Give yourself permission to have work-life balance
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Turns out that the main barrier was me. After leaving the land of "crushin' it" I've gone on to be part of other companies where it became clear that I have the power to push back against unreasonable demands without harming my performance at work or my prospects at the company.
All it took was a quick experiment: I went home at 5pm one day, then the next day, and before I knew it I was no longer logging into work after dinner. Weekends miraculously cleared up, too! Vacations became about having fun, and I no longer even remember what a corporate-issued LTE modem looks like.
This lead to all sorts of other realizations, such as: I thought I was in firm control of many aspects of my life, whereas in fact I hadn't exercised as much control as I could have. I've gained lots of happiness points by running small experiments like the above.
As a freelancer, something I think about is this: I have 3 ways to raise my income: work more hours, bill more per hour, and hire people to work under me. Option 1 is pretty limited. Option 3 is attractive, but brings a lot of headaches, and if I have employees I have to sell enough projects to keep them all busy. The most appealing personally is to be the best I can at what I do, to justify a higher rate.
A lot of this is justified by startups as necessary and most young people are just simply too stupid to know any different. When I see a 25 year old who isn't a founder working 12 hour days constantly despite getting no benefits and actually causing a ton of harm, I can only attribute that to ignorance and stupidity. Usually, he has been fooled by the people running the company into thinking that his work is necessary at the moment and that it will be repaid. It's neither necessary at the moment, nor will he ever be repaid a single penny. In fact, when he stops working so hard, he'll be fired.
As Radiohead put it in the song "Just": "You do it to yourself, you do And that's what really hurts".
This is the root of the issue in my opinion. When I fail to achieve work/life balance, it is usually due to one of two things:
1. To please my direct co-workers, manager, CEO. 2. To please everyone else — that is, make enough to live the way I envision other people expect me to be living, and doing the things I imagine them expecting me to be doing.
Living for even the imagined expectations of others can take a heavy toll. It took time to unlearn that way of thinking.
I am almost finished reading "The Power of a Positive No" by William Ury [1], and it's very good. The main idea is that because you say yes to something (e.g. having a life), it's easier to say no to something else (e.g. extra work). Well worth the read!
[1] http://www.amazon.com/Power-Positive-No-Relationship-Still/d...
It took me a little while to realize that sometimes, the value of life trumps the value of money. It also took me a little while to realize that having the ability to say "no" to unreasonable expectations is worth its weight in gold.
There's also the argument that work/life balance promotes higher quality work, a position with which I'm inclined to agree especially where quantity of work output means relatively little compared to quality. As an example, some of the best work I've done came because I chose to dig deeper rather than having done so out of a feeling of obligation. These decisions to dig deeper into a problem came because my brain was still in one piece and both curious and intrinsically motivated to delve into a problem. In other words, I volunteered my own time to dig deeper into a problem while my brain was fresh, coming up with effective solutions of which I could be proud. There was a sense of accomplishment that came with it rather than a sense of dread, and for all other standard work expectations, I continued to deliver as usual during the day while enjoying my life afterwards.
This proved particularly helpful given what I currently do (less engineering work than before). I've been able to pursue secure engineering challenges more as a hobby and a passion than as an obligation, keeping my skillset fresh by choice.
The good companies realize all of these points. There's a common realization among all of them that giving employees positive incentives (yet still just the option) to go above and beyond while still rewarding everyone who produces as expected yields more productive, generally happier people. Granted, this doesn't work for everyone. The contractor mentality is notable for exploiting this approach for minimum labor per dollar spent, but elsewhere, I haven't seen proper work/life balance hinder productivity compared to what we see out of a lot of companies in the bay.
As for founders... if you're a founder with buckets of equity, it's probably in your favor to make a mid-term work/life balance trade, but I can't speak to that. @joesmo's comment on culture and people-pleasing might speak better to that and to why most other firms expect harder working hours.
Edit: see @AdamMaras' comment below regarding exactly the kind of little culture seeds smaller companies can use as they grow to instill balance. "life/work balance" is a subtle but valuable way to emphasize life first.
I still haven't been able to fully decouple myself from carrying work around as if it is my actual reason for being, but the unburdening has commenced. And anyone trying to figure it out, just spend some time thinking about the title of this thread. It's not so much about reconfiguring my schedule or "hacking" my time management (tho that helps), it's was the mindset changed that led to the "oh, shit" moment(s).
I am working on my second start up. On top of that I freelance for income. There is little time for "life". The problematic part ( or maybe not ) is that I am loving it. It has definitely affected my relationships, I have lost a few friends but I really enjoy work. Maybe it will have a negative effect as I grow older. Maybe I will burnout soon. Time will tell.
At a base level, employment is a contract for services. They pay me X for me to do job Y. The real problem is that employers have almost all of the leverage and power in this forming of the contract, so they generally start off paying you less than the value you produce because thats how business works!
What people need to learn to do is how to negotiate from a strong position and how to understand and edit contracts. Never, ever be afraid to say, "Im going to read this, make changes, and bring it back to you." Just because someone hands you a peice of paper and a pen and says sign this doesnt mean you should!
