[_heimdall]

I draw the line at doing work that I can be proud of. That doesn't mean going out of my way and overworking myself, but it does mean being a good person to work with and writing quality code.

I tend to stick to the scope of work asked of me (though not always) for the reasons in the article, but I don't just phone it in. I put effort into writing good code, tests, and PR reviews.

In my experience, when it comes to getting the next job the only thing that really matters either way are references. If you were a too co-worker and did at least put in the effort to do good work within bounds of the scope asked for, you shouldn't have a problem.

[apercu]

> I draw the line at doing work that I can be proud of.

That's important. I spend more awake time working/thinking about work than really else. I don't know that it's healthy, but at least I want to be proud of the outputs if I am going to spend this much time on something. I just can't really show up and mail it in, I'm just not wired that way, and suspect that a lot if us aren't.

[mattgreenrocks]

Some of that is inevitable when developing taste, or if the problem has you (so to speak). The problem is when this is the case all the time instead of a season here and there.

Your ability to page out work is a great thing to track.

[apercu]

"The problem is when this is the case all the time instead of a season here and there"

I hope I'm not projecting, and misinterpreting, but I try to explain this to a colleague all the time. His work style is 8 months of the year a couple hours here and then 2-3 months of crazy, intense work.

But I have to show up for 25-30 (I'm self-employed) hours a week, 48 weeks a year, and I find it really difficult to then squeeze in 2-4 months of 50+ hours weeks on top of this.

There is sprinting and there is distance running and for most of us, these are very different things.

[djtriptych]

Yeah this is super important IMO. Set your own standards for what that means. Makes it much easier to handle the slings and arrows of normal 9-5 headaches, and to understand when you're being pressed to do things you wouldn't be proud of.