Do you have to make hundreds of millions of dollars to hit a home run? There are different kinds of home runs, my young friends.
Straightaway center field at the polo grounds was 483 ft.
Wrigley is 353 down the right field line.
Work Hard and Play Just Enough
21–30 of 46 posts
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#22The nature of work has changed so much that I find many blank stares in the faces of young entrepreneurs when you ask what they do in their off time. What's off time? What if work is play or simply that one so completely enjoys their work and doesn't know how to draw a distinction between Work and Life. On the other hand, a huge plethora of tools, cloud services, saas, etc manke it available to "work" anytime, anywhere as never before. From project management to the ability to create meaningful communication with remarkable time-saving features (15Five.com) the nature and time-required for work is what you make of it.
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#23The people who advocate "balls to the wall" practices and "not making it home for dinner every night" scare me. When it's all said and done, and you're ready to leave this world, what are you going to think about? Who are you going to want by your side? What are you going to care about? If it's all the amazing startups you created, or the enormous sums of money you made, or the years of never making it home for dinne…
OTOH, OP didn't say he's planning on doing this for the rest of his life. He's 24, chances are he doesn't have kids, so if he could trade some time now for time + money in the future, isn't it a reasonable option?
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#24I lost you when you started classifying success. There are no classes of success - its defined purely by your own drive and identified purpose in life. It maybe important for you to impact the world some how - but to someone else - success (even of the home run variety) may simply be having a successful marriage - happy kids and enough time for people they care about. Would you say Gates, Jobs, Brin and Page hit home runs - or would you the kid who came off the streets and made a decent life for himself - enough to provide for himself and his family and live comfortably - hit a home run?
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#25I've been at the office until the wee hours of the morning. I don't know how people can still write coherent code at that point. My mind starts tripping under its own weight at the four-five hour mark. I usually can't make it past 2 or 3 hours without a break. Those times when I was hacking away like I was doing something so important that the world just couldn't wait for it... well I'm pretty sure I was at that offi…
"I don't know how people can still write coherent code at that point." - they don't and that is a problem
So don't write code - do something that requires less focus and creativity, but is still productive.
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#26> The notion that you need to work like crazy doesn’t come out of the blue, there’s data to back it up.
Then show us some data. I see two successes mentioned that fit this "trend". Treehouse is mentioned as an outlier - but that's 1/3 of the examples. This is not how "data" works.
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#27That’s my line. It isn’t a balanced life, but historically, it gives me the best chance to succeed. And since I’m going for a home run, that’s the line I need to walk. I guess the important question to answer is: why are you going for a "home run"? Is it because your life-consuming ambition, the only way you'll ever feel accomplished, is by having a bank account with a LOT of digits in it? Is it because you have a bu…
Fair question. For me, I'm going for a home run because I think it will allow me to have the biggest impact on the world. I was living in Chile for 6 months last year and have seen what my company (a p2p marketplace for trips planned by locals) could do globally. That worldwide impact is the driving force. What it isn't is a money or peer pressure play. My first startup is actually set to double in revenue this year…
So a glorified (and quite expensive) CouchSurfing?
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#28"I’m your typical “balls to the wall” founder that will sacrifice all for the sake of the startup" ... "I founded and ran GooseChase, which makes running scavenger hunts incredibly easy via iPhone & Android apps".
Some of this stuff is beyond parody...
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#29I appreciate the gesture of being a devil's advocate to the work-life balance posts but the hyperbole of "9am-5am" is hurting your case, you're giving others a straw man to argue against. A 70 hour work week is not actually that unreasonable. You wake up at 8AM, get to work by 9AM, work until 7PM, and then head out with another 5 hours still before you need to go to sleep and still get a solid 8 hours of rest. Do tha…
very valid. Also recognize that in many competitive industries and jobs - you´ll be working hours like that - home run or not. In consulting - 70 hours a week is completely normal.
Re: Work Hard and Play Just Enough
#30I always laugh at people who say how many hours they worked per day like it's an achievement of any sort. Anybody can 'sit' at their desk for 10 hours that says absolutely nothing about you or your job performance but hey you can brag about how many hours you worked for. I will come in focused, do all the work I have to do while you bullshit with co-workers or talk about doing something for the 10th time without doin…
There's a political element to this to though. Remember, human beings, including your boss and coworkers, are social creatures. What you consider time spent "bullshitting with coworkers" might actually be an investment into office culture and politics.