Non-US. I work exactly 8 hours. Unless there is an emergency. I never want to lose family time so the days I need to go to the gym I skip lunch (I eat something while working) and use the extra hour after work to go to the gym.
Yes Europe, I think it's pretty common around here not to overwork. I've had 3 jobs and all were similar. Do your work, no one checks your hours as long as you are not obviously underworking and on occasions you will have to stay a couple hours more just to make sure the servers don't die.
In Europe, this is very common to overwork. I am french and everybody that did not stay after 5pm was considered as "underperforming" and blamed for it. In the USA (at least after working in 3 companies in different states), if you stay after 5pm, it means you might not be able to complete your job in the allocated time and therefore, might be "underperforming". This is a simplification but this is the overall sentiment I have from both sides of the Atlantic.
Absolutely not in my experience. And ironically even less so in France. Have worked in Dublin, France, Switserland, and Belgium. The workweeks as a contractor were respectively (38,38,42,40)
I've never been in a company in France where working 40 hours (actually 35, 37.5 or 39 hours depending on contract and company size) was considered underperforming, for example. I've had two bosses who used to actually force some people to leave the office after 6pm or so (office time was 9-12/13-18) though I've never been one to stay longer than necessary myself.
In Canada however, I was expected to stay late in the evenings but that's just one company so I can't say it is representative of the whole country.
In Germany it works like that, at least for in-house developers in many larger companies. I got flex time and, on average, don't work more than 40 hours per week. Obviously there are some exceptions (like production issues and large releases), but employees are compensated for those with either money or time-off.
Married but no kids (yet). We are both urban professionals. I work 10-7, and more if needed after dinner at home. She works 8-7 but cannot do her job from home. I workout 2x during the week and 1x during the weekend.
My trick is to never work weekends. I work as hard as possible during the week then try not to work at all on the weekends. The key is to get into a routine where you don't burn out. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Find what works for you for the longterm. People in their early 20's who think they can keep 80 hour weeks up forever are naive (I used to be that way). Make time to socialize and maintain friendships.
Mental and physical health are essential. Eat healthy, exercise, don't push yourself too hard for too long.
I work a bit more than 9 hours a day, but am lucky to have disconnected working hours. I catch up on movies and reading while doing business development meetings (and making sure that I don't write private information in places it could be compromised), come home early, spend time with family and then do a few hours of focus time after dinner when the kids are asleep.
There's a fine line of course. Just like you don't want to be the guy working 20+ hours of free labor every week, you also don't want to be the guy who is out the door at 5:00:01 every evening and not a second before or after.
I think most people in most jobs will have something come up where they do a little extra, if only to help out a team member or something.
I am the guy out the door at 5 every day, not a second later. There are too many open positions to not do so. I don’t see it as a fine line, free labor is free labor whether it’s a minute or 20 hours.
If I need to help a team member, I skip lunch to pitch in.
There's no one answer. There are plenty of work cultures where you would be considered the worst member of the team because you're not putting in the time. The classic example is how at many Asian companies nobody dares to leave the office before their boss does. In the US you find the "always hustling" BS. On the other hand, there are jobs where results are 100% and you don't even need to show up at the office as long as you deliver the most value (this is the type I'd much rather do).
If I’m the worst member of the team because I’m not providing free labor, most definitely not a business I want to be at or a team I want to be on. Agree with your second point.
My concern are the employees who feel obligated to provide free work to keep their jobs. That’s what unions used to be for, to keep poor management practices in check, instead of a culture of fear and silent suffering.
I don't think the number of open positions has anything to do with it. In fact, I'm much more likely to agree with you for low-paid position. Just about everyone here who isn't a student (and let's be honest, even some of the students) are extremely well compensated for important but relatively easy jobs. I don't mind 10 minutes here or 15 minutes there if it helps the team out (as opposed to the company).
I just think being unflinchingly rigid in either direction is the problem. If you expect people to work extra time on a regular basis, or consistently, that's bad. If someone asks you a question that will take 15 minutes to answer and you won't do it because it's 4:50 and not 4:45, that's just as bad.
I can appreciate your opinion, but there’s nothing that can’t wait until tomorrow unless it’s life critical. Is it going to only take 15? Or will will it take 30-45 minutes and now I’ve missed dinner with my family for your question that is not critical.
