Work Life Balance | Prime React
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- čas přidán 29. 06. 2024
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It is often said that hard-working and efficient employees are rewarded with more work.
At a good workplace, this comes with promotion, compensation, and recognition
All of you are right, it depends on where you work. Some workplaces predate that kind of workers by taking advantage of them an giving them little to nothing in return, or only stupid stuff such as plaques or hanging their name on the wall. Work is for money --if it weren't, everyone would still be working, but for themselves or for whatever person/organization they want. So having said that, harder work should equal higher pay always. Sadly that's not the case, at many workplaces salary is a flat rate whether you work 8 or 12 hours a day
@@zealy1369 I disagree with your takes here. You universally assume that if people are underpaid, they deserve it. You'd make a good CEO.
Regarding people who have no other options, I guess it's fine that they get exploited then. Again, nice CEO thinking there. Or at the very least, a very USA perspective on the matter.
Also you talk about a painter, well I've never seen painters do 9 to 5 in an office, so that comparison is weak. The value of work for employees is usually an hourly rate, so yes, I expect working more hours equals more pay, no matter what you do. Of course I'm talking about employees at a company, not self employed people as a painter would probably be.
To clarify, I wasn't talking about 'x should get paid more/less for the work they do', which would have more to do with what you mention about "the value of your work" or "you can be replaced very easily". If your work only merits 10 cents an hour, then fine, get paid 10 cents an hour. But if they make you work overtime and only pay you for your 9-5, then that's what I have a problem with
@@zealy1369 god i hate capitalists, you just have zero empathy for anyone other than yourself
@@kippers12isOG true but most workplaces are not good workplaces by that standard.
I am a good programmer. But I also want to be a good father and husband. It is not possible if you are working 12 hours a day. Not just working but thinking and talking about it in the free time.
Life is not about bytes anyway 👍🏻
Absolutely. This was my first reaction. When he got to the point where he was talking about being one of the best programmers, he's right. Wanna be the best? Put in the work. As fathers and husbands, we have different priorities. We can enjoy our work and get good at it with our 40 hours, but then we have to decide how we want to use the other time in our lives and family is a worthwhile place to put it.
Yeah and that's admirable - you accomplish just as much, it's just over more topics.
Later in life you have other priorities. You have to work early in your career to reach senior level, then when your priorities shift, you can move into upper management or have your niche
This is so true. I love programming but also spending time with my kids. And when you spend time with the kids you have in mind all the code you want to accomplish and when you code you feel bad not spending more time with the family…
Johnathan Blow works in his own games with his own language. That's very far from what an average person considers work, which is usually some obligation that requires you to relinquish a considerable level of autonomy. I bet that even the Primeagen gets dragged into a few meetings when he wishes he could be coding.
This. CEOs talk about long working hours and motivation, but it's easy when a) you're the owner or b) you get paid a percentage of the earnings. For normal employees, why should they go above and beyond? You need to provide some tangible rewards for that. Whatever the company does, it's not their calling, it's not their pet project, it's not their life, and usually they'll get paid the same whether they put in a lot of effort or just adequate
also, people keep referencing Twitter like it isn't the smallest social network. With almost only american users and only 5% of them actually posting, you can't get a social view from there. Those "I see people like that on Twitter all the time" is just...
@@Titere05 Trueee I have a normal job and a "side hustle". Don't put me on the hustle culture plz, those people are insane. And until I did a revenue sharing program with my employees I was having problems with the extra hours and work spikes of the business.
And he has no kids afaik
@@Titere05 he wrote his own language and started making games in it. Indie devs make solo games all the time. He got there because he worked. He wasnt born with his own language and company.
The work/life balance discussion exists for a reason, mainly to acknowledge that most jobs are run by greedy assholes who will see you as no more than an object which generates value for them.
There is a very big difference between spending 10+ hours per day writing code for a personal project you absolutely love and working 10+ hours in an office with no overtime because your boss told you that you need to close the deadline...
The author of the video literally adressed that... Pretty sure he said you should work the normal 40h week for your job and then spend the rest of the hours working on whatever you want at home.
@@explosionspin3422 The thing is that's what most people are referring to when they say "work life balance," besides those on Twitter. They are talking about drawing boundaries so that you are not sucked lifeless by greedy C suite.
I don't think anyone with any sense would deny those that put in the hour to perfect their craft is gonna be better than those that didn't given the exact same baseline. No one can deny that.
"Most jobs are run by greedy assholes who will see you as no more than an object that generates value for them". Isn't that how most people view the company they work for? Most people are working to generate money for themselves not because they love what they do or the company they work for.
I partially agree: if you like your work, then its fine to work longer hours, but burnout is no joke. Even if you like your work, it can be too much. Just like you can't go to the gym all the time and have a healthy body, I also think your mind needs a change of pace every once in a while. In the same vain, people need hobbies besides their work and need socialisation besides work. You see this with top athletes: lot's of them overwork their bodies and burn out or get injuries.
"In the same vain, people need hobbies besides their work and need socialisation besides work" - I never saw someone debatelording NBA players (or any professional sports player) on the need for socialization and hobbies outside of practice. I don't know why, I just find it funny.
John Carmack has been trying to communicate his freedom to choose to work more hours since 2015 or maybe even earlier, but it always felt like he's talking past everyone else. My point is, as much as people are free to prioritize their goals in life so are hard workers. I don't see how the internet made a mountain out of this mole hill. "You do you, and don't yuck other people's yums" why is this so hard?
@@meltygear5955 The thing is, people are social animals after all. Some people need more, some people need less, but we all need to be loved by others. If you only focus on work, I think you drive people out of your life, which in the end takes a toll on your mental health. Doesn't mean you can work long hours, and balance means different things to different people, but I can't see right now how working all the time can be healthy.
@@computerfan1079 I'm just saying that's stuff everyone is aware of their trade-offs since high school, when you had to sacrifice going to that party because there's an exam coming up.
The internet is more trigger happy to raise pitch forks for "workaholics" than "gamerholics". Especially reddit that's like "Oh you only have 2000 hours Dota 2? Those are some rookie hours" but saying "I have 2000 hours Rust" will go "woah dude relax did you know there's life outside? Go get a hobbie haha".
