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

Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

blogs.hbr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 52 posts

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#41

Post by rbourke »

Bulkington wrote: post #4

Is 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…

Software engineers (and many other information workers) are lying to themselves if they think this is even possible (to segment).

Proof: a large number of breakthrough designs / problem solving occurs when I am in the shower, on the toilet, or lying in bed going to sleep... it has long been proven that information workers are solving problems 24/7 365.25 days a year - you are never paid 'by the hour' for your work - your brain is solving problems 24/7 non-stop.

Indeed, this is precisely why allowing staff to work from home and minimizing enforced 'attendance hours' works.

You want to blur the lines between work and life... quite simply because they are already blurred. It's like the infamous 80s/90s Waterfall SDLC - it's like trying to make the waterfall run uphill (all projects end up Agile in the end). So why fight the inevitable - you are only stressing yourself by doing that (as proven by the evidence in this article - the 'segmentation seekers' are trying to achieve the impossible!) - and it is medically proven that stress causes cancer, diabetes, heart disease... and death (2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine). Corollary to that: blur all of life and live healthy and happy, or attempt to segment and suffer stress and die painfully.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#42

Post by saurik »

incision wrote: post #24
Bulkington wrote: post #4

Is 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…

>"Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'?" Sure. I'm finding this really hard to articulate, but here goes... I feel like this should be self-evident, but we've been trained to think otherwise, to believe that giving so much of our time and energy is completely normal or even noble. I've worked with my hands and with my mind, as a full-time employee, a union member and an at-will contrac…

I have a difficult time stopping thinking; I consider this a big difference between thinking and acting: I would even argue I do not have conscious control over what I am thinking about... it isn't even clear to me I have conscious knowledge that I am thinking about something (hence why sometimes I seem to get more done while asleep than I do while actively thinking: sometimes I purposely go to sleep while working on a hard problem as there is a good chance I will wake up with an answer). So yes: I agree with you that thinking and acting can have similar costs and pains and should somehow be reglated to avoid serious problems, but I haven't figured out how yet: I don't even use email, and while I'm clearly addicted to my phone (I am at a party right now... clearly not ;P), taking my phone away would not allow me to stop thinking about the code I was working on earlier today... I was momentarily distracted while talking to some people, but as indicated by the person you were responding to, that's all I seem to be able to hope for: finding things that are sufficiently distracting to let me reclaim my own brain.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#43

Post by Noxchi »

incision wrote: post #24
Bulkington wrote: post #4

Is 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…

>"Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'?" Sure. I'm finding this really hard to articulate, but here goes... I feel like this should be self-evident, but we've been trained to think otherwise, to believe that giving so much of our time and energy is completely normal or even noble. I've worked with my hands and with my mind, as a full-time employee, a union member and an at-will contrac…

Why would you want to segment your work though?

Value creation is a major part of life, why try so hard to separate it?

If you have something fun to do, like going out, working on your hobbies / relationships / health, go ahead. But you don't have to put those activities in two "time zones". It can be a homogeneous mixture.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#44

Post by tuukkah »

savv wrote: post #38
incision wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'?" Sure. I'm finding this really hard to articulate, but here goes... I feel like this should be self-evident, but we've been trained to think otherwise, to believe that giving so much of our time and energy is completely normal or even noble. I've worked with my hands and with my mind, as a full-time employee, a union member and an at-will contrac…

> The big difference between knowledge workers and everyone else is what individuals and workers as a group will put up with. There are exceptions, such as in Finland [1] > Overtime work is allowed in Finland, and represents any work done extra the maximum regular working hours, to a maximum of 138 hours in a 4 months period and a total of 250 hours per a calendar year. [1] http://www.workinfinland.com/what-are-the-n…

Sure, that's what the written rules say, but in reality, people put up with a lot more work. For example, they may not count work done outside the office, or even work done after 6pm in the office.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#45

Post by miloshadzic »

cclogg wrote: post #13
miloshadzic wrote: post #7

Heh. 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/

Nice, that was shot on film right? Love the look. Also, seems like a bit of a light leak... a tip: I once glued some black foam-paper on the door-hinge to my old film camera, because the original one from the 70's had worn off haha.