If I don’t defend my time, who else will? I don’t buy the argument about rigidness being a bad thing. That’s how boundaries work best: clearly defined and enforced.
It's a bank account. If I notice the company often needs bursts of work, I'll leave a little early every day so that I have reserve funds to pitch in extra time when needed. If I'm working 40 hour weeks already, there's nothing left in the account.
When you're young and without responsibilities, there is no glaring cost to giving away free labor, but if I do so, it comes directly out of my time with my kids.
I just think it has to go both ways. I don't want my boss coming to me with a problem because I worked 7h 58m one day. On the flip side, I'm not going to send him a bill or count the minutes if I stay a few minutes late a different day.
I said it in another comment but it's being unflinchingly rigid that I think in a problem (in either direction).
In a country where sick pay is only called sick pay and where if your child is sick and stays home you still have to pay nursery but you don't actually get paid I really don't see a point in doing extra work. I still do it sometimes because it is the way I am but I don't judge anyone if they leave exactly on the hour. I am not complaining since my paycheck is allright but I can't imagine people with lower salaries and how they struggle with things like mentioned above. The whole system is broken.
Reading through the book right now (great book by the way, highly recommend it) - but curious why you cut down personal projects? Were they keeping you up too late or something else?
Yes, and it seemed to be the one thing that can be put on hold without negative consequences, in contrast to sleep and family. I still do some lighter things on the side (like DevLids.com), but nothing that takes much time like game-dev.
(US, Northern Virgina)
it's taken me 15 years but now I work about 8 hours a day; sometimes I help with after-hours tasks related to my job but that's rare (roughly, quarterly).
I used to work 10-14 hours a day, plus 24x7x365 oncall. It was miserable and my health (mental and physical) suffered greatly.
Mostly now I lift weights, run, and try to practice portion control.
The only remaining bad thing in work-life balance is my 8 hours of work is bookended by perhaps an hour each way commute, and it's getting worse every year. In another year or two there's going to be more mass transit in my area so at least I can play games on my phone instead of driving.
I work 8-5 as a software engineer (incl. lunch so only 40 hours a week) plus a short ~15 minutes highway commute each way. If there's an accident though that could easily be an hour, it's a congested area and there aren't many alternative routes. It's a crap shoot unfortunately but rarely an issue. My SO is a resident physician so averages 80 hours a week Mon-Sat. My "family" time is largely dependent on her schedule and I work in other things as I'm able.
For health, gym at 5:30am 4 days during the work week and an occasional Saturday workout. I try to eat healthy but not to the point where I'm not looking forward to a meal. Cooking for my SO is also a big stress reliever after a long day or if she's about to start a 24 hour call shift or something.
Productivity wise, I'm personally a fan of the "Nike" approach: just do it. If you're at work, do work. Don't sit on HN or Reddit or Facebook. If you need to use RescueTime or change your hosts file or whatever, fine. But just doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're supposed to be doing it is about as crucial a piece of the puzzle to your success as you'll ever find.
There's an important distinction between "taking a break" (e.g. playing foosball for a few minutes) and true downtime (I wouldn't be doing work right now even if I wanted to, because I don't have anything to do).
Spend time investigating how you could make the build faster. (tweak makefiles, compile only some parts, divide the app in shared libraries, stop using too many templates, move slow parts with lots of templates to a utility library, etc...)
This is an easy problem to solve. Keep a to-do list for down times - small tasks that are not too urgent/important, but can save time in the long run.
If you absolutely can't find anything to do in your task list, then you could do one of these two - first : find a colleague who needs help and help them. Second, keep a diary (or text file) and learn something new that is specific to your job/company. In my case, I work on a mid sized webapp, I know probably 30% of the application - so I make it a point to learn something small here and there, and it adds up over a period of time. Yes, I am aware that this knowledge is useless if I leave this job, but until then it is very useful.
Unfortunately, the Nike approach isn't one-size-fits-all. I always arrive at work with the just-do-it attitude. Now, here I am, pondering that while reading HN. Although, I am proud to say that I have narrowed down my daily work-reading to HN exclusively (since mid-December now), so I'm working on it!