Taking breaks are reasonable, it's just when your breaks are all you do, you can't complain. You just have to understand where you are and what you want to accomplish.
@@meltygear5955 That last sentence is odd to me. People make fun of gamers that play way too much all the time. Like it's very easy to encounter memes about "dwelling in your mum's basement" playing WoW, LoL or Dota 2.
Among the top 5 regrets of the dying is that they wish they had allowed themselves to be happier and, that they wish they didn't work as hard.
Some people are competitive, even hyper-competitive, and that's fine. But don't think you have the game all figured out while you're in it.
Hottest take in the comment section.
fuck that, be a contrarian and and strive towards nuance and middle grounds and you will get much closer to the truth than anyone else
I think there's a big difference between someone who is overworked and someone thirsty for more.
I feel like way too many kids tell themselves this as an excuse not to work hard from the beginning.
@Niclas Klugmann Good take
As someone who has gone through burnout, my main gripe with this whole discussion is the glorification of hard work, which can and does steer people towards seeing their worth as a function of their productive output. People who argue this position can put up all the disclaimers they want (you do you, etc), but at the end of the day I dislike the optics. I think dangling the whole "brooo u could get so much more done if you worked 80 hours a week" does more harm than good, especially to younger people just entering the dev field (ie me like 3 years ago). There are a lot of things that might be true, but true does not equal helpful or useful.
People who say burnouts aren't real, haven't been burned out. But it can come. And when it does, you go down. Hard. I have a hard time dealing with people who think everything can be solved by just putting your head down and working until it's time to go to bed.
You are talking about glorification of amount of work, not the skill that comes with amount of work. The term hard work is overloaded, to me it just means solely a sense of dedication from an individual to be adamant. It does not mean the hours to me. Pure hours to me means that you care more for it, because of wants/needs. Hard work in the sense of pure hours should be something you strive to do because you want to, not because you need to. In the event that you need the hours, the stress and turmoil you feel is completely logical and makes sense. I don't recommend wasting time on work for works sake, I recommend wasting time on your own hobbies and things, because that's a great thing :) If your work is your hobby, you could strike a balance or you could go all out. It's smart to consider all these options.
Dude spent 19 minutes saying "if you don't sacrifice your life to work you won't become as good as people who sacrifice their life for work."
Well apparently he needed to spend a few more minutes, because he started by saying that there is no sacrifice to your life if your work is a part of your life. Choose a life that works for you, just also understand that the choices you make about how and how much you work will influence how good you become at it.
@@MrLordFireDragon Thats because work is his life.
Some of this stuff is hard to hear but you gotta remember that this is two people who get to do what they love everyday... It's debatable weather these two "work" at all. It could be said that for these two web dev isn't work but profitable play.
Best comment
Obviously true, but there are deminissing returnsm.
And to speak to the other side, I am an artist and a coder, and I obviously will never be as good as someone who focuses on just one of thoses disciplines, but there is value there from being able to mix the two.
And there are ways to solve problems that i know that a pure artist or coder wouldn't Intuit. (Of course they can and should just learn what i do and still remain ahead of me lol.)
I think improving your performance outside the 9-5 is a good idea. Sometimes that means side projects, sometimes it means reading books, but sometimes it just means taking care of what is stopping you in your personal life. Regardless, sleeping well, eating right, and exercising works is essential for Olympians and knowledge workers alike.
Here is the thing... there is a difference between working hard for yourself and being quasi forced to work more hours than your work contract states. If your contract states 40 hours, but the company expects you to work more than that and that can manifest itself in various ways, e.g. boss looking at you funny when you leave on time, you getting bad performance reviews because you didn't put in extra hours, etc etc - then it's a problem. I'm not talking about occasional crunches, which are sometimes necessary - so you do it to help out the team.
Thats bring another problem everyone that is working 12hours day is setting a standard for management, and now everyone working normally inst doing "their best" and all the things that come with that.
That's an interesting discussion, if 2 people had the same job, and one is working 8 hours and the other 12 a day, which deserves a salary increase?
I think either option send a bad message
@@neociber24 Exactly.
yes, this isn't a straight forward question on the implications of this. its just interesting concepts to think about
I know some people that can be the entire day programming in personal projects but never will do that at work because they don't like their job.
I came to the conclusion that being willing to work 12-20 hours a day because you want is a privileged position where you company actually care to create an environment where people will like to go and work.
I know people who do, but I also see them being 2000% more stressed out than me as well. So meh.
Dedicating many hours of your day to work its different of working many hours a day
i mean, the day has only 24 hours, if you really wants to succed in the long term, besides the work you need to be healthy, eat healthy and sleep healthy, 8 hours of sleep, 16 hours left, 1 hour doing exercises, 15 hours left, at least 1 hour eating(two meals of 30 min if you re in the position of only eating and not making your food), 14 hours left, besides that you need to study, take a shit/shower, relax a little, maybe read a book from others subjects beside work so you keep creative, along side all other things that happen in life, so its actually impossible to be consistent and work many hours a day, maybe you can do it for a week so you can get some urgent shit done. but you need to get back to a healthy routine eventually.
I played violin for ten years, from age 10 to 20. Something I learned, especially if you are very competent and passionate, is that two hours of practice a day will 100% beat 5 hours of practice and then burning out and hating your life. The highest level of violin players will practice 5 hours a day every day. But not everybody needs to, or wants to, perform at this level. Sometimes being okay is good enough. But I will say that daily application of yourself, and reinforcement of things you know, will 1000% beat losing your mind staying up 40 hours on a project. You can't arm wrestle the hydraulic press, just do the next right thing and think deeply about what you're doing. critique yourself all the time and really try to concentrate and be honest with yourself while you work. that's how you succeed. you don't need to torture yourself.
So true. Prime said at one point that he can't do 30+ hours anymore. I think it's less cant and more being wise enough to know that's not sustainable and effective. I game in my spare time and struggle with how much time to spend on learning and side projects. There are times when I make myself spend time learning whe. I'd rather game and there are times when I recognize I'm tired and fried and need some fun or relaxation or else I'd burn out.
