The modern work life balance equation is interesting to me in that people seem to have all of these rules for when they should or shouldn’t be working. I have some friends at tech companies who work something like: “long enough to get all three meals in the office, weekends when it’s urgent, at least eight hours a weekday, never after 9pm”. der…? what?
To be contrarian, I prefer to distill my work balance into a few rules that are easy enough for my brain to wrap around. This is what I do:
If I’m awake, I should be working.
If I can’t focus enough to do my work well, I should take a break.
If I’m too tired to work after taking a break, I should be sleeping.
I once asked one of my most diligent friends in college how he was able to take all of the hardest CS classes, work a part-time job, and do academic research in his spare time.
me: “How do you manage your work/life balance?”
friend: “Well, that’s an easy one. Let’s postulate that I have no life. Then really, there’s nothing to balance, is there?”