Slow Mornings May Be a Secret to Tech-Life Balance • Hacker News Board

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

#51

Post by davidjnelson » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 7:40 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #13

As someone whose default ringer setting is off unless I'm expecting a call, and have been like that for almost a decade, giving fewer people a guaranteed option on my time is a great start to being able to build and choose with calm, higher quality decisions. We get what we reward. When you don't set boundaries, you can't expect other people to anticipate them, let alone respect the ones you have in effect imagined.…

Brilliant and incredibly well written. Thank you. Another principle to add to calm/peace could be joy.

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

#52

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

vinceguidry wrote: post #32

JohnFen wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When we worry about missing opportunities Becoming an entrepreneur cured me of this worry, because I realized that there is no shortage of opportunities -- they're all around us all the time, the trick is in noticing the ones that can be of value to you. Since they're common, there's no problem with missing one. Another one is right around the corner. This also helped me avoid some really bad business decisions.

There's no shortage of demands on your time . There's absolutely a shortage of true opportunities. This is because if someone manages to convince you that spending your time on their thing, then they benefit. So everyone packages their demands as opportunities.

I've yet to see a shortage of opportunities.

However, I agree with you that if someone is coming to you with something that they're presenting as an opportunity, it most likely isn't. Actual opportunities rarely come that way.

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

#53

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 7:53 PM UTC

closetohome wrote: post #46

cybersnowflake wrote: post #42

If you can consistently wake up at 430AM in a standard workday and just carve out 5 hours of freetime in addition to the time others have you're either a savant, an inhuman monster who doesn't need sleep, or your job probably doesn't require you to do that much. Either way I'm not going to take your advice too seriously when it comes to universality.

Also could we maybe get an example of a person with a real job doing this? "Employee engagement" isn't exactly the kind of thing that requires, you know, faculties.

I have a real job and do this. I don't get up at 4:30am, though. I get up at 5am.

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

#54

Post by frereubu » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

UncleOxidant wrote: post #8

Could we just stop using medium altogether? I just get a pop up asking me to pay $5/mo. Not going to happen.

I have uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger installed on Firefox, and I can just click anywhere outside that window to see the full article. Not sure it's to do with the browser extensions necessarily, but I don't have a particularly exotic setup.

The only other thing I have which might help is a user chrome file - https://www.userchrome.org/how-create-userchrome-css.html - which has this simple rule in it:

  html, body { overflow-y: visible !important; }

That seems to help with a lot of the basic "disable scrolling" css rules that sites use.

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

#55

Post by objectivetruth » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

closetohome wrote: post #46

cybersnowflake wrote: post #42

If you can consistently wake up at 430AM in a standard workday and just carve out 5 hours of freetime in addition to the time others have you're either a savant, an inhuman monster who doesn't need sleep, or your job probably doesn't require you to do that much. Either way I'm not going to take your advice too seriously when it comes to universality.

Also could we maybe get an example of a person with a real job doing this? "Employee engagement" isn't exactly the kind of thing that requires, you know, faculties.

Wow, I'm super curious to know how you define "faculties" and "real job."

Given the importance of employee retention and satisfaction and the number of companies that DO actively demonstrate compassion for their employees, I'm also very curious what you think "employee engagement" is.

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

#56

Post by m23khan » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 8:00 PM UTC

paggle wrote: post #37

m23khan wrote: post #36

There is no work-life balance in tech. You can deceive yourself but the balance died out something like 7-8 years ago. When the wave after wave of tech changes happening and new tools coming into existence, the only lifestyle you can have to stay gainfully employed is: work, work, work until some other commitment (sleep, wife, kids) eat up remainder of your time. Personally, I think in next 5-10 years, IT workforce w…

This article isn’t about working in the tech industry

I understand but the whole start off your day slow, be dainty in the morning, etc does not fly well in IT industry I have seen.

People seem to rush to work, I would estimate majority either just grab some breakfast on the way or skip it and work per employee has increased a lot with added pressure to train/keep up to date for last 10 years.

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

#57

Post by vinceguidry » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 8:01 PM UTC

JohnFen wrote: post #52

vinceguidry wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no shortage of demands on your time . There's absolutely a shortage of true opportunities. This is because if someone manages to convince you that spending your time on their thing, then they benefit. So everyone packages their demands as opportunities.

I've yet to see a shortage of opportunities. However, I agree with you that if someone is coming to you with something that they're presenting as an opportunity, it most likely isn't. Actual opportunities rarely come that way.

Ok, now I get to trot out my framework for determining whether something is an opportunity or not. There are three basic ways to get ahead, a) to climb a ladder up a mountain, b) to build a ladder up a mountain that already exists, c) or to build a mountain. Only the first qualifies as an opportunity.

Most 'opportunities' are really just directions to places on mountains to build ladders, or places where no mountain exists.

Access to real ladders to ascend real mountains is heavily guarded and rare. Finding places to build ladders is probably what you're thinking of as an opportunity, but I would not consider that opportunity.

If I had few million bucks in the bank to enter a market with, then I can consider building ladders a real opportunity.

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

#58

Post by apersom » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 8:04 PM UTC

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-…

I'm the only dev at a small consulting firm (3-5 people, including owners). I'm payed for 40hrs/week but rarely put in more than 35. This is completely accepted. Even though we're all very enthused about the work that we do and want to deliver the best that we can, it's always understood that work is not everyones highest priority at all times.

I leave my work phone at the office when I leave.

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

#59

Post by vharuck » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 8:09 PM UTC

closetohome wrote: post #46

cybersnowflake wrote: post #42

If you can consistently wake up at 430AM in a standard workday and just carve out 5 hours of freetime in addition to the time others have you're either a savant, an inhuman monster who doesn't need sleep, or your job probably doesn't require you to do that much. Either way I'm not going to take your advice too seriously when it comes to universality.

Also could we maybe get an example of a person with a real job doing this? "Employee engagement" isn't exactly the kind of thing that requires, you know, faculties.

I get up at 5 am for morning me-time, even on the weekends. It was never a goal; I just tend to wake up after 6 hours. I'm sure it's not healthy.

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

#60

Post by astura » Fri, Sep 06, 2019, 8:14 PM UTC

milesvp wrote: post #24

peteradio wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What time do you think little children go to bed?

Children tend to be solar powered. Getting them to bed before 10pm in mid summer nights can be a real challenge in northern latitudes. Black out curtains really help. But starting the bedtime routine when the sun is out is a real chore. I honestly have no idea how Alaskans get their kids to sleep at all in the summer.

I really can't agree its "a challenge", I went to bed at 8pm every single evening as a young child. I remember it being still light out in the summer when I was went to bed, but there wasn't a choice, I was to be in bed, so I went to bed with a groan. Same with my siblings, we were all in bed at 8pm sharp every single day, no exceptions.

It's about setting firm rules and sticking to them.