When I got my current job, I chose a desk where my screen is visible to the room deliberately. I'd been stuck on a slashdot refresh loop since 1998, and the visibility of my screen broke the habit cold
Midlife single parent, so my answers are going to look a lot different than the average HN reader.
I average 40/week. Some weeks I need to surge, rarely I need to work weekends, but my ability to put in long hours is capped by my home situation (and my desire not to be a workaholic).
I wake my kids and get them ready for school each day. Sometimes they need homework help. We eat dinner together every night, and of course I have them all the time so we get to spend time together regardless of whether we want to. :)
I do strength training at the gym 2x/week, before the kids wake up. I run 3x/week, again before they get up.
I am as productive as I am required to be, but often no more productive. Meaning that the demands of life force productivity on me but I don't go crazy with the extracurricular activities.
I do spend time each day thinking about what my most important tasks are, just to make sure I'm making the best use of my time. I don't let other people take over my calendar, but I work for a small company so we're not meeting-heavy anyway.
All things considered, I am doing fine. I am fortunate to have understanding coworkers, good friends, and two really wonderful children.
Stop doing side projects. You're doing work, but not getting paid. If your job is also your hobby, your life is going to get depressingly homogeneous. Take a hike or play with your kids instead.
30 days of vacation and I work only from 9 to 6, sometimes a little bit more, but not so much. Not really counted as overtime. Europe, ofc.
I go to gym and try to enjoy the summer as much as I can.
Productivity tips: organize your life and move to a decent country with a decent culture. American work culture is terrible, so is Asia. You can make 10 trillions of dollars, but there is no way you can buy the 30 seconds that it took me to write that answer. I think those bad ideas are contagious so if you live in America, it is very unlikely that you will be able to balance well your life as everything there is about consumerism and it will eventually get you, maybe more in the country side that might be possible, but I can't see that happening in a big city. Live a simple life.
Once you are dead, it is over, so enjoy your time.
On the other hand software engineering job in US pays a lot so you can do a (relatively) quicker home run to financial independence if you don't fall into consumerism.
Mr. Money Mustache is the big name in the FIRE (financial Independence; retire early) community. But a lot of people doing FIRE are in tech in some way. I think it's a left brain thing, which people in software/tech have both the left brain mentality and financial capability to make early retirement happen.
I believe he makes more money from this than he was able to saved up. It is really a thing in America to believe in schemes that will make you rich/enable you to live off your investments. I know it.
Why retire early? I value being able to work. Not to mention that they generally talk about living frugal lifestyles, which I'm not a fan of. I like investing, making money etc. But all those retire before X schemes rely on people not understanding economics. Today you might have like 25x your yearly income or something that would enable you to retire, but as inflation, new currencies and changes in taxation and government policies, you will eventually get wrecked in the next 30-40 years. Just check how much the taxation in America has changed in the last 30-40 years and now try to believe that with your saved money you can live until you die.
> It is really a thing in America to believe in schemes that will make you rich/enable you to live off your investments
Personally, I don't think living frugally is a scheme. Spending less than you make and resisting the urge to buy things you don't need are the basic ideas behind financial independence. Investing your excess income allows for passive income to be generated.
Obviously this isn't viable for everyone, but if you're in a position of highish income and don't mind living frugally for some years, it's amazing what you're able to save. Some countries that tax their residents very high amounts (ex: many European countries) it might be harder to get ahead, but still not impossible to save I'd imagine.
> Why retire early? I value being able to work
There's nothing wrong with that! But for people who are interested in retiring early, they may have other goals in life besides their career. Retiring early allows for travel while you're still young and healthy, volunteer work, etc. Loving your job is a great thing and I think it's possible to work towards financial independence and enjoy your work.
> Just check how much the taxation in America has changed in the last 30-40 years and now try to believe that with your saved money you can live until you die
I'm not sure how taxes relate to the ability of my investments to generate returns. Could you elaborate a bit more on this?
