Work/Life balance

I believe the overall idea of having a balance between work and life is sane and makes sense. In the general sense of what it means, I advocate for it and pursue it for my own life actively, but I also think people want to take it a bit too far quite too often.

In the context of creating your own startup, if you think working hard is optional and that you can keep your normal office hours strictly between 9 to 5, then you’ll set yourself for a big surprise. This is definitely possible to achieve in the long run but pretending it is possible when you are just starting up is just fooling yourself.

Let me try to make you view it from my perspective and let’s agree on the following:

  1. Time is precious. You only have a finite amount of it and you want to use it wisely.
  2. You are building a tech startup that is more likely to fail than not.

If you agree to the statements above then you may agree with my points below.

I would work the hardest I can for the longest I can because I want to know if my startup will succeed or not. I would like to know it sooner rather than later to minimize not only the negative financial impact on my life but most importantly, the negative time impact of potentially be working on the wrong things.

I don’t know how you can get there if you only work 9 to 5, no weekends, and taking your usual vacations in the middle. Maybe there is a way and I just have not found it.

I know sustaining this intense rhythm for too long will have negative consequences and that’s why it is important to know yourself fully before doing anything. You have to know your limits, when to push harder, when to rest, and sometimes when to quit.

I’m not a competitor in the contest of “who works the hardest” either and to be honest, I wish I could work less and still get to achieve the goals I set for myself in life.

I tried working fewer hours and it didn’t work out just like the time when I tried to sleep less so that I could have more hours to work. In the end, I had 19 hours a day of a cloudy mind that couldn’t think straight and that was significantly less creative than my well-rested mind.

There are public figures on the Internet that are very vocal about working hard and smart, like Sam Altman, and those who say that working long hours is wrong at any stage, like DHH and Jason Fried. I think all of them make very good points.

Given my circumstances in life, where I live, where I come from, my socioeconomic background, and where I want to be in the future, for me at least, working the hardest I can while I can has not been optional.

I know this opinion won’t sit well with everybody, and after all, people’s ultimate goal is happiness and there are several paths that lead to it. At the end of the day, you have to follow the one that you feel is right for you and a random guy like me on the Internet should not have a saying in there ;).