One caveat. Sports people are retiring at the age 35. They're either switch to management or just go straight into poverty. Those who got into management did a lot of work beside training. But those are the rare ones who have muscles and brains. I'd say 95% of sports people are struggling after retirement. If any programmer wants to avoid total burnout at the age of 30-35 they need to have strong life side.
I had total burnout at the age 30. I couldn't even sit before computer for 5 years. I went to business, had life 100% of the time and no programming at all.
Only after that I started to code sustainably. At the age of 38 the 5 hours of coding per day seems to be the sweet spot. After that I introduce bugs into code.
About having only limited hours of productive work a day. I do think people do have a limited amount of it, could be 5 could be 8, but that doesn't mean the work you do is just worthless or harmful, you still get work done, it might've taken you way less during your peak productivity, but you definitely can still get work done and it's still worth something. Motivation can extend this productivity peak, but even outside of it isn't all worthless and people just love to think in black and white.
Referring to how people are more productive with less hours - that's objectively true. The UK had an experiment with 4 day work weeks and saw no loss in productivity.
That might not be universally true for every person, but it's true for the majority - my guess, because people don't actually work their full office hours.
a singular study !== facts my friend.
psychology changes, cultures change, food changes, so much changes that it makes these types of statements impossible.
@@ThePrimeTimeagen fair. But Jon and you were going off of feelings, and this is still a widespread study (even if applicable only to like 60 companies in the UK). I don't see why discount it other than because you don't like it
Besides, there were multiple studies- in the US, Ireland, Spain, New Zealand...
Sure but what John is talking about is what would the schedule look for a person operating at max productivity.
It’s also in the context of doing something by choice, whereas studies on work hours are about forcing people to do something they don’t enjoy.
Obviously the most productive people will be the people who have an DESIRE to work continuously.
I believe your calling a study an "objective fact" has not helped the perception of PrimeTime. The exorbitant amount of lying studies out there is no joke, there has literally been a crisis in the social sciences caused by statistical lies, so skepticism is always welcome.
That said, it seems reasonable that you'd be generally more productive if you had to exert yourself for less time, because just as muscles can't exert themselves for too long before becoming less efficient at taking action, the brain probably also can't focus for too long. before you get tired, however I think the bottom line is not the time you spend working, but the disposition you bring to the job, and the amount of effort you are willing to invest (in the same sense, muscles grow when they are exhausted of their strength, and the brain probably becomes more proficient the more you develop it, so we should see if in the long term these people which was working 4 day work weeks were actually better at their office than programmers working more time).
>find something you enjoy doing
>get good
>find job related
>get good
>finish work at 5 pm
>get good
>(~11h study/work)/day
>go sleep
I feel it’s fundamentally different to work hard and long hours for one’s own development and projects than to do it for a company that you don’t care much about. Mastering a craft (and programming is both craft and art on some level) has few shortcuts. The 10,000 hours thing is probably oversimplified but the point is true.
What people are objecting to is doing it as a condition of employment, where 12 hours a day is an expectation all the time. Crunch time at a game company is a typical example. Imo crunch is inevitable sometimes but it should be made up for with time off or some kind of rest afterwards.
But you can play 12 hours a video game, why?
@The Wizards of the Zoo I love games as much as the next guy, but if you tell me to put in 12 hours a day into borderlands 2. i might have ripped my eyes out before a month has even passed. And borderlands 2 is considered a good game by most accounts
@@ComanderSazabi2000 Playing is what got me started with Pcs, but lately I installed RDR2, one of the best games I ever played, really flawless. And I was bored after the train robbery already. There is more exciting stuff to be achieved with AI, but that's me at my age with my boomer's head.
Quite frankly I think the people Prime interacts with are very different from the people I interact with. I think too many people are struggling with judging themselves for not doing enough to be an olympic-level programmer, when in reality being olympic level is meant to be a very small fraction of people that are hyper-obsessed. Maybe older people are just more entitled since they grew up in a time when getting a good life was easier (on average), but most people I know seem to think they *have* to get to a level where they're making half a milly per year and working until they die, when what is best for them is to come to terms with the fact that a balanced life will probably give them more happiness.
"A working class hero is something to be". And yes, no one wants to be average or ordinary. Everyone has to be a genius or a rockstar. I mean, it's OK to always strive for the next level, but don't beat yourself up because you're 30 and not worth billions in Silicon Valley. It's OK to be average
My goal is like... Work 8 to 10 hours for a company because that's what you signed up for and agreed to do. Then use the remaining 8 hours of the day and 16 hours of the weekend to either:
- Do more work for the company because you want to and it will yield a tangible benefit, not because you have to or if it's not going to help anything really
- Do work on your own project or side hustle to supplement your learning or income or both
- Hang out with family/friends and be there for them so they like you and aren't going to murder you in your sleep
- Enjoy a hobby that has nothing to do with income and fulfills your fun feels
- Clean stuff and do chores so you don't end up on a hoarders episode
- Do nothing and sit there letting your brain/spirit/chi/vibes recharge (no external stimulation like people, tv, podcast, etc)
If you're forced to work for employer so long that you can't do all of those bullet points to an reasonable degree for your situation, something's eventually going to go wrong and you're out of work/life balance. Some eras of life you're going to code for 99 hours straight, other eras you're gonna code 5 hrs and focus more on other stuff rest of the time. The work/life balance is knowing what era of life you're in and ensure life will be where you want it to be in 5 years.
One thing that is missing from this debate is that you can be a very successful and well paid software engineer by being good, but not the best of the best. There is plenty of jobs out there and plenty of opportunities for good but not great engineers.
When it comes the Olympic athletes, only the best of the best are successful and the rest are basically irrelevant. Nobody cares about the 50th best long jumper, even though they are really far advanced above the average.
An average software engineer still has a very good career.
this is true. Being a good enough dev is perfectly fine road to take.
on the flip side, its becoming a harder field to be as successful as we were (say 2 years ago)
Imho, work/life balance is not about my work is not important, but actually opposite - my work is so important in my life, that I could simply forget about wife, friends, parents etc. And it’s crucial for me to keep eye on my work/other parts of my life balance cause of that
Also, the company you work at may just be a disaster that requires way too much effort to keep running. And the incentives to exert that much effort just aren’t there.
