Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
blogs.hbr.org
Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
1–10 of 52 posts
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#2Interesting stuff. I feel like over the years I've moved from being an integrator to segmentor. I think it just comes with experience. I have a better understanding of what to expect, which "emergencies" I can ignore or postpone. How to avoid putting myself in a potentially stressful situation. I have a metric for this too. I suffer from a mild medical condition that flares up when I'm stressed. I used to suffer from it at least once a month. Now I'm down to every 6 months. I credit maturity.
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#3I would be curious if Googlers on this list feel that Google does a good job putting these insights into practice.
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#4Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'? The best I can hope is really intense distraction: mountain biking, sailing, even golf. It's amazing how little I consider anything else while playing golf--but I couldn't get away in the middle of the afternoon unless I had the flexibility to get good work done from 4-7AM.
Intuitively, I'd bet job satisfaction is right up there with mate selection as a happiness driver, so it's certainly worth understanding.
But thinking about 'work' (the task at hand) should be distinguished from thinking too much about all the merde that is 'the job.'
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#5I wonder how they control for the Hawthorn effect in their 'fix it for just some people' experiments.
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#6While I applaud the effort, the only issue here is the sample is restricted only to "Googlers." That's a bit of bias for their sample already. Google is hardly an average company, so the results they glean from their employees might not generalize as well.
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#7Heh. I took a photo of that same girl(I think) on the cover photo when I was in India: http://www.flickr.com/photos/miloshadzic/7102823323/
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#8[deleted]
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#9I would be curious if Googlers on this list feel that Google does a good job putting these insights into practice.
I didn't really get the point of the article, so I'm just going to comment on work-life balance at Google in general.
Basically, you are freed from any unnecessary constraints in choosing your own work life balance. You are judged by the work you do, regardless of how long it took you to do that work, or which hours of the day you did that work.
The company goes to reasonable lengths to allow remote working, but they can't make up for the inherent disadvantage of not being in the office/campus when other people are.
In my opinion, that is the best that a company can do in terms of promoting work life balance. A company could also actively try and stop people from working more than X hours, but I don't see why that is a good thing, if a person really wants to do it.
Many posts on HN suggest that when a person chooses to work long hours, this is (A) an irrational choice on their part and (B) imposes externalities on other people, and therefore should be culturally discouraged. On (A), it's hard to judge all cases, but some people really want/need the money. On (B) that is really just wanting to avoid competition. If another person is willing to work longer hours or accept less pay, that is going to harm me, but it is also how the free market works. I'm happy to accept market wages because that's how capitalist societies work, and both in theory and practice, they work* pretty well.
* And by "work" I mean that they provided the overall best outcome, including for the worst off. I added this disclaimer because there is always one comment that says something like "yes capitalism works... for the rich".
Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance
#10Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'? The best I can hope is really intense distraction: mountain biking, sailing, even golf. It's amazing how little I consider anything else while playing golf--but I couldn't get away in the middle of the afternoon unless I had the flexibility to get good work done from 4-7AM. Intuitively, I'd bet job satisfaction is right up there with mate selection…
I achieve my segmentation by studying, and I've been very successful at forgetting about my job when I'm not in the office. Not everyone's cup of tea, though. Other people I know achieve it with sports (not my cup of tea, at least not competitive sports), and considering what we know about how it affects body chemistry, it's probably a very good idea if you're into it.
Job satisfaction is, not coincidentally, a lot like money satisfaction. If you're not worried and/or pressured, you can pretty much forget about it; but if it's a problem, it may eat your life pretty quickly.
In any case, just remember: the most important resource by far is time, not money. Money can be the most urgent resource to attend, at some shitty/unlucky times; but in the long run, aim for the highest amount of time for yourself. I'll add this: the worst job I've ever had was also the one that paid the most.