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248. How Do I Maintain a Good Work-Life Balance as a Developer? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: How do I maintain a good work-life balance as a developer?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: How do I keep from burning out?
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: How do I turn a brain off when I get home from work so I don't just keep thinking about work all the time?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about it in today's episode of Dev Questions.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Software development is more than just writing code.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about the rest of it.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: Specifically, let's talk about work-life balance.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the work-life balance is a difficult thing to maintain.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's especially difficult in the tech industry where the expectation is that you're always on, you're always available.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: But it's important to maintain a good balance.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Now, the key to remember is that work-life balance does not mean only working 40 hours per week or only doing development at work.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's about identifying how to be intentional about how you choose to spend your time and making sure you don't let work take over your time.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: That means that sometimes you may work at a job that requires 50 hours a week or 60 hours a week, or maybe it's going to fluctuate sometimes.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_01: You can still have a good work-life balance inside of that fluctuation.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've worked some of my career in times when I've had a great work-life balance.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_01: There's even been times where I was really overloaded and still had a good balance.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: For example, when I was working as an IT director, I was working 50 hours a week or so, and I was also going to school full-time online.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: That took a lot of time.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: But yet I was still able to spend time with my wife and kids and dedicate time appropriately to balance things out.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: Now, that was a lot, and it was only for a season because I couldn't do that forever, but I could still maintain some level of balance there.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I've also had times in my life where I was single.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_01: I only had one job and I still had a poor work-life balance.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: So it's not just about, oh, I need a different job.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: That can be the case, but there's more to it than just saying, well, I have to have a job that's only Monday through Friday nine to five.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: So let's talk about having a good work-life balance.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, set boundaries.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Now, when you get hired a job, and you may have been in this job for a while, so you may have to kind of do some catch up work here.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: But your job says, here's some expectations for you.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: We expect you to, let's just say you say, we expect you to work nine to five Monday through Friday.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: But then your boss comes to you and says, Hey, would you mind we've got this thing to do on Saturday for deployment?
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: Would you go ahead and do that?
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Not a problem.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: Happy to help, happy to be part of the team.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, this is part of the job, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: So you spend four hours on a Saturday doing a deployment.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: Not a problem.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: But then your boss asks you again the next month.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: And then it becomes an expectation that every month you'll spend four hours on a Saturday doing deployments.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: And before you know it, your job is no longer Monday through Friday.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_01: It's actually Monday through Saturday.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_01: And sure, Saturday is only a half day, but what happened there?
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what happened was you didn't set a good boundary.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_01: So when your boss comes to you and says, hey, you know, can you help out?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe the first time you do, but your boss asks you again, you say, listen, let's talk about how to balance this out.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe I should come in half a day late on Monday.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe every other Monday I take off because I work on Saturdays.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: Something like that where you start working through what it means to balance that scale out.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise, what happens is you try you teach your boss that they can continue to ask for more and more and more and continue to rely on you to do those things without paying anymore, without, without anything coming back to you.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: So don't get into a bad habit.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_01: Don't accidentally do the nice person thing and end up in a place where you're like, oh, now it's a problem.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you go too far down the road, it's gonna be a harder conversation.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_01: And that may be where you're at.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I would encourage you to still have that conversation.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: But it's gonna be a bit harder because now your boss relies on you doing that extra work.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so you say, hey, I would like to have some reciprocation here.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'd like to have some balance here.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: So when you ask me to do extra, you also give me extra in some way.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's a harder sell when your boss relies on it, your boss expects it.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_01: So set boundaries, especially early on, and say, hey, we talked about this and you're starting to change that.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_01: Let's talk about how we can make some adjustments.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's working through lunch where, you know, I'm I've been guilty of this, where I get so engrossed in a problem that I'll be like, well, I'll grab it, I'll grab my sandwich, but I might eat at my desk and just keep working.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and that can be okay, but what can happen is it starts to become an expectation.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe your coworkers all stay late because they feel like they have to get their stuff done.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: And so you start to feel a pressure to do that with them.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_01: Be careful, set your boundaries.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes that means saying, hey, I'm gonna go home because it's five o'clock.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And there may be some pressure to say, hey, but we're sticking around.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_01: And you gotta navigate what the balance is there because you may actually be helping them out to give them some agency to say, oh, wait, I don't have to stay till six every night.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_01: Or you may be putting yourself outside of the good employee circle.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: And you have to figure out how to navigate that.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_01: Have a conversation with your boss about it and say, listen, you know, this is what it looks like.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: It looks like you're asking me to work till six.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And they say, no, no, no, no, we're not asking you to do that.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_01: And say, would you be unhappy with me if I left at five then?