There is a difference between a company encouraging a 50+work week and someone willing to work 50+ hours a week. You should know your limits and what is healthy but don't set those limits by society's expectations (people online saying otherwise).
"Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm" - Ralph Waldo Emerson
about the pomodoro thing: i do 50 mins of work and 10 min break and it's helpful. i can go way longer with that. otherwise i get sucked in and drain myself after a few hours. with 10 min breaks, i walk around a bit, refill my water, perhaps make a coffee, and think with slightly clear mind. i am not too strict about it and i just take 2 min break when i have to pee lol.
pomodoro is 20 min default and i guess it's fine if you really can't focus (if you have been there you know, 20 mins focus can be difficult) but i can focus longer. i have a limit around 2-3 hours then i have to take a long break. i tested it a few times with programming projects and it's all downhill after a few hours. 50-10 manages it nicely. i can focus with a thing without losing my mental capacity for a lot of hours.
Based.
Completely based! I have trouble sticking to this when I'm debugging something or just trying to figure out a thing, you know? My obsessive part just won't let me take a break
I just use rustc to take breaks
I agree, but I think my extra hours should be paid. If you disagree you missunderstand the point of monetary policy. Yes, some people are passionate, they put in the work BEFORE getting employed. Work during employment is the responsibility of the employer, pay them more and acknowledge it at the company level, I want that shit engraved in stone.
LMAO
How is that working out?
"So much in life is hard and requires you tu push beyond what's comfortable, and even beyond what feels uncomfortable"
That's a great quote! I want to remember it more often.
He’s right about mental fatigue vs emotional fatigue.
There’s a huge difference between feeling a loss of motivation vs a loss of mental sharpness, memory, and critical thinking because you’ve been doing hard mental work for a long time.
“I don’t want to do this anymore” vs “damn I shouldn’t be struggling to get a problem like this done, I’m slowing down, damn”
A perfect example is reading. Reading a fantasy novel or a class textbook is only different in your own intrinsic desire to read it. The actual work of reading is the same.
Another example is strategy video games. I love em, but sometimes I am out of processing power by 8 pm to handle the mental work to play the game.
If you have kids, a lot of how much per day you can work depends on your partner and how kid duty works out.
My day looks like this:
- wake up at 630am with the kids, hang out
- at 7am wake up my wife, make kids breakfast, help get kids ready to go to school, etc
- at 8am walk the kids to school
- start work at 830am
- end work at 530pm
- dinner, kid time, help with homework, bedtime routines from 530-8pm
- chores for 30ish minutes
So now it's 830pm after an 8 hour day of working. If I want to get an actual 8 hours of sleep, I need 30-60 minutes of wind down time. So that leaves 1-1.5 hours to do something.
Seems similar to my life. I'm the main driver for our daily routine at home. By the time the routines are over, I'm exhausted and usually don't have much energy left for anything that feels particularly engaging or rigorous.
well that's okay, it's the path you've chosen
7:13 Most people, when they are that much in need, won't really think about anything other than short-term. It is rather very exceptional for people to work on long-term stuff when under such desperation.
I know this is like the smallest part of this video, but I actually really like the promodoro stuff. Like, at least for eye strain and all that- and blocking out my day. Taking a short (3-5 mins) break from a problem just makes it so much easier for me.
And I guess everyone's different. It also makes me actually be able to start working on things I hate that I have to do- like requirements and all that. "I only have to do this for 25 mins at most." just makes me start and then I can get into it.
Everyone's different, but I actually got into a PhD program with terrible ADHD and been pretty successful doing this.
Studies have shown it works really well for people with ADHD.
I mean- flow is good and riding off of hyperfocus is great--- but if you rely on hyperfocus and come to expect that - then you'll just give up all kinds of projects because "you're not feeling it anymore" like I did.
This is important and pertinent to at least the beginning of the video. Hard work beats talent until talent works hard.
yes, very much so
I think this "I am not that exceptional, I'm just a dude who try really hard" isn't really helping anyone. I am a good dev, would consider myself one of those in the better half, and I worked hard to get here. But I also really tried hard to learn to play the piano, and Spanish, I really was really trying hard but I just couldn't do it. I didn't understand it, it wouldn't stick, I could not pronounce things. Seeing my peers who just spent way less hours on their homework and progressed way faster than me, it isn't only about working hard. When I was a kid I never managed to coordinate my pinky to play guitar hero with 4 buttons, all of my friends managed, and some even managed to play with 5. I was one of the guys that had the game where we all came to play it, but I just never manged to coordinate it. I was born with short think legs with very low muscle insertion, I could never have been a word class sprinter no matter how much time I would have put in it, and it would be stupid to assume otherwise.
Hot take: Most meetings aren't working. It's easy to work 90 hour weeks if 80 of them are just talking into a camera or a meeting room, especially of everyone else is below you in hierarchy.
42:05 This is so true. I realized a few days ago that I was putting off an important feature in one of my projects for basically no reason. I finally just barreled ahead with it, got the whole thing knocked out in an hour or two (and that's including all the research I had to do for it). I'm actually procrastinating on another feature right now...going to go knock that out once I finish this video. Already planned out most of the implementation
"Humans are much more capable than they think they are" - nailed it. When the motivation/need is significant enough we will move mountains. Work Until Work Is Done (work being anything you trying to complete, job related or not)
People are fundamentally different in terms of genetics as well, most Olympic athletes are genetically gifted and are able to take a higher training load than the average person. They also have a huge support network that allows them to be under burdened in the other areas of their life so that almost 100% of their energy and attention can be used for their chosen discipline. This kind of setup simply isn't practical for the vast majority of people.
That’s the point of the analogy. Even with putting all the hours, not everyone will perform like a recognized programmer, for the same reasons you point
So there’s nuance in it. If I don’t put in the hours, I would never know if I can be accomplish big things. And at the same time, everyone should have access to a decent living with a full time job without overtime
It’s a very practical example. There are plenty of Olympic level athlete that don’t make it for many reason. So to reach the Olympics you have to beat the other 0.05 percent of Olympic level athletes in competition.
