| > Separate your space. Make sure your work and home environments don’t collide. Depends on what works for you. For me it’s the exact opposite. I don’t think separating work and the rest of your life is natural or healthy way to approach things. It feels really wrong to me to have these major parts of your life completely compartmentalized, not just in space but in time as well. For 8 hours a day I should only think about work, and ignore every other part of my life and vice versa? For me the exact opposite works way better: I try go blend my work and my personal life as much as possible. If I get stuck on something work related, I don’t stress out and try to push through it, trying to be productive because I’m inside this arbitrary 8-hour window. Instead I go do a chore around the house, get my mind off the problem. Usually this helps and gets me unstuck and I’ll continue with my work related things. The reverse is also true: when inspiration strikes outside work hours and I just need to turn my idea into code, I’m not going to hold it in for hours (or even days if it’s a weekend) until it’s 9am on a work day, I’m going to grab my laptop and implement it right then and there. I find trying to force myself into these time/space separated compartments for work an personal life extremely stressful. I’m actually one single person, this is not Severance. For me life/work balance means that these aspects of myself are balanced at all times, instead of switch between the two. |