Learning how to practice work-life balance in the Tech Industry

When I started my career as a Software Engineer I wanted to do it all and learn it all, but slowly I realized this was impacting my wellbeing and work-life balance. In this post, I want to share how my mindset has changed, and what I do today to ensure I am happy and balanced at work.

The tech world. We come soaring in from the arena of education after conquering the race of technical interviews by becoming masters of perfection and algorithms. Now, in a new environment, possibly feeling pressure to fit in and live up to expectations, we are faced with an endless sea of knowledge to acquire, and new waves of challenges to address each day. I don’t know about you, but I felt quite ill-prepared to find my way in the professional seas with the speed boat I built and tuned for the academic arena.

So what do we do? We apply the skills we have learned and tackle the waves with extra grit. We tune the speedboat, make sure to bring extra fuel, and fly off in one direction. We learn new things as we go, and we are first to hit the target destination, but also first to leave, when asked who can help investigate another part of the ocean. There are endless waves to surf and no boundaries to what we can learn while doing so.

At some point, we start to run low on fuel. Slowing down — with eyes rising above the nearest waves, we see that there is no way to explore it all, the ocean is too big. Depending on what kind of compass we have with us, what direction our crew is telling us to go, and what we chose to make of this — these will determine the next part of our adventure. But don’t wait until you are out of fuel to look up, let me share what I see when I gaze out on the ocean, and how I use my compass to navigate.

• Set boundaries on how many hours you work, and work hard during that time, but work even harder to maintain your boundaries. Most likely, you will be the person asking the most from yourself, so do not let your ambitions rob you of your fuel reserve.
• Learn to manage your priorities and invest your time wisely. Working excessive hours is not a strategy that will lead you to success in the long run. Knowing how to choose what to focus on and what to leave be is one that will. There are many expeditions on the ocean and we can’t try to join them all.
• Rest, recover and check out, let your mind take a break. Closing the laptop is one thing, shutting down the engine is another. This is especially difficult when we are passionate about our work, but if we keep reading the maps all night, we won’t see as clearly in the morning.

Aside from this boat analogy, I do actually have some concrete strategies that I use to help myself maintain a healthy work-life balance. There are many things I have changed in my ways of working, but these have by far been the most helpful.

Create and maintain boundaries

• Decide what hour you start your day, and when you end. Be strict about when you open and close your laptop.
• Don’t send emails or messages after hours, it might cause someone else to feel like they need to respond.
• Delete slack from your private phone and remove access to email and calendars, I find it easier to zone out from work mode if I can’t be tempted to take a look.
• Find an activity outside of work that you enjoy at least as much so that you can use this activity to hold yourself accountable. I have a dance class that requires me to leave on time every day after work.

Too much on your plate

• Ask your stakeholder to help you prioritize the work and be clear about what is feasible to do within the time allocated.
• Raise any concerns regarding timelines. It is ultimately up to you to communicate how much time tasks will take.
• Buffer your estimates with some wiggle room, most likely something unexpected will come up and you can deal with this as well without pressure or additional stress. No one will be upset if you are finished earlier than expected.

I used to think that working a lot would demonstrate that I was doing a good job, but I am grateful that a different perspective was shared with me. It is likely not visible that we are putting in extra hours, and by allowing this to continue people will start to expect this from us. We need to break the pattern and create a sustainable pace because we are in this for the long run. Let’s choose a course that will allow us to travel far, and resist the urge to create currents that will pull us out to sea.

Let me know if you give any of the above a try, or if you have other strategies that work for you!