Saving is very important. I live in Europe, it is kind of mandatory, saving and working until you are 65. Even though I don't own a car or anything of value, mostly save in a city with good disposable income. I'm quite well versed in economics, read it actively. The way you describe it, clearly displays a weakness either on your thought, or the American financial system. If a random guy from a Internet forum can do it, possibly, a lot of Americans can do as well. Now, who is going to work to keep society running while your frugal lifestyle supports you? Not to mention I would feel a bit like taking advantage of others, if I would just wake up everyday and enjoy life meanwhile I have a gardner, one person to clean my swimming pool, buy everything on the supermarket(which was made by somebody), just getting services, but not using my fully capability in order to help society thrive.
About the American thing. The US has been printing a lot of money lately and there are many signs that this party will be over in a very bad way. People will riot, go to the streets, question why some developer at FB makes 400k+ year not to mention the executives doing some bullshit work, burn down things and in the end they will possibly need to make America more socialist. The same type of mockery and abuse the US does to socialist countries, will be done to its own capitalist people. You really don't understand the dimension of power the US has been using(and losing) over the years with the Dollar. Nowadays to be honest, almost everything I buy is from China, not the US. I wonder how the US can survive running huge deficits and creating conflict with other countries.
America nowadays just export dollars. It is a product that more and more people are with their hands full. Instead of questioning me about that, I think you would be better off asking your government how to make anything that you earn
and save Today, will have ANY value at all in the future.
> I live in Europe, it is kind of mandatory, saving and working until you are 65
Who is mandating this?
> I would feel a bit like taking advantage of others, if I would just wake up everyday and enjoy life meanwhile I have a gardner [sic], one person to clean my swimming pool, buy everything on the supermarket(which was made by somebody), just getting services, but not using my fully capability in order to help society thrive
If you work 80 hours per week for 30 years, are you morally superior to someone who has only spent 40 hours per week working for 40 years? It's absurd and impossible to assign morality to time working.
Looks like you're asserting some sense of moral imperative that people work until they're 65. Moving the goalposts from a whether it's _possible_ to retire early to whether it's _moral_ to retire early seems to be nonsense to me. I don't believe there's any morality to be found one way or the other in working until age 65, it's a non sequitur.
> The US has been printing a lot of money lately [...] I think you would be better off asking your government how to make anything that you earn and save Today, will have ANY value at all in the future.
I completely agree; if we keep spending more than is taxed as well as printing money faster, then yes that will be the case. The debt is unsustainable in the US currently.
Where you and I differ is what we think the result of that increasing debt will be. I think the US will eventually cut social programs and possibly increase taxes to fix the debt problem. You seem to think that socialism will be the end result. I hope that isn't the case, as I have a hard time finding a situation where fighting debt with more debt works in the long run.
This question seems to me like it is naturally self selective to those who have healthy work-life balances. I'd like to hear a couple from the 10-15 hour day workers.
I'm a 29 year old freelancer / digital nomad, been traveling and doing high-profile tech contracts for last 5 years. I go with the flow. It really depends on the contract and what's currently going on in my life, or where I am.
Last summer I was in Europe and I've been working 10-12h per day in August (my peak month so far). June-November approx 4-6 hours a day.
Now I'm in Koh Phangan, Thailand and work few hours a month, but fully focusing on healthy lifestyle and training/meditation.
In April I go back to Europe and plan is to grind hard for the next few years. I work in bursts. My routine when I work full-time is having breakfast at my place or a coffee shop and working from there in the morning, hitting the gym around noon, then more work at home/another coffee shop, and unwind during the evening.
There are exceptions to this, if I don't feel productive in the afternoons, I postpone work for evening. I again tend to feel the "flow" of my mental productivity and organize around that. Never had any strict rules and it's been working pretty fine so far.
USA, had few from bay area as well. I work in the mornings or just read the news and learn some new things since I am more-or-less on holidays now and will start looking for full-time contract more actively soon.
I wake up, go to the gym (1h), then I go to work (8h +1h eating), come back home, work on my startup (2-3h).
On weekends same, except I'm only working on my startup.
It is a tough life, after 1 month of this schedule, I was exhausted, but the body is capable of adapting, and now I handling that easily. This is possible only because I use my bike as transportation system and thus it is very fast, and that everything I do is optimized.