Yeah all of them were shot on film. I had two cameras, one was a Yashica GTN(those that don't have a leak) and a pocket Fujica. I'd had fixed the leak if I knew about it but the thing is I got it right before the trip heh.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#46

Post by keithpeter »

saurik wrote: post #42
incision wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>"Is it possible for anyone who thinks for a living to truly 'segment'?" Sure. I'm finding this really hard to articulate, but here goes... I feel like this should be self-evident, but we've been trained to think otherwise, to believe that giving so much of our time and energy is completely normal or even noble. I've worked with my hands and with my mind, as a full-time employee, a union member and an at-will contrac…

I have a difficult time stopping thinking; I consider this a big difference between thinking and acting: I would even argue I do not have conscious control over what I am thinking about... it isn't even clear to me I have conscious knowledge that I am thinking about something (hence why sometimes I seem to get more done while asleep than I do while actively thinking: sometimes I purposely go to sleep while working on…

I know the problem, teaching can be a very absorbing occupation.

What I do is keep a notebook and write stuff down. That seems to 'earth' the thoughts in some way so I can stop thinking about that. I read the notes when starting a working day.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#47

Post by vdm »

dave1629 wrote: post #26

What's missing from this is that Google's culture is designed to eliminate work-life balance by making as much of life as possible focus around work. A significant part of the compensation for Google employees is in the form of good "free" meals (including dinners), lots of services, entertainment, etc., all without leaving the Google campus. Would be interesting to see how the results are different from similar surv…

Microserfs

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#48

Post by PeterWhittaker »

ryanobjc wrote: post #20
PeterWhittaker wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sample size of one, but yes, it is: Years ago I took my work stresses to bed, each and every night. Eventually I realized these stresses were feeding me to a vicious circle: Stressed in bed, sleep poorly, fail to refresh, get less done - and do stupider things, get more stressed. Eventually I just flipped the switched and stopped it. I wish I could recall the moment (or period?) more clearly so that I could describe…

One thing we know from studies is that when we effectively delegate work to someone else we trust, we no longer worry about it. The other thing we know from studies is that inside our brain we consider the 'future self' as another person - fMRI studies have shown that 'future self' is the same parts of the brain as we use to think about OTHER people. The result is if we trust the future self, we can effectively deleg…

Intriguing observation. I hate to use this term, but it "resonates" with me. I'll mull upon this awhile....

EDIT: I just realized that I do exactly this when the "usual tricks" don't work, invoking "tomorrow me" as needed. Talk about context-dependent recall - I don't think I've ever thought about that technique other than when I am using it. Thanks!

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#49

Post by savv »

tuukkah wrote: post #44
savv wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The big difference between knowledge workers and everyone else is what individuals and workers as a group will put up with. There are exceptions, such as in Finland [1] > Overtime work is allowed in Finland, and represents any work done extra the maximum regular working hours, to a maximum of 138 hours in a 4 months period and a total of 250 hours per a calendar year. [1] http://www.workinfinland.com/what-are-the-n…

Sure, that's what the written rules say, but in reality, people put up with a lot more work. For example, they may not count work done outside the office, or even work done after 6pm in the office.

This is true, I suppose the difference here is that workers are offered some level of protection. I have had a Finnish person tell me he couldn't legally take on additional work before.

Re: Google’s Scientific Approach to Work-Life Balance

#50

Post by keithpeter »

keithpeter wrote: post #46
saurik wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a difficult time stopping thinking; I consider this a big difference between thinking and acting: I would even argue I do not have conscious control over what I am thinking about... it isn't even clear to me I have conscious knowledge that I am thinking about something (hence why sometimes I seem to get more done while asleep than I do while actively thinking: sometimes I purposely go to sleep while working on…

I know the problem, teaching can be a very absorbing occupation. What I do is keep a notebook and write stuff down. That seems to 'earth' the thoughts in some way so I can stop thinking about that. I read the notes when starting a working day.

Surprised at downvote, just sharing my own experience.
Post reply on HN