Not sure what point you’re trying to make. Maybe looking for a reason to throw hands up and not the hard
Please be smarter
@@huckfin1598And being a top level professional software engineer isn't a practical problem? I'm not sure what the point you're trying to make is...
Please be smarter
@@Slashx92 I don't disagree with that, I'm just pointing out why the popular notion that everybody should push themselves harder all the time because technically somebody else can do it is a bit silly. Sure push yourself hard at whatever you want to do but when it starts to be impractical with regards to the rest of your life and causes problems it's fine to accept that's just how it is and drop the level of effort down to a point which is sustainable.
Most people don't want to be "the best of the best". We just want to live a comfortable, stable life and ensure one for our children. If only "the best of the best" can manage that, well we are fucking up our society.
Ya, right off the bat, Prime and the video guy take a pre-conception that people want to be olympic programmers. But that's not what people are wanting
> Burnout comes down to misaligned expectations
100% feel that this is the right take.
That being said, I feel like the original video is a bit of a strawman - I don't think I've ever seen someone claim that 25 hours a week will enable you to be one of the greatest programmers in the world.
I do believe that 25 hours a week is enough time for someone to be a _good_ programmer, and I have yet to work anywhere where the incentive structure rewards putting much more than that amount of work in.
Doesn't really matter how passionate you are. You can still burn out if you don't know your limits and go all-in with 20h days year after year. Sure, some individuals can manage it, but they still have work life balance then. I think he has completely misunderstood the subject. It's not always a case of work vs life. If the balance comes naturally for you, great, but it doesn't for everyone. You can still ruin your health or relationships doing something you love if you do it without control.
I am far from a brilliant programmer but I have loved my career in software engineering even when I was putting in long hours. Even when I was tinkering with my own software experiments and discovery at home. Even when the software problems woke me up in the middle of the night. It was fun, it was interesting. I worked in all kind of interesting places on projects I loved. I and pretty much always loved all the people on the teams I worked with. The work social life and the home social life were intertwined. Not often did I find myself in a job I hated or was not excited about, when I did I soon moved on. The most annoying part of it all was the 3 hours a day or more wasted commuting here and there. What a waste of life. But in general it was a case of work hard, play hard.
I think it's important to remember that working hard is more for you than for the company you're working for. However, if you work hard with no plan of taking steps to get to a better position, then it can become working hard for your company and not for yourself, which can often be a dead end and a waste of your time.
Bruh was doing physics in any capacity. "I'm just a dude" FOH
To me work life balance is about how many hours a week I have to do something versus how many hours I can do whatever I want to. That is not to say I can't choose to spend some of that time on work or improving how good I am at my job, it's just about that time being mine.
I think this is an important point of the convesation. Work-life balance is about control. If you decide to work on side projects or we in your free time, cool, that’s a lifestyle. Not being able to decide what you want to do after a regular 9-5 because of (mandatory) overtime is what’s the problem
I agree that with the right motivation I can sit for hours on end banging away at my keyboard. But if someone asks me to do something that I'm not interested in, my physical ability to do it just isn't there. I just can't focus my mind on something mundane and tedious for long hours. Usually what I do for those types of tasks is use the pomodoro method.
The point about fitness is an important one (also: being young). When I was 28, I was pretty overweight for my height and had high blood presure. Lost a bunch of weight, got my BP and heart rate down to a very healthy level and found that my ability to think much more clearly was a lot easier. YMMV but it never hurts to stay on top of that cardio, if you can! ❤
i worked for 18 hours straight, regularly, sacrifised my health, time, everything. in the end all i got was more work.I did program for 40 hours straight at the age of 25, because I was not good at it so I used to struggle alot. On top of it, I didnt have computer in college so I used to sit in lab for 8 hours straight, and let me tell you ITS NOT WORTH IT. you want to be good at coding, get your concepts clear in computer science, stretch your work hours only if its needed, not unnecessarily, some companies would rather have you work for 24 hours straight without caring.
There is a difference between actual deep work hours and hours that people report. Spending time in the toilet, kitchen or having a walk does not count. I log in a spreadsheet my actual deep work hours sitting and coding. I do believe John Carmack did insane hours, and many others can also. However, I care about myself, I workout, eat many meals, go out for walks, and get 8 hours of sleep. Little wind down before sleep of couple of hours watching something is also mandatory for me. It is very difficult to clock in more than 8-9 hours of actual quality deep work in a day. I have all the energy, but just no more minutes to use, as many real-life things just are incredible timesinks, no matter how fast you try to perform errands and life stuff.
I have learned a lot by doing exactly that. Because I actually enjoyed it. I never felt that I have worked hard, more like a kid playing with legos and having fun.
But then the problem is that you don't own the stuff you worked on. It belongs to your employer. It could be given to someone else and you'll painfully watch them butcher your code. Sometimes you'll be in a state where you're still the go-to guy for fixing problems with that code but still not the one who makes decisions and changes.
So I would say, only give the maximum passion to your side projects. The ones you actually own.
I work on a 5 person team. We had a senior front end lead who moving to another team creating a void in not just the team but front end 2 years ago.
I wanted his job but knew nothing about our front end stack or FRONT END.
I worked Saturday and Sunday mornings to get up to speed on our tools ironically coding and doing front end masters.
I’m now front end lead and got a raise last fall.
Eminem is known for not putting in more than 8 hours a day at work. Could argue he's a "genius", I guess.
Anyways, my take is that it's a lot easier to work 12 (or 36) hours on something that keeps slapping you in the mouth with rewarding dopamine hits, than it is to work 12 hours a day when every minute is literally just stressing you out.
It's a lot easier to work 36 hours straight when you have a goal in mind, and that goal is also going to remove a bigger source of stress than the 36 hours of work is causing.
If you really wanna 10x, you need to find ways to be rewarded. No tricks, no gimmicks. Make yourself feel rewarded. Really FEEL like you're accomplishing something even if you can objectively look at what you did and say "I literally made 3 inputs and a button today".
If you don't feel the reward, you have no chance of doing 60 hours. And you DEFINITELY will burn the fuck out and do less than if you'd done 30 hours.
The whole concept of "clocking in" is related to working for somebody else. You can go home and continue coding on your own stuff, or on a startup etc.
About "needs and wants": that was a very interesting point.
