Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

blog.lawrencejones.dev

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 97 posts

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#51

Post by luffapi »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41
egypturnash wrote: post #37

A friend of mine who fell for the "work hard forever" idea just wrote a lengthy post venting about what this did to her: when you spend all your free time working/studying, and constantly turn down invitations to go do stuff with friends, people stop inviting you to things. And you drift out of friend groups because of this. Your social skills atrophy, you have no idea how to try and make new friends on the rare occa…

There's a difference between working hard with balance and working hard to the point of excluding everything else in life. > when you spend all your free time working/studying, and constantly turn down invitations to go do stuff with friends, people stop inviting you to things. If we consider a strict 40-hour maximum workweek on one end of the spectrum and what your friend is describing (100-120 hour workweek that le…

Working more than 40 hours a week has diminishing (or negative) returns. Proper scaling means delegation and systems. Grinding away isn’t just unproductive, it’s a sign of a poorly run company.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#52

Post by p0d »

Someone said we should take a break from our work one day a week.

Someone said we should enjoy our wealth and health while we can.

Someone said we shouldn't store all our wealth for a later date which we may not see.

I think the availability of technology has confused us. It has blurred the lines between work and constant activity. There is a big world out there beyond the pixels we should be enjoying beyond work.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#53

Post by touisteur »

luffapi wrote: post #50
hshkdkkajdjdm wrote: post #48

I think it makes sense to work 60 to 120 hours a week when you work for your dreams. There is no sense working that many hours to fulfill someone else's dream.

It makes sense to work ~40 hours a week (or less) on something you love, because to work more means degrading your performance especially in software development, especially over time. If what you are working on is growing that fast to suck up that much of your time, hire and learn to delegate. That’s also good leadership.

Hiring and delegating, although necessary, can also be a recipe for frustration, transforming something you love into something that's not really yours anymore (everyone wants to put their stamp on your thing). If you enjoy doing, delegating won't help... Maybe automating is a better fit? Or using some SaaS thing with as low friction as possible...

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#54

Post by luffapi »

aerosmile wrote: post #34

A point that's often missed is: some people don't perceive certain types of work as work. I know it's a cliche, and if this sentence doesn't immediate resonate with you, you're probably not a part of that group I am referring to - and that's ok. Don't feel like you somehow are not as cool or special, quite to the contrary - you're probably more balanced and overall healthier. But that doesn't change the fact that the…

The thing is, if you’re an entrepreneur you’re also likely a manager and working more than 40 hours a week is bad management. You may enjoy it, but no one wants a boss who’s always working. It also suggests you’re not delegating or building scalable systems.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#55

Post by luffapi »

touisteur wrote: post #53
luffapi wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes sense to work ~40 hours a week (or less) on something you love, because to work more means degrading your performance especially in software development, especially over time. If what you are working on is growing that fast to suck up that much of your time, hire and learn to delegate. That’s also good leadership.

Hiring and delegating, although necessary, can also be a recipe for frustration, transforming something you love into something that's not really yours anymore (everyone wants to put their stamp on your thing). If you enjoy doing , delegating won't help... Maybe automating is a better fit? Or using some SaaS thing with as low friction as possible...

If you want no employees, sure. As soon as you hire one, your job is leadership.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#56

Post by mettamage »

Scarblac wrote: post #46
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a difference between working hard with balance and working hard to the point of excluding everything else in life. > when you spend all your free time working/studying, and constantly turn down invitations to go do stuff with friends, people stop inviting you to things. If we consider a strict 40-hour maximum workweek on one end of the spectrum and what your friend is describing (100-120 hour workweek that le…

I work a strict 40 hour work week, but I hardly know anybody else who works that much in my social group in the Netherlands. 32 is far more common; I think only about 4 of the 80 people in the company I work for work the full 40. I only work this much because my wife is jobless. So it's strange to see it described as the low end of the scale. I'd pick 24 hours per week.

We Dutchies have one of the best flexible part-time work systems available I think. I think that because when I read HN or read job postings from other countries, or ask US people then I'm noticing that 40 or 40+ hours is much more common.

I've noticed that a 4 day work week has outsized mental health benefits compared to 5 days. Especially when your free day is at Wednesday. There's only so much "damage" a consecutive 2 days of work can do. That break on the Wednesday is truly a life saver. With that said, I'm noticing that if you want to upskill and immerse, then 5 days is better, but it comes at a cost, which is: not having a lot of time for much else since a lot of free time is actually spend on recuperation from the work day! That cost isn't there when you work 4 days since recuperation happens much faster.

