Sixteen Burner Theory
There’s a popular work-life balance visualization called Four Burner Theory. The idea is that you should imagine yourself as a stove with four burners.

Each burner represents something in your life that you spend energy on. Here’s the four most people list.

If you want to have a balanced life, you should balance all of these four elements. However, if you want to be successful, you need to turn some of them off, so the others can burn brighter.
If you want to be more successful at work, you should ignore your friends, stop eating, or hire a bunch of nannies to take care of your kids. If you want to be really successful, you’ll turn off two burners. And if you want to be at the top of your field…

There is a downside, however, to putting all of your fuel into the single burner.

The main problem I have with the Four Burner Theory is that it doesn’t take geeks into account. We geeks have more diversions than the average person. A full geek stove would look more like…