When you "run out" of material needs, you have to reflect upon purpose. Needs are meager, if you only fulfill them but have no further motivations, that space becomes populated by anything that shows up. Because we act according to our motivations, if you keep your survival mindset without the need to survive, that means you leave open doors for dark thoughts.
If, on the other hand, you get things things done because you want to and not because it's "do or die", meaning you do them because you have a deeper purpose than mere survival, you will have another attitude. Incentives set you up for an abundance mindset. Your thoughts will be clearer and brighter and your course of action will be pointing to happier, more enriching places.
I worked 6 hours a day, my coworker worked 12 hours a day. We were both laid off and because I had social skills I got a job faster with a huge pay boost.
My coworker was the better programmer but imo if you’re doing a job the goal isn’t to be the best it’s to get paid the most for your time.
This video is the most relatable video i have ever watched youtube. Thank you thePrimeTime
My sincere view, as someone who has been programming since 12, is that hard work pays off, but only if it's something you want to aim for. I'm not talking in terms of being something that you necessarily like, but of aiming for something bigger than yourself and working hard to achieve that goal, the other alternative is to work for something that you consider to be your calling. Every day I code 9-13 hours, sometimes more than that (it used to be more until my employers told me to stop for some reason), and when I'm not coding I'm reading about coding, I don't do that because I necessarily I'm looking for perfection (but of course, I'm always looking to be a better person than I was the day before), but because it's become something almost natural for me, because programming is something that interests me deeply, it's something that's part of of my life. I do not consider work as something external to me, or that there is some kind of mystical barrier between my personal and professional life, programming is part of me the same as craftsmanship is part of the craftsman, or carpentry part of the carpenter, this does not imply never doing anything different, or focusing only on that, but that doing things related to your craft is not a sacrifice but, many times, a pleasure, and I can definitely say that it is a pleasure for me.
I can clearly feel the effects that all the years of work have had on me, for me it's clearly noticeable that after all that I'm better than before, not just as a programmer but in many ways as a human being, so I definitely think that, not only hard work, but mainly the feeling of being integrated with what one works on, is the essence of a complete life. I'm not saying that you should focus 15 hours a day on it, or that you need to, but that if you want to put more effort into what you do, improve yourself through hard work, that's something that comes with its downsides, but that also will most likely yield you the expected benefits.
At such times, think about the nature of the craft, and that to each man men are "A medium-sized creature prone to great ambition."
honest question not to be rude but do you have any special education type things or autism or something like that?
Be ambitious with yourself and be empathetic with others.
There have been studies proving productivity doesn't increase after 36 hours. That being said. People in IT with desire can wholly do more productivity with more hours. It's about average vs the few motivated ones.
26:17 Censoring "stupid" cracked me up 😂😂
holly molly, goodness gracious, so many good quotes. "Wanting Tesla won't motivate you to become a better person as much as not having enough for basic needs" or "Hating every second of a work out but still do it 69 days out of 80"
I think a lot of this argument is "if you want to be the best you have to work really really hard" which is 100% facts. But this argument gets co-opted to push people who couldn't care less about being the "olympic athlete" into working more. The work life balance thing as I see it is "no-one should lose their job / be unable to live a normal life if they work what's in the contract." If a company only wants people who are willing to work 60 hour weeks put that in the contract! Make that a part of the legal agreement so that everyone know's what their obligations are. Not everyone needs to be the best, the people who want that are already busting ass to make it happen. Let everyone else just do what's in their contract. And if we're being honest most jobs you really don't need to be there for 40 hours, it just isn't necessary, 30 or even less is probably sufficient. The jobs that do, sure, that's valid, but those are not as common as people act like they are.
@ThePrimeagen, I love it: "I hate workout from the first lift ... but I do it 6 days a week" ))))
You made my day! You're awesome ))
Good video, important topic!
I feel like most people, when talking about work in the context of work-life balance, mean that there are hours per week you HAVE to do else you will be homeless and/or starve. Work is the part you have to do whether you like it or not, there is no getting around that. Thing is, majority is only "okay" with their job, a good chunk actively hates it. For most people their job is draining, not fun or energizing or inspiring or whatever, its something you do because else you die and these many many people would prefer it if that part of their life wasnt all of their life, but in -you guessed it- balance with the rest of it.
Its fucking easy to do something more than 60hrs a week if it is fulfilling, but that is not the reality most people find themselves in. You are freaking lucky if you find your work fulfilling, good on ya, go slay queen, but your experience is not representative and your description of how you experience work is not how most experience it. Its very fucking hard to be passionate about entering data into a spreadsheet, with little to no chance of ever advancing past that.
Same goes for many programmers, a lot of them do not enjoy what they work on and its boring, repetitive maintenance work, mostly fixing bugs. There is no growth. They want to go home and "work" on stuff they actually like, but calling that work in the same way as you call your job work is just imprecise, that would fall under the life umbrella, because it doesnt drain you of joy, but has to be done so you can afford be an alive person.
"Not everybody gets to be an astronaut" -- "don't make [the job] more than it is" -- The problem isn't needing to put in crazy work to be in the Olympics, the problem is convincing everyone they should want to be in the Olympics. I feel that's what work life balance is about, figuring out what you want to "work hard" on, and is that your job? Maybe not. But society says it should be, and that's the problem.
Cool! I missed this one! I feel like just a week or two ago I left a message about doing a work-life balance video.
I'm actually a big Jonny Blow fan after watching you react to his videos lately. He does have a lot of good takes.
before I started my apprenticeship and just went to high school or vocational IT school where I learned stuff I taught myself in high school, I'd get home, eat, code, sleep, wake up, Code, sleep Sunday morning, code, nap, go to school
and man... I loved that period of my programming life
I like work and I'm a hard worker but I'm also a musician which requires many hours of study and practice beyond coding. Therefore, extending my programming learning gets difficult cause my go-getter energy is always split.
This is the point of work-life balance - if you want to be a good programmer, good musician, _and_ maybe also a good parent, good athlete, or good cook then you need to have some process for splitting up your time.
@@0oShwavyo0 I'd rather be a broke but competent musician than the best programmer in the world and wealthy. I have a good job but I'm not going to substitute much of my outside time to leveling way up if it will impede my musicianship.
