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That is three minutes of my life I'll never get back.

The author seems to spend an entire page refuting his own headline in the most scattered way possible.

It was like listening to a friend who'd had a few beers try to explain an idea that he seems to feel strongly about but hadn't actually tried to cohere in his own mind; A pop-psy shaggy dog story.

Yeah, after reading it, my only thought was, "I agree, let's stop talking about this whole subject".

While the article may seem like six of one / half-dozen of the other at first glance, I love that the author spends time examining the problem.

Things that help me have a "healthy relationship with my work":

Communication with everybody. If a client asks for a change to something, it always takes more time and usually costs more money. I communicate that to the client as early as possible. If a weekend is coming up and I'm working on a big project, everybody involved is going to get a phone call from me. Not an email, a phone call. We talk, we empathize, and we feel better about resuming on Monday. Have a nice weekend!

If I am about to have a very stressful day, I run my plans by my wife. She's has saved me literally hundreds of hours of off-hours work by saying, "I'm sure they'll understand if you just call them and explain X and Y." She is so good at bringing out the details and examining the situation for what it is. It works every time. Somehow my samurai work ethic is way too stubborn sometimes.

I exercise my option to turn down projects as often as I want. Six years ago I stood above my twin daughters' headstone, somehow still thinking about a work project I had going on, and all of the drama was completely ridiculous compared to the big picture of life, family, and normal relationships. I looked up toward the distant mountains, said "it's not worth it," and things have been better ever since. That memory comes to mind whenever I have big decisions to make--is the cost of the happy-life-occlusion scenario worth it, in light of the simple things that fulfill my requirements in life?

Anyway, great article. I would add that at some point, plenty of people decide to change their work and go through the entire upheaval again, re-answering all of these balance questions. I have a friend who is literally packing her things right now to leave home and become a missionary. The stress is evident on her face, but when she talks about her future, she's excited and seems fulfilled in some way. In a similar vein, I've had a few conversations with "retirees" who are extremely stressed about what they're about to enter into, but there's no way they're going back.

Thank you for sharing this. This is exactly the kind of thinking I was hoping people would talk about.

The author wants you to use the term "work to live, don’t live to work" instead. Wouldn't really recommend the article, has nothing original or insightful to say (or even controversial).

There is still an issue when employers demand more than is reasonable. This is probably more of an issue in other industries than generally in software development but there are exceptions, particularly in games.

>To repeat: you cannot compartmentalize.

Yes you can, and you very much should.

A simple example: If all your hobbies (tennis, painting, and guitar) rely on the use of your right hand, you'll be much unhappier when your right hand is injured, than if your hobbies were better compartmentalized (singing, painting, and running).

But that's the opposite of compartmentalizing. Compartmentalizing implies that each is kept separate and doesn't influence the other. What you describe is someone taking all of their hobbies as a whole into account and figuring out how to strike the best overall balance.

Going by that interpretation, I can never compartmentalize. Everytime I setup a bunch of different compartments, you will accuse me of looking at the whole and not really comppartmentalizing.

All I'm saying is that you can't isolate the parts of your lives from one another because you, as a person, are always the common denominator. If some part of your life has an impact on you (physically, emotionally, whatever) that impact is going to be carried with you into all the other parts of your life.

Are you saying that's a tautology or an absurd claim?

Alternatively, you may be better at those hobbies if you specialize as such. If I have a penchant for being dexterous with my right hand, I will probably enjoy hobbies where I can exploit that to its fullest.

This article makes some assumptions about each person's motives about working long hours, but it's simply not necessarily true. There are startups out there that expect 60+ hour weeks as the norm. I left one such company since that is extremely unreasonable.

But for some people at some points in their lives it may be a great opportunity, or something they might enjoy/be willing to do for a limited period. If that's all their work ever becomes for the whole career, then they likely have a problem. But looked at from the perspective of a live as a whole, it may have a place within certain contexts and reasonable limits.