Work Life Balance

Question

I'm sure we've all been in situations where a key date is approaching (launch, beta, etc.) and we need to put in long hours. However, even day-to-day there is more work to be done than time to do it.

I'm curious how people manage their work life balance? When I interned, and I was working towards getting a full time offer, I didn't really care much about it. Still, my coach was very insistent on not working crazy hours, and warned me about the potential burnout that I'd get.

Do you work 9-5 and then say "day's over"?

Do you set out a bunch of tasks and then leave when they are done? (What if you don't complete them?)

Do you have some other strategy?

Answer 1

I personally make sure I have at least 1-2 hours everyday to do something for me or my family that is relaxing. Currently my favorite is reading to my 3 year old son. It is very gratifying and relaxing.

No matter how rough a project has been I have found that to help keep me centered and ready for another day of work.

Answer 2

it's very difficult to work the 9-5 for me. there's always more work to do and people tell me to just leave and the work will be there in the morning, but at the same time when the work doesnt get done "on time" the same people are asking why. what to do?

Answer 3

Aside right off the top: To me, the 9-5 stereo type usually refers to the programmer whose interest in programming ends at quitting time, not the actual number of hours they work in a day. What I mean by that is that a programmer can work 9-5 5 days a week and not be a 9-5er IMHO.

A very important skill for a programmer to learn is to learn how to manage up. Outside of very rare circumstances, people working long hours indicates that there is something very wrong with the organization and that the organization is not mature. It's easy to get extremely stressed out and feel like you have to work 60 hours a week, but frankly if all the programmers are doing that, the deadline is going to slip because the estimate was horribly wrong. If the estimates are horribly wrong, why throw you life out of whack since the date will slip?

All that being said, it's ok to work extra hours when an emergency happens. You just have to do your best to manage up to keep that from being day to day life.

Answer 4

I still pretty much suck at this. Whoever, try having commitments with yourself and/or others after work hours (going to the gym, take a coffee, etc). That way, you have a very compelling reason for not "just stick around and finish just this bit"

Answer 5

Family time is important. Get up early and work. Quit at 5 eat, relax spend so time with friends, family, do a hobby. Then back to work for a few hours. Basically better to lose some sleep rather than sacrifice time with our loved ones. -$0.02

Answer 6

The best strategy is to work to a conservative schedule. Instead of accepting 15 tasks at at time, sit down with your lead/manager and work out a prioritized schedule (and be conservative in your estimate of what you can do). Revisit the schedule every time a task is added. What will happen is that the lowest priority tasks will drop to the bottom of the schedule, be constantly pushed back and eventually never get done, because they were not that important anyways. Better that than trying to kill yourself trying o get everything done. Unfortunately, the faster you work, the more work will be piled on you, so you will never catch up and will burnout.

Answer 7

It is a hard lesson to learn, but eventually you will realize that there is a striking relationship between "success" (as measured by position and salary) and the number of hours you work. I had to ask myself how much time I wanted to spend away from my family over-and-above the 9-5, and that immediately determined how successful I would be in my career. I assume you still work where you are, and are willing to put in the overtime on each project because you like what you do, but also make a good living out of it. If you told your boss your work/life balance was out of sorts at the end of these projects, and you could not work more than 40-45 hours, then you would either lose your job or never get a promotion. I have been told this on more than one occasion from management. Eventually I found a job working for someone who had the same work/life values that I did, and it is not a problem anymore.

EDIT:

After more than a year, I have decided to make an edit to this answer in order to add one useful piece of information and advice.

Eventually I found a job working for someone who had the same work/life values that I did, and it is not a problem anymore.

I was wrong. I put my trust in someone who claimed to want the same things I did, and who claimed that the balance was more important than the bottom line. I don't care how cool your boss is, or how secure your job is, or how progressive your organization... in the end, nothing, and I mean nothing, will be more important than the bottom line. "The greater good" of the whole will always outweigh the needs of a single employee. Those aren't sour grapes -- just the hard truth.

Answer 8

I switched to a 4-day week about 18 months ago, and it's done wonders for my work stress. The extra day makes a huge difference, and I recommend it to everyone.

The only problem is that, when the inevitable crunches come, I feel it. Sharply. Ouch :}

Answer 9

I've worked the long hours for three separate reasons in the past. Maybe it's unhealthy and maybe not, but in my experience the motivation behind it makes a difference.

Reason one: Short term emergency. I've done all-nighters at customer sites, to install fixes, troubleshoot their system or just comfort their engineers. These are often less than a week, but they interrupt your routine. I actually enjoyed these times, even if I didn't have time for anything else.

Reason two: Project is behind schedule. Regardless of the reason, the project is behind schedule and management things you can make up the time by working harder. It is unlikely that you can explain Fred Brooks to the guys putting pressure on you. They want to explain how much it costs to set up the marketing for the release date. Unless you get really lucky, working harder isn't the answer. Cut features, change the schedule, lose the ability to sleep, or change jobs.

Reason three: You have an interesting puzzle and you have to solve it. When the program is so interesting that a co-worker has to remind you to go home, then enjoy it. Work as long as you like, but set up cron to remind you to eat at least once per day. This is the kind of behavior that your family might find annoying. Keep a note pad with you in case you get a brilliant idea, save your work and go home. If you're a hacker, then this just happens.

It can be confusing when you get all three motivations going at once. I left my last employer for reason two, but I started my own company to enjoy reasons one and three. I hope you can also find a job where the motivation for long hours of work is your own.

Answer 10

9-5 is not always achievable - sometimes you gotta do what it takes to get the job done. For example, a team may work across different time zones and simply have to be flexible about their hours from day to day. Anyway, regardless of which hours you work:

In this business, you may as well go home once the mental fatigue kicks in. Something that takes an hour one evening can take just a minute or two when you're feeling alert the next morning.

If you live close enough, try cycling or jogging to work. It really makes a huge difference to your physical and mental health. It helps you wake up in the morning and unwind at the end of the day. As an added bonus, you may even free up some spare time that you normally set aside for exercise!

Answer 11

One of the reasons I went into consulting was for this reason. I worked for many years as a "FTE" of a large financial services company. For much of my career there (and this seems typical with the FTE's at many companies I subsequently consulted for) pretty much had an expectation that their employees would work well over 40 hours a week. A recent client, the manager approached the CIO about a 4 day 10 hour schedule and the CIO only half-jokingly responded "most of my staff already works 10 hours days, why should I let them work only 4 days?".

As a consultant I do work above and beyond on my own time keeping my skills current, but this has a direct benefit to my own self-interst and marketability. The sad thing for many people doing their "jobs" above 40 hours, often you are working on tasks that aren't helping your career goals.

My experiece through my career also is the job market has a huge impact on this. When the job market is good - good management realizes you can easily find another job where you CAN work 40 hours a week. In a bad job market - it's clear - you NEED that job and may have a hard time finding another - so it's hard to say "No"...

But the last thing I do want to say - if you have pride in your work - and the "crisis" is one of your own creating, you'll WANT to stay late to fix the mess you created. On the other hand - nothing is worse than having to clean up others' mess - especially when they are the ones unwilling to work late and you end up being the one who does..