Same here. Can't be truly great at both.
@@thommccarthy1139 programming still impedes your musicianship, why won't you do your music stuff full time? Programming is not my real passion, but I don't have any real passions, so I just work to make a living. My real passion is playing video games, but I don't want to become a braindead neet, so I never play video games.) Don't even have a steam account. But if my passion were musicianship, I would have just ditched my work and focused on my passion 100%.
@@andreydzyuba9122 It's a symbiotic relationship where the coding helps pay for some of the musical stuff such as gear etc plus feeds my household. You can't make much money with music at this point unless you're a pop star or something and that's just not the road I wish to go down. Programming is also a passion but I can't be pulling 70-80 hour weeks.
It hits my head. I may've been looking for execuses all the time. I tried to find out why I couldn't focus on more than x hours and I found some studies and tried myself relaxed with a bunch of execuses. I just didn't try my best and didn't spend time on worth things. Good video
I agree but I feel like the presenter is ignoring family time. It’s important to not ignore your loved ones for work.
Recently I've started working (remotely) about 2 hours on Sunday. The idea being that, come Monday, I'm a bit more fresh on what I'm doing when I dive back in. Honestly, I sometimes think about my coding issues on Saturday (which I try to ignore), and by Sunday I'm a bit eager to try a new idea out.
I don't think it's 100% healthy, but it does give me a sense of momentum and engagement (ie, dopamine?). I also desire to find that feeling without getting the jump on the week. Maybe it's a cultural expectation, and it would be nice if Mondays could be considered the ease-in to the week.
The problem with this is that companies who reward and praise employees who work extra hours can say all they want that they don't "require" overtime or crunch, but as long as those who crunch are rewarded, that all but guarantees that those who don't crunch will not only never be promoted but also will eventually be laid off.
Edit:
Ok, what I mean about crunch and overtime is working for a company. I'm not against working extra hours on personal projects and learning.
I think it's more about compensation than motivation. Would I work more hours if I was proportionately paid more? Probably.
Would I spend my hours getting more efficient if I was paid per task? definitely.
At 25 I went back to school to learn CS. I could barely study for an hour a day before I would get tired. I'm 33 now, and I regularly work 70+ hours a week. I would never tell someone to work like crazy for a job they hate, but in my case I really enjoy my job and like my coworkers and bosses. For most people it is definitely possible to increase your capacity to work more, and doing so will allow you to learn more. Whether you want to work more, or should work more, are different discussions entirely, and are often based on circumstances and personal priorities.
Making any job competitive is destructive for everyone
I'm not saying that in order to be the best, you shouldn't spend more time, because it's unrealistic. There is no other way
But that's true only for people that actually want to be the best. It shouldn't affect other people (by putting a lot of pressure) that actually want to spend their time peacefully and just go to typical 9-5 work
Just benefit best people with more money and don't benchmark them with others
Work life balance isn't about work versus no work, although the discussion can often be dumbed down to that. Life takes work to maintain from cleaning, taking care of a family, taking care of your own health, socializing in non-work contexts, and engaging in personal hobbies and interests. None of those things are free of "work," and people need time to be able to do them. The issue with working 50 or 60+ hours a week is the time and energy that would be given to take care of oneself and their other social obligations is dedicated to one job and one workflow. Work life balance is about time and energy management so the time you do work is more productive and engaged.
Not everybody has to go to the Olympics. Some people just like to have a family and see their kids before they go to bed…
nobody said in the chat that more than 5-6 hours of highly focused, intense intellectual work daily _IN THE LONG RUN_ is not healthy / really possible for average people.
Also what's the percentage of the population who are playing / doing sports are competing in the olympics..? That's the _same percentage_ of the people who can consistently put in more than 5-6 hours of intense, focused intellectual work every day for a long time.
hashtag probably not
@@ThePrimeTimeagen I did a side project (2 to be precise) next to my full time work -> 60-65 hours / week in Q3-Q4 of 2022.
I lasted for about four months. Took me 1-2 months to recover and get back to side projects.
I didn't feel like it was too much, _I felt like I didn't have enough time..._ but for me, it was too much.
MAYBE a better organized, more disciplined, younger person could have done better.
For me, personally, is not good to go above 50-55 / week - This way I have time to do physical training, creative hobbies and sometimes nothing, which I really find crucial to wellbeing too lately 😅
so yeah, I don't think it's sustainable - I do think it's doable for shorter or longer periods of time (maybe even years) but there's _always_ a catch.
"I shouldn't have to work hard to get what I want"
I think thats a corollary to what I call the "ice berg effect". Basically people see the tip of the ice berg and think thats all there is to it. They see the success and think "I could do that!" but what they dont see is all of the stuff that goes into it. They dont see the base of the ice berg thats hidden udner the surface. They dont see the hours, dedication, sacrifices, and tradeoffs people have made to get to that point.
They see someone who may even make success *look* easy, and think..I can do that! He/she didn't seem to work that hard! Because all they see is the tip of the ice berg.
It’s really work/family/leisure balance. They’re all part of your life and different people prioritize them differently.
Love these videos
Even if you love your job you can still get burnt out if you don’t put up boundaries.
My taking a break is 10 push ups every 30 minutes for the full workday. I very much recommend it.
yeah, i like little exercises throughout the day, very nice
Just did 2 months of ~85hr weeks. From my perspective it felt like waking up working till the small hours, going to sleep then starting again. This is my dream job, we were successful and still, I'm now burnt out. Taking a month off over Christmas to recover. Maybe I'm just getting old.
I think he is getting the definition and motivation behind the phrase "work life balance" wrong. From what I understand when people say that phrase, it is more based on the point that people shouldn't be disciplined for doing the expected level of work and not going above and beyond by default. There is a culture that is prevalent in some of the companies in the US and more so other countries where you are expected to work longer. That expectation creeps more and more into your home life, and in some places the expectation consumes your life. When I say work life balance I want the freedom to not have to meet that above and beyond expectation, and just accomplish what my role requires me to. I will on a lot of occurrences do more work based on my interest in the project though. Unless John Carmack has gone on the record saying that he didn't have the motivation to do what he accomplished himself, rather it was the company he worked for that forced him to accomplish it, then it is it a mute point.