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_01: And have that conversation.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: So set boundaries.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_01: The earlier you can set those boundaries, the better off you'll be long term.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_01: But wherever you are in that process, work to set those boundaries.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is have a transition routine for to and from work.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, I had you know some jobs where I had to travel for a while.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what I would do is I would listen to an audiobook or a podcast.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_01: And what that would do is it would kind of reset my brain where I didn't have to think as much.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I was just listening and going along with the story or with the you know, with the podcast hosts and their conversation.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so what it would do is it would reset my brain.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_01: So if I'm you know at home and I'm driving into work, well, it resets my brain from thinking about, oh, I need to fix that leaky faucet and you know, oh, I need to do this at home or that at home, and and I need to schedule this activity and all the rest.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: You kind of reset your brain and you can more easily get into work mode.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: But then when you leave work, you again reset your brain and kind of start to turn off the, oh, did I remember to debug that thing?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Did I, did I save this here?
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's a fix for that problem.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, and you can kind of start to turn your brain off a bit, train your brain to say, oh, it's time to change gears here.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's time to change.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And so a commute can actually be really helpful for that, which is why work from home has been a struggle for some people, because it then blends between your personal life and your work life, where maybe even your office is in your house or in your bedroom or in your kitchen, where it's right there.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so those two things mix together, and that can be hard.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: So you have to figure out a different way to have that transition plan.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_01: So whether that is, I've heard some people say they get up and they walk around the house and then back in.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's in their mind saying, okay, I am changing my brain.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm turning over from work to home or from home to work.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: That can be helpful.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, or it can be helpful to do certain tasks to kind of just think through and say, how am I gonna turn my brain off?
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, have that routine for the transition from work to home and from home to work.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Number three is schedule your off time.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So when you're at work, you probably have a calendar and you probably have a bunch of things on that calendar.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: The more frustrating your your office environment is, probably the more meetings you have.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: But when you get home, you often just have this big blank spot and it's just home.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: But what happens is the same thing that happens with your money.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you just say, let's spend money until I don't have any money anymore, well, your money's gonna disappear and you're not gonna be sure why.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: But if you budget it, you know where all your dollars go.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then you can know, okay, I need to spend only this much money on streaming services because I have to also buy food.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you kind of schedule it out.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, the same thing is true of your time.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_01: If you just have this blank on your calendar that is anything off of work is just blank, well then you're gonna spend your time in the same way you would spend your money if you didn't have a budget.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: So schedule your off time, or at least have a time budget.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_01: So I understand life is crazy.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_01: I raise kids and you know, things like going to soccer practice and having school events and having friends over and going to you know different things in the community.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: Well, those things aren't necessarily always at the same time.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so your life gets a bit chaotic and you feel like you don't have control over set things.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But what you should do is work on a time budget.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I have you know friends that they go from one athletic event to the next for their kids over and over and over again.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: And they say, I don't know where my time goes.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I do.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: You're spending all your time at athletic events.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_01: So what you need to do is think through how much time are we willing to give per week to athletic events?
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_01: How much time are we willing to give to family time?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: How much time are you willing to give to each of us, you and your spouse or you and your partner, um, to have personal time, like playing video games or just being by yourself, sitting in a quiet, dark room, contemplating life, whatever it is, how much time are you willing to give per week for that?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then what you do is maybe you can't schedule every night at 7 p.m., I'm gonna do this.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: But you say, hey, you know what?
