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Comment by Bulkington | Hacker News Reader

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 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.'

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>"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 contractor.

There's actually nothing terribly special or unique about thinking for a living - it's still work with energy and opportunity cost for doing it. When the toll is primarily mental it's harder to perceive, but just as real.

The big difference between knowledge workers and everyone else is what individuals and workers as a group will put up with.

Tech workers accept being sent home with laptops and cellphones by an employer who doesn't want to pay three shifts worth of coverage for a 24/7 operation. Elsewhere this is prevented by unions, regulations and the implicit understanding that allowing the next man to devalue himself today will devalue the group tomorrow.

* Elsewhere this is prevented by unions, regulations and the implicit understanding that allowing the next man to devalue himself today will devalue the group tomorrow.

yeah, but we make 3x as much as the union protected workers. It's union protection that ruining this country, look at the entitlement problem, hell, you only have to look at the train driver in chicago who fell asleep at the wheel, it a non union protected area she'd have been fired, instead she goes right back to work and drives a train up an escalator asleep again.

> 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-normal-working-hou...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 what I did well enough to make you believe you can do it too, but it was a long time ago, and I stopped worrying about it pretty soon thereafter.

Will those stressors be there in the morning? Is there anything you can do about them in bed? Stop worrying.

(And stop convincing yourself there is something you can do about them in bed, because you know very well that you need a fresh mind and a fresh perspective to do your best work. And you know very well you are not going to get those things worrying with your head on the pillow.)

Rituals can help, such as commutes: Leave the office stressed, put things out of your mind as you go home. Be mindful of the sky, the clouds, the people around you. Make up stories about them.

On the way in to the office, plan how you will evaluate the stressors.

And use the "will ignoring this get me fired" rule for everything. That really helps with focus.

(I still think for a living - but now I'm quarter-owner of a consulting firm - stressors now are ever so much greater, but my stress is generally less, because I segment and defer.)

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 delegate to someone else - ourselves!

I think when you figured out 'the switch' this is what you are doing.

One exercise is to say to yourself "This is a problem for Future <insert your name here>". This is surprisingly effective! Of course this only works if you trust your future self's ability to remember... an organization system really helps here. It doesnt matter WHAT system, just that you know it will work.

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!

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.

I don't see why not. When I clock out of work, it all stops. I don't get work email on my personal phone, I sign off IM, etc. I am completely unreachable (except for calls, which nobody ever really does). No matter how stressful the day was, or how much stress is coming up, there's a clear delineation between work and life, and one doesn't bleed into the other.

It has kept me pretty happy with my job for more than a year now, even though I've taken almost no vacation (which is not as bad as it sounds, I work remotely).

Both of these positions on the subject are needlessly binary. I often find it the case that, even though I erect careful boundaries between work and non-work, when I leave a problem on my desk, I will continue to ruminate about a solution throughout the weekend, say. Similarly, I will Strategically avoid email when I'm recharging. I don't think it's so easy to boil down as black and white.

Sure, but that's the fun part. There are exceptions, obviously, just don't make them the rule.

This is probably why Intelligence analysts steadily rank as highest in job satisfaction [1], you literally can't take your work home with you.

[1] http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/best-jobs/2011/caree...

I use physical activities as a counterpoint to job-thinking. Fixing an engine or cutting down a tree requires attention and engagement, but aren't mentally taxing, so it's a good way to unplug. Plus, spending a weekend actually doing things instead of pushing buttons and flipping bits is very satisfying.

I think about work in the shower, before bed, etc. But watching "Frozen" with my daughter, I totally forget about work. Or when my wife unceremoniously hands me the baby with a "I already changed a poop diaper today, your turn."

You mean you don't 'consciously' think about work... your brain is actually still joining dots in the background 24/7... unless you stop it by using drugs!

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