My mentor asked me "Do you live to work, or do you work to live"
My Dad's favorite phrase
same, I work really hard even doing some refactoring to help maintain codebase on my free time, sometimes studying someone else code make you better dev too, you know what will be bad for other people and good to write, but only if I want to, some other time I just do it while playing some games, definitely not doing it on big game releases, still managed to spend a lot of time with my family
This video should be titled "A snippet of Prime's stream where he reacts to a snippet of J. Blow's stream where he reacts to work life balance"
I'm not sure the initial example is correct. Carmack, on his Lex Fridman show, said that was never the programmer that worked afterhours no?
It's not about not working hard in my mind, it's about employers guilt tripping people into working beyond the responsibilities they were hired for, about taking advantage of employees and demanding they put in extra time (especially when you're salaried.) It's about a job taking up all of your time and keeping you away from your family. It's not about your passion or investment in the type of work or being lazy. If you WANT to work your ass off that's great, especially if you're working in a position or on a project you love, or just working hard to get ahead. It's more that some employers treat their employees like cogs in a machine, a tool in a box or a robot, gaslighting people into feeling inadequate unless they go "above and beyond," not realizing that it's not above and beyond if it's the expectation baseline. It's about grinding away endlessly and burnout and mental anguish.
Just as enjoyment is not inherent to the definition of work, neither is lack of enjoyment. It is wild to me that everyone thinks the former is true but not the latter.
Work is simply applying actions and effort towards a goal. That's it. Your hobby is work. Working out is work, eating is work, brushing your teeth is work.
I sought out how to make the work I find enjoyable and interesting to be profitable. As a result, my career is fun and I like it. Similarly, I am more skilled than my peers in this precisely because I focused my careeer around my interests instead of trying to shoehorn the other way around. This is a natural result. I work HARD, and I work A LOT, but I ENJOY it.
There are so many opportunities available. If you hate your career, change it.
Depends. Honestly if you structure your work well you can still do a ton in the right direction and clock out at 5. But it takes a lot of experience. Many good ideas come with time and a break.
I do programming on my free time. I do have strict limit that I do not do anything that would in any way help me in my work. If I work on a system using microservices, I don't do microservices on my free time if there's even a risk I might learn something useful for work while doing my hobby project.
I don't care too much if others do work-related stuff on their free time, but I think the people doing that are suckers if they work for salary.
If you're self-employed, I think you're gonna burn out but at least you're burning out to benefit yourself, so I don't think it's nearly as dumb, but it's still dumb.
I also don't understand the competition part. You're doing less hours so you get paid less. You are probably more alert, you're in better physical and mental state, so quality of your work is always going to be higher than workaholic doing twice the hours. If your boss rather wants to pay one dude to do job of two people, while costing the company what it would take to hire 3 people, at a much worse quality... Well, your boss is an idiot, no? Workaholics don't do better job, and unless you get suckers to work overtime without pay, they're still costing the same per hour as two developers doing reasonable hours.
I want to see the poll of how many devs reguralry work on a personal projects outside their fulltime job. I felt like no one from my university friends (except me) kept working on pet projects once they landed their first SWE job.
I think it's very uncommon. In my non-tech company, it's me and maaaybe one other dev out of ~10 who have personal projects. And still it's very difficult to keep up a project for multiple weeks if you're programming for your day job and sapping much of your drive to program for yourself.
The meme on screen about money at 8:31 had me in stitches. 😆
It's not worth it no matte how great the job is, and how much one loves it, because if one sleeps 8 hrs, works eg 10, there are 6 hours left for everything else. Taking a shower, visiting gym, spending time with family (but hey you can buy them things.). Commuting. Imagine reading and learning about stuff not related to work or single passion, expanding horizons. That is really sad. Such lifestyle creates stupid, tired, brainwashed people, who just do as told.
They’ve done interesting studies with executives where if you work more than about 60 hours a week, your productivity doesn’t go up any more, it can even go down. You’re mentally exhausted and just find ways to take breaks during the day. You’re just wasting time at the office at that point. I’m sure that a few people are built for truly working hard 90 hours a week, but most people aren’t.
This is a complicated subject. In every other industry people create Unions to stop managers from overworking employees all day every day every week. I see this more as an issue of productivity. How much the developer produces every day? Are they risking the entire project by how little they work every day? That would be bad. Are they working the whole day, but being very unproductive on that day? That would also be bad.
A junior developer will be far less productive than a senior developer. We have created tools like AI, DevOps and best practices to improve the productivity of developers. Therefore, I think that we have to put into context productivity in those hours.
Maybe the issue with the team is not that developers aren't working hard enough. Maybe they lose a lot of time working with tasks that could be easily automated. With automation, we could increase the momentum of the team making everyone more excited to push through and get the tasks done.
- expecting overtime, paid or otherwise for no valid reason is bad
- expecting meetings to happen outside of "core" hours, and especially when booked the same day is bad(occasionally is understandable, and for critical situations)
- being called to a meeting after work hours for something that could be handled regular work hours is bad
- not being able to "turn off" work while on vacation is bad
Work is a subset of life, just like free time.
(assuming a software engineer)
If you spend your free time coding on your pet projects, working on open source etc. then great, it is a choice you make and you will be a better software engineer for it (something both you and your employer will benefit from). If you instead prefer doing something else, then that is fine. Just be prepared that you might be on a steeper learning curve when it comes to your software engineering skills.
If you own your business or if you are part of a start-up then you are more committed, and the potential reward is also greater (you get a piece of the cake), so most probably the lines get blurred.
In the more common circumstance you are selling your energy & time to a corporation for money, why would you give additional energy & time for free. Instead go learn Rust :)
Never neglect sleep. Many time when I am stuck on a problem, after a nights sleep I have 10 ideas on how to approach it. Start a new day with fresh ideas and energy. Lack of sleep does more damage then most people think. Einstein took a lot of naps.
Lets also keep in mind that jons personal problems shuttled the jai team. So he might not be a perfect example.
I do feel there are programmers who use workaholism as a crutch to try to work around terrible team organisational skills.