Downsides is that I have almost no social life, I mean I could have about 1h of social life per day, but that would require too much energy. My health is good, but this is thanks to all the sport I do I think
8 hours max. My intellectual productivity peaks 3 to 4 hours after I wake, and it's pretty non-existent 7 to 8 hours after I wake.
It's not fair to yourself to work beyond a sustainable amount: once you pull a weekend shift or two, your boss starts to expect it even when you can't do it, and you set yourself down an unsustainable path. I make it clear to my bosses that I won't do this, and if they need me to, it's a sign of corporate disfunction, not my own.
Productivity trick: I diligently incorporate exercise into my commute: I either bicycle or run (with backpack) as part of my evening commute, roughly year round. Combining the activity with bus routes makes this feasible in most large cities, and the activity quickly becomes the most enjoyable part of my day.
I have a few hours in the evening designated as non-work time, and I never work weekends.
I work 8 hours per work day, of which I have 4 per week. In the morning I bring my kids to school, on Friday I pick them up from school, because that's my day off. My wife picks them up on her day off: Wednesday. Other days, they're picked up by afterschool child care, and my wife picks them up there when she gets home from work.
I've got a day with the kids, she's got a day with the kids, we've got a weekend with the entire family. On Thursday evenings once every two weeks, we get a babysitter and have an evening for the two of us.
I completely neglected exercise until recently (I'm 44), but since a few months I'm doing cross-fit twice a week (aiming for 3 times).
Main productivity trick: sleep well, keep work hours limited so you can give it your undivided attention during that time.
I disagree with the conceptual basis for the concept of work/life balance. The entire concept of this bifurcation assumes that "work" must be defined as a drudgery in service to some ill-defined hedonic or Eudaimonian "life."
I wouldn't dispute that the vast majority of people do live in a cyclical state of drudgery and leisure.
However, if you have the luxury of being able to "balance" these states, then you're likely not doing the same kind of drudgery that seems to be descriptive of the concept. I've had those jobs and been in that position, my shift leader didn't care about helping me make time for my hobbies.
So my answer is, there is no "right" balance and what others do will only serve to create many different "greener pastures" in your mind.
At different times in my life I've worked 90 hour weeks for months at a time, and others 10 hour weeks. I've spent long periods (almost a year) as a stay home dad, at other points I spent almost a year completely away from my family.
The distinction is, I have made my life my work (ever hear of a "life's work"?), in that there are things that I want to achieve and I have created my career around progress toward that goal.
I've structured my life such that the type of work I do serves my broader life goal.
At the point in which that's not possible, then how I spend my time is out of my control and the question becomes moot because I'd effectively have no control over my life.
I work 9-5, 8 hours per day including lunch (I hate companies that try to squeeze an extra hour basically telling you that they don't pay for your lunch time, yet they require 1 whole hour for your lunch, forcing you to stay 9 hours in the office..). Sweden. I work 50% from home 50% from the office. When I work from home, I play once a week tennis nearby (I have a car) during lunch time. When working from the office, I go regularly to the gym before work. Sometimes I start my work from a cafe and then switch to the office or the opposite.
After work, I will probably do a side project for a couple of hours and then spend some time with my SO and housework.
My tip would be to go to the gym just after work as it relaxes your mind a lot, especially if you are a developer. Unfortunately doesn't work in my case since my gym is fully packed at that time. So I take a half an hour break then walking outside or something similar before I jump in my side projects. Another tip would be to wake up and spend time on your side projects before starting your work (ideally if you can start a bit later as well) since your mind is working at 100% at that time. Of course this requires that you are a morning person..
I've always had office hours 9am-7pm, with some on call. I rely on SAH wife to look after children, but family time 8-10pm and weekends. Work on learning and projects some nights. We try to do active stuff together - biking, skiing swimming, but wish I was fitter.
I work around 55ish hours a week on average. I have a very short commute (<10 min walk) and I pay for services that reduce the amount of time I spend running errands (I use a cleaning service, I get my groceries delivered, etc.), so I probably have around the same amount or almost as much free time as the average person who works 40 hours a week.
I cap it at apx 40 hours a week. Sometimes I'll hack late if I'm inspired. I can pull little bursts but I do not let work pressure drive me to do more than what is healthy.