Also, perks only go so far.
Are you physically active or interested in being physically active? Hiking, climbing, fighting, dancing, running, swimming, weight-lifting, soccer, kickball, ultimate, softball, cycling, bowling, tennis, etc.
Are you dating someone, occasionally going on dates, not dating at all? The first two can certainly occupy your time, and can help you find activities you enjoy by doing things with your dates or partner. The third, if you prefer things that way at the moment, keep it that way, otherwise maybe spend time out socially trying to meet partners (church, bar, club, sports league, etc.).
Solo indoors: reading, video games, TV, education (organized like an online masters program, self-guided by choosing a topic and reading/researching it).
Solo outdoors: Physical stuffs above, gardening.
Creative hobby: cooking (can be creative, or just enjoyable), painting, drawing, sculpting, wood working, metal working.
Hell, take up a technical skill like welding or something. There are places near me where I can learn that in the evenings, probably available in most decent sized towns. Auto-shop classes if you don't have that skillset yet and may want it.
Some of these things you can just try, give them a month and see if they stick.
Spend more time with friends or family being social. Host movie nights or game nights or barbeques. Organize the night out events.
Sometimes it looks pretty similar to my day job, but to the benefit of a different organization, like when I mentored a FIRST robotics team.
Recently it's looked very different. I balance work with sports so that I can keep my body working well enough to enjoy a longer career :)
I did, however, just leave a job where I was unhappy. The timing was not great and it cost me. But I couldn't be happier to be free of that job. When I started to seriously dread going in to work, I knew it was time to move on.
Try to realize that not leaving a job because you "can't stand disappointing anyone" is just plain wrong. In a sense, you're doing them a disservice by remaining in a position you are not happy in. You are probably not performing at your best if you're unhappy. Plus, startup or not, they would probably drop you like a bad habit if given the financial incentive. Business is business, money is always the bottom line in that environment. You do not owe them anything.
1) The money situation is tough, but workable. Are you in a position to ask for a raise or are there things you can cut back on to save some money? If you don't want to change jobs yet, try those.
2) You don't want to disappoint anyone, I understand that completely. Was this something you were once passionate about but lost interest in? Your post sounds like you're experiencing burnout. Do you get paid vacation? If there's no formal leave agreement, maybe ask for 1-2 weeks of paid time off to just go get your head clear. Drive up to the mountains and hike or relax in a cabin with some books. Come back a bit refreshed.
3) What kind of hours do you work now? If your work is taking up your weekends, reclaim them. Take day trips somewhere, find a local rec sports league, or go to a park and find a pick up game of soccer or something. You may not enjoy these things, find something else. But try things. You won't know what you like until you do. I had no idea I'd like ballroom dancing until I took a date to a social dance one night (because I knew she liked dancing). It was the first time I'd danced in years, and it was a blast (for me, also terrifying because I felt like a klutz).
4) I get the bit about no serious romantic relationships. In all honesty, I had 2 in high school and college, nothing post college until that ex in the last paragraph. It's not easy, and it can be terrifying returning to it after a long hiatus. But it's one of those things that you have to try for if you want it, relationships (rarely) fall into your lap. In fact, the first time you have a partner and not just someone you go on a couple dates with may end in disaster. But I don't regret that one, parts of it, but not the relationship itself. I was trapped, inertia-wise, in singlehood and dating her got me past that hump.
Well, there's three things for you do start doing beside work!
There's a big different between having something you can riff on for a while and then drop when it doesn't hold your interest and something you have to ship regardless of what's involved.
Of a 24-hour day you (supposedly) sleep eight hours, another eight is your awake non-work life, eight hours is company work so work should be at most 33% of your day and 66% your life.
You're the fulcrum move that balance!
These all talks from tech people sound really idiotic. So just shut up and go back to work.
2. Nurses are also pretty well paid and eligible for overtime in most cases.
That said, there's a big push lately to limit the number of hours doctors are allowed to work in a row. It was common to pull 36 hour shifts in some cases (with naps/downtime but still in the hospital and on call), but now people are starting to realize that having sleep-deprived people administering medical treatment is not such a good idea.
[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/4emntv/question_for...
Have fun working your way into a heart attack at 45 I guess.
This isn't true, it's not just tech people. A lot of industries suffer from this, especially where there's not a hardline between office and not-office time. Tech (programming and sys admin work in particular) is just particularly easy to carry out the door with you. Literally, with remoting in, or just by the way that these problems can stick in our minds. But I've seen plenty of other people have the same issue in sales, contracting, marketing, pretty much any white collar job that can be carried home and even many blue collar jobs that aren't on shifts where it's easy to say, "1 more hour and I'll be done. 1 more hour and I'll be done."
> You should look how hard the doctors and nurses are working in emergency room and getting paid so much less.
Hahahaha. Ok, visit the ER in my town where several friends (nurses) quit last year. Three of their number had strokes from the stress of their job. Literally had strokes from the stress. That is not something to aspire to, my friend.