Work/Life Balance: You CAN Have it All!
Work/life balance: that elusive thing we all aim for. Whether it's your kids, a chronic illness, taking care of an elderly parent, or a hobby that's important to you, we all have things we want and need to spend time on outside of work. In an era of ninja coders and tech gurus, the feeling that we need to work 24/7 can be overwhelming. 60 hours at the office and another 40 on your personal project or core contributions to prove you've got what it takes starts to sound reasonable - hey, Zuckerberg probably never slept, right? Maybe Dries didn't either. But you can have a kickass career while balancing the other things in your life.
If working 100 hours a week at a huge tech company and sleeping under your desk sounds like your dream, then this talk probably isn't for you. But that isn't everyone's goal, and it shouldn't be how we measure success in our lives or careers.
We’ll talk about how to prioritize what it is you want in your life and career, how to communicate that to your boss and the others in your life, and how to back down from the “do it all!” mentality. It can be easy to feel like you're the only person who can get something done, and get it done right, especially in a small company.
We'll talk about how to address those feelings, how to bring them up to your company, and how to structure your company and your work so that you aren't the sole person responsible for anything.
We'll talk about distributed teams and how you can feel tempted or obligated to work all the hours that people across the globe are working, and how to set yourself a schedule and stick to it. No one can work from Estonia time to California time, and no one should ever be expected to.
We'll talk about how working from home can lead to a lack of boundaries, and how to set them - even if your work means the world to you, you need to keep it separate from your life in some meaningful way.
You should come away from this talk with some ideas and an action plan on finding your balance, setting some boundaries, and having more quality time on both sides.