To add some balance to all the full-time people here: I work 20 hours per week. Which usually means 4 hours per day, 5 days a week. But, I can (and do) re-organise those hours depending on what activities I plan... meaning, I can take an extended week-end if I want to, or, have a day off in the middle of the week and work at the week-end instead, for example.
The rest of the time I work on things that I'm excited to learn about and improve in, like working outdoors, or... painting :D.
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[ 58.1 ms ] story [ 348 ms ] thread- Your Favorite President
Absolutely not in my experience. And ironically even less so in France. Have worked in Dublin, France, Switserland, and Belgium. The workweeks as a contractor were respectively (38,38,42,40)
I've never been in a company in France where working 40 hours (actually 35, 37.5 or 39 hours depending on contract and company size) was considered underperforming, for example. I've had two bosses who used to actually force some people to leave the office after 6pm or so (office time was 9-12/13-18) though I've never been one to stay longer than necessary myself.
In Canada however, I was expected to stay late in the evenings but that's just one company so I can't say it is representative of the whole country.
My trick is to never work weekends. I work as hard as possible during the week then try not to work at all on the weekends. The key is to get into a routine where you don't burn out. Life is a marathon, not a sprint. Find what works for you for the longterm. People in their early 20's who think they can keep 80 hour weeks up forever are naive (I used to be that way). Make time to socialize and maintain friendships.
Mental and physical health are essential. Eat healthy, exercise, don't push yourself too hard for too long.
I cut down personal projects to a minimum after reading "Why we sleep", and it helps with overall well-being.
Commuting via Bike is also a big health-win for me. One hour on most work-days (sometimes the temperature or other circumstances require the car).
If you work more, you get abused and low-balled by salary negotiations
I think most people in most jobs will have something come up where they do a little extra, if only to help out a team member or something.
If I need to help a team member, I skip lunch to pitch in.
My concern are the employees who feel obligated to provide free work to keep their jobs. That’s what unions used to be for, to keep poor management practices in check, instead of a culture of fear and silent suffering.
I just think being unflinchingly rigid in either direction is the problem. If you expect people to work extra time on a regular basis, or consistently, that's bad. If someone asks you a question that will take 15 minutes to answer and you won't do it because it's 4:50 and not 4:45, that's just as bad.
If I don’t defend my time, who else will? I don’t buy the argument about rigidness being a bad thing. That’s how boundaries work best: clearly defined and enforced.
When you're young and without responsibilities, there is no glaring cost to giving away free labor, but if I do so, it comes directly out of my time with my kids.
I said it in another comment but it's being unflinchingly rigid that I think in a problem (in either direction).
I used to work 10-14 hours a day, plus 24x7x365 oncall. It was miserable and my health (mental and physical) suffered greatly.
Mostly now I lift weights, run, and try to practice portion control.
The only remaining bad thing in work-life balance is my 8 hours of work is bookended by perhaps an hour each way commute, and it's getting worse every year. In another year or two there's going to be more mass transit in my area so at least I can play games on my phone instead of driving.
For health, gym at 5:30am 4 days during the work week and an occasional Saturday workout. I try to eat healthy but not to the point where I'm not looking forward to a meal. Cooking for my SO is also a big stress reliever after a long day or if she's about to start a 24 hour call shift or something.
Productivity wise, I'm personally a fan of the "Nike" approach: just do it. If you're at work, do work. Don't sit on HN or Reddit or Facebook. If you need to use RescueTime or change your hosts file or whatever, fine. But just doing what you're supposed to be doing when you're supposed to be doing it is about as crucial a piece of the puzzle to your success as you'll ever find.
If you absolutely can't find anything to do in your task list, then you could do one of these two - first : find a colleague who needs help and help them. Second, keep a diary (or text file) and learn something new that is specific to your job/company. In my case, I work on a mid sized webapp, I know probably 30% of the application - so I make it a point to learn something small here and there, and it adds up over a period of time. Yes, I am aware that this knowledge is useless if I leave this job, but until then it is very useful.
I average 40/week. Some weeks I need to surge, rarely I need to work weekends, but my ability to put in long hours is capped by my home situation (and my desire not to be a workaholic).
