg wrote: post #25

I think it depends a lot on what you do with your phone/laptop in the morning. If the first thing you do is hop on email or social media, then yes, I can see how that could be psychologically draining. But if you start with news(ish) type things, that's just another way of "reading the morning paper". I personally start by checking HN and Reddit, and then curated news like the Associated Press app.

I would argue starting the morning without an "infinity pool" (i.e. a site or resource where you can just keep browsing forever) is best.

While I agree with just looking at headlines to get the latest news in tech, I've been on HN and reddit long enough to realize most comments and submissions are the exact same over the years.

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