Also, if you have remote possibilities at work, you can basically start doing what Tim Ferriss wrote in the 4 hour work week years ago. It's quite easy to travel and see the world in this mode. I guess even with kids? You have 3 whole days per person to figure stuff out. Well perhaps not anymore, but being able to determine your own work location is always beneficial (even if all you want to do is go to the office).

I think with a 3 day work week something even strangers happens. You're now capable of completely living a second live that can truly eclipse your work week (e.g. 4 day "work" weeks in your other life). I haven't experimented with this though.

A lot of fun can be had when you and your significant other both work 3/4 days per week :)

It won't make you rich, but the upside is that you get to enjoy life now and practice your mind every now and then at work ;-)

In that sense, I think Dutch people that truly fine tune this with regards to their needs, location expensens and so on can live a really rich life.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#57

Post by indogooner »

I guess a lot of this should be driven by leadership team. On the contrary I see leaders themselves staying late in office, scheduling late evening status update meetings. And the developers also contribute to this. They stay up late, send status updates past midnight and then in the next company all-hands they are lionized for this. No one even bothers to retrospect what inefficiencies are causing everyone to work crazy hours. And that how can someone remain productive with this.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#58

Post by cherryturnover »

cweill wrote: post #42
cherryturnover wrote: post #15

I learned that working hard isn't the ticket to wealth. It's knowing people and putting on a good show that you work hard. I used to work hard and never really got "respect" for it (like promotions or whatnot). While I got shit done, it didn't give me what I wanted. Eventually I started coasting and chatting with coworkers more. I didn't sweat making mistakes either. It was literally the moment in Office Space where…

Exactly. One of the biggest things I keep in mind these days is that most people, myself included, are bad at knowing what's most important to get done. It may seems that more code is more work is good, but the banter with colleagues improves communication and cohesion which can have a much higher impact than writing that additional code. If a higher up tells you to do something, you can be pretty sure it's important…

Even letting a higher up down is expected. You have to feel it out though if the certain thing is one of those. But if you know it can't be done or you got time, one of the best things you can do is abandon ship. It's really absurd and kind of a bad thing to lace your coworkers with, but if you've got references elsewhere and people within whom you're on good relations with, it won't affect your career one bit. Not only will you not get the blame for it when things aren't done presently, but you don't have to deal with the impossible task management gives you! Which in the grand scheme, if you can stick it out long enough before they fire you and get a job elsewhere, on paper, you never failed! You always achieved your goals.

The entire Gervais Principle goes into detail on this and it's a fun read. A lot of it sounds like just general office politics written in a funny way, but there are some nuggets that a lot of people who aren't in the "sociopath" category (the authors words), aren't willing to do. It's kind of like "the best time to be looking for a new job is now" philosophy in work.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#59

Post by rorykoehler »

lawrjone wrote: post #21
edferda wrote: post #8

This post really resonates with me, specially this line > Just keep in mind the cost you’re paying, and be extremely cautious if you ever find yourself resenting your downtime. Currently this is happening to me. Downtime is not an enjoyable experience anymore, the pandemic has just made it worse since I am not even forced to have social interactions. I have feelings of guilt whenever I am not working. And just like t…

I really empathise with your experience of lockdown- Covid has taken a big toll on a lot of people, myself included. Especially at the start of lockdown, I developed a habit of working on a side project at the weekend. I found myself slipping into this 'discomfort', and after some reflection decided it wasn't helping me. I work hard enough during the week, if I'm working outside my normal hours it needs to be because…

I built my side project during the weekends since the start of the pandemic, shipped it and then decided I didn’t have the energy to actually run it. Still glad I did it and I could pick it up again if I wanted but at this stage between work and family, side projects need to take a back seat.

Re: On working too hard: finding balance, and lessons learned from others

#60

Post by DavidVoid »

> There is a risk of losing your ability to be present and enjoy your life when you’re not at a desk making ‘progress’. Years after when you want to rid yourself of this itch, you may find it far more difficult to shake than it was to acquire.

Apart from the salary, this is the thing I enjoy the most about having a job as opposed to being a University student. When I was a student I wasn't all that organized, so I often felt guilty about spending time on other activities than studying. But now that I have a job, I can get my 8 hours of work done during the day and then feel guilt-free about spending my evenings and weekends on whatever I want.

Post reply on HN