I wake my kids and get them ready for school each day. Sometimes they need homework help. We eat dinner together every night, and of course I have them all the time so we get to spend time together regardless of whether we want to. :)
I do strength training at the gym 2x/week, before the kids wake up. I run 3x/week, again before they get up.
I am as productive as I am required to be, but often no more productive. Meaning that the demands of life force productivity on me but I don't go crazy with the extracurricular activities.
I do spend time each day thinking about what my most important tasks are, just to make sure I'm making the best use of my time. I don't let other people take over my calendar, but I work for a small company so we're not meeting-heavy anyway.
All things considered, I am doing fine. I am fortunate to have understanding coworkers, good friends, and two really wonderful children.
Typically I do Pomodoro and spend the breaks having tea, talking with my partner, etc.
My plan is to take several months off each year.
I go to gym and try to enjoy the summer as much as I can.
Productivity tips: organize your life and move to a decent country with a decent culture. American work culture is terrible, so is Asia. You can make 10 trillions of dollars, but there is no way you can buy the 30 seconds that it took me to write that answer. I think those bad ideas are contagious so if you live in America, it is very unlikely that you will be able to balance well your life as everything there is about consumerism and it will eventually get you, maybe more in the country side that might be possible, but I can't see that happening in a big city. Live a simple life.
Once you are dead, it is over, so enjoy your time.
Resources: https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/blog/ https://www.bogleheads.org/ https://www.reddit.com/r/financialindependence/
Why retire early? I value being able to work. Not to mention that they generally talk about living frugal lifestyles, which I'm not a fan of. I like investing, making money etc. But all those retire before X schemes rely on people not understanding economics. Today you might have like 25x your yearly income or something that would enable you to retire, but as inflation, new currencies and changes in taxation and government policies, you will eventually get wrecked in the next 30-40 years. Just check how much the taxation in America has changed in the last 30-40 years and now try to believe that with your saved money you can live until you die.
Personally, I don't think living frugally is a scheme. Spending less than you make and resisting the urge to buy things you don't need are the basic ideas behind financial independence. Investing your excess income allows for passive income to be generated.
Obviously this isn't viable for everyone, but if you're in a position of highish income and don't mind living frugally for some years, it's amazing what you're able to save. Some countries that tax their residents very high amounts (ex: many European countries) it might be harder to get ahead, but still not impossible to save I'd imagine.
> Why retire early? I value being able to work
There's nothing wrong with that! But for people who are interested in retiring early, they may have other goals in life besides their career. Retiring early allows for travel while you're still young and healthy, volunteer work, etc. Loving your job is a great thing and I think it's possible to work towards financial independence and enjoy your work.
> Just check how much the taxation in America has changed in the last 30-40 years and now try to believe that with your saved money you can live until you die
I'm not sure how taxes relate to the ability of my investments to generate returns. Could you elaborate a bit more on this?
About the American thing. The US has been printing a lot of money lately and there are many signs that this party will be over in a very bad way. People will riot, go to the streets, question why some developer at FB makes 400k+ year not to mention the executives doing some bullshit work, burn down things and in the end they will possibly need to make America more socialist. The same type of mockery and abuse the US does to socialist countries, will be done to its own capitalist people. You really don't understand the dimension of power the US has been using(and losing) over the years with the Dollar. Nowadays to be honest, almost everything I buy is from China, not the US. I wonder how the US can survive running huge deficits and creating conflict with other countries.
America nowadays just export dollars. It is a product that more and more people are with their hands full. Instead of questioning me about that, I think you would be better off asking your government how to make anything that you earn and save Today, will have ANY value at all in the future.
In summa, good luck with that.
Who is mandating this?
> I would feel a bit like taking advantage of others, if I would just wake up everyday and enjoy life meanwhile I have a gardner [sic], one person to clean my swimming pool, buy everything on the supermarket(which was made by somebody), just getting services, but not using my fully capability in order to help society thrive
If you work 80 hours per week for 30 years, are you morally superior to someone who has only spent 40 hours per week working for 40 years? It's absurd and impossible to assign morality to time working.
Looks like you're asserting some sense of moral imperative that people work until they're 65. Moving the goalposts from a whether it's _possible_ to retire early to whether it's _moral_ to retire early seems to be nonsense to me. I don't believe there's any morality to be found one way or the other in working until age 65, it's a non sequitur.
> The US has been printing a lot of money lately [...] I think you would be better off asking your government how to make anything that you earn and save Today, will have ANY value at all in the future.
I completely agree; if we keep spending more than is taxed as well as printing money faster, then yes that will be the case. The debt is unsustainable in the US currently.
Where you and I differ is what we think the result of that increasing debt will be. I think the US will eventually cut social programs and possibly increase taxes to fix the debt problem. You seem to think that socialism will be the end result. I hope that isn't the case, as I have a hard time finding a situation where fighting debt with more debt works in the long run.
Thank you for taking the time to discuss with me!
Last summer I was in Europe and I've been working 10-12h per day in August (my peak month so far). June-November approx 4-6 hours a day.
Now I'm in Koh Phangan, Thailand and work few hours a month, but fully focusing on healthy lifestyle and training/meditation.
In April I go back to Europe and plan is to grind hard for the next few years. I work in bursts. My routine when I work full-time is having breakfast at my place or a coffee shop and working from there in the morning, hitting the gym around noon, then more work at home/another coffee shop, and unwind during the evening.
There are exceptions to this, if I don't feel productive in the afternoons, I postpone work for evening. I again tend to feel the "flow" of my mental productivity and organize around that. Never had any strict rules and it's been working pretty fine so far.
Timezone difference (+13h) can be PITA.
I wake up, go to the gym (1h), then I go to work (8h +1h eating), come back home, work on my startup (2-3h).
On weekends same, except I'm only working on my startup.
It is a tough life, after 1 month of this schedule, I was exhausted, but the body is capable of adapting, and now I handling that easily. This is possible only because I use my bike as transportation system and thus it is very fast, and that everything I do is optimized.
Downsides is that I have almost no social life, I mean I could have about 1h of social life per day, but that would require too much energy. My health is good, but this is thanks to all the sport I do I think
It's not fair to yourself to work beyond a sustainable amount: once you pull a weekend shift or two, your boss starts to expect it even when you can't do it, and you set yourself down an unsustainable path. I make it clear to my bosses that I won't do this, and if they need me to, it's a sign of corporate disfunction, not my own.
Productivity trick: I diligently incorporate exercise into my commute: I either bicycle or run (with backpack) as part of my evening commute, roughly year round. Combining the activity with bus routes makes this feasible in most large cities, and the activity quickly becomes the most enjoyable part of my day.
I have a few hours in the evening designated as non-work time, and I never work weekends.
I've got a day with the kids, she's got a day with the kids, we've got a weekend with the entire family. On Thursday evenings once every two weeks, we get a babysitter and have an evening for the two of us.
I completely neglected exercise until recently (I'm 44), but since a few months I'm doing cross-fit twice a week (aiming for 3 times).
Main productivity trick: sleep well, keep work hours limited so you can give it your undivided attention during that time.
I wouldn't dispute that the vast majority of people do live in a cyclical state of drudgery and leisure.
However, if you have the luxury of being able to "balance" these states, then you're likely not doing the same kind of drudgery that seems to be descriptive of the concept. I've had those jobs and been in that position, my shift leader didn't care about helping me make time for my hobbies.
So my answer is, there is no "right" balance and what others do will only serve to create many different "greener pastures" in your mind.
At different times in my life I've worked 90 hour weeks for months at a time, and others 10 hour weeks. I've spent long periods (almost a year) as a stay home dad, at other points I spent almost a year completely away from my family.
The distinction is, I have made my life my work (ever hear of a "life's work"?), in that there are things that I want to achieve and I have created my career around progress toward that goal.
I've structured my life such that the type of work I do serves my broader life goal.
At the point in which that's not possible, then how I spend my time is out of my control and the question becomes moot because I'd effectively have no control over my life.
My tip would be to go to the gym just after work as it relaxes your mind a lot, especially if you are a developer. Unfortunately doesn't work in my case since my gym is fully packed at that time. So I take a half an hour break then walking outside or something similar before I jump in my side projects. Another tip would be to wake up and spend time on your side projects before starting your work (ideally if you can start a bit later as well) since your mind is working at 100% at that time. Of course this requires that you are a morning person..