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_01: In my budget, I have 10 hours of me time a week.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And I haven't spent any yet.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna spend three hours tonight because we don't have anything else.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna spend up me time tonight.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And then tomorrow, you know, tomorrow's Saturday, and we're gonna do family stuff all day long.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: So we'll put you know the budget for that on Saturday so you won't do something on Thursday.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: And you start to kind of get that time budget or you know, the different buckets you put your time in and start to schedule when your time is.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Because otherwise, what happens is it feels like you get off work on Friday afternoon, you're like, man, I got the whole weekend to myself.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_01: And then everything happens, and it's Monday morning, you're like, I don't know what happened.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't have any free time.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_01: I felt like I was going from thing to thing to thing, and I feel like I'm exhausted coming into Monday morning.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: So schedule your time off.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: Schedule your off time as well, your time off, but schedule your off time so that you are be intentional about how much time you spend in any one category.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_01: Number four, have a non-work hobby.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So for me, for a long time, this was woodworking.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: So I would build things out of wood.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_01: I wasn't very good at it.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
• 12:36
  SPEAKER_01: I got better over time.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: But what I would do is go out to my garage and I would build things.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I've got a table saw, I've got, you know, hammer, nail, screwdriver, all the rest, but that's not a computer.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: That's not a screen that I'm sitting in front of.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's physically going and doing something.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, that was a way for me to turn my brain off, to kind of reset, to refresh myself so I wasn't always doing the same thing.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_01: I love computer games.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: I love World of Warcraft, and I love playing, well, classic, but I love playing World of Warcraft classic.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I, you know, but that's sitting in front of the computer again.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: And if that's my primary hobby, well, then when I get off work, I'm just gonna transition to gaming and I'm still sitting in front of the screen.
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_01: And so that doesn't really turn my brain off.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't reset how I'm thinking.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_01: So having a non-work hobby is really helpful.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now, for me, I can't do woodworking anymore.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_01: I had allergies.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: So what I've transitioned to is I do photography.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_01: Am I great at it?
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_01: But you know what?
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: It gets me out of the house, it gets me doing something out in nature.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: I love going taking pictures of birds and trees and you know, rivers and streams and all the rest.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I go out and do things because that is not in front of a screen.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's not me sitting at the same spot I've been sitting all day long.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: This is also especially helpful if you work from home, which I do, is having something that gets you out of your office.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, number five, take notes of ideas that pop in your head.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: So it's going to happen.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: When you try and turn your brain off, that's when a great idea hits.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: Where you're like, oh, that's how I can solve that bug.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's how I can implement that feature.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: The temptation is going to be to start doing that.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: You'll forget otherwise.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: And or you try and remember it in your brain.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: And you're always thinking, try and remember, oh, yeah, that's how I'm gonna do that.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah, that's how I'm gonna do that.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Your brain's not great at that.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of doing that, write it down.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_01: Put it on a notepad somewhere, and then forget about it.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've taken care of it.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: It's on the notepad.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Monday morning or the next morning, whenever it is that you're next working, you'll have that.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: That way you don't have to think about it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can let it go out of your brain.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_01: Relax.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: Okay?
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: So have that notepad somewhere.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: For me, it's on my phone.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have the notes app from an iPhone.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: I use that notes app all the time.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: So even dev question videos.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: I'll have ideas for dev question videos in that notes app, things I'm thinking through because I've I've had that random thought that you know, I was out shopping somewhere.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh, that's a great idea.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: I put it in a notepad and forget about it and come back to it later.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: So having notes can relieve your brain of trying to remember all these things that are work-focused.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: Number six, learn to say no.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's a hard word to learn to say, but learn to say no.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's in your personal life or your work life, you need to learn how to say no.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: And depending on the circumstances, you can't just say no.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: You've got to learn the diplomatic way of saying no.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: For example, maybe at your job, your boss says, Hey, I want you to take on this extra task.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just tell your boss no.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, your boss is your boss, and your boss is in charge of what you do.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: But what you can do is say, I would love to.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: What should I not do in order to fit that in?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's essentially a no.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: What you're saying is, I can't add four more hours per week.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_01: So let's take four hours out of the schedule in order to put that thing in.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: You get to prioritize what I do.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Not a problem.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_01: I would appreciate that.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: But let's work through together what I should say no to.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Let your boss help with that.
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: In your personal life, you don't have to do every kid's event.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do every invitation where people say, hey, come over to our house and do this.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: Come out, come out, you know, and do that.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: You don't have to do every one of those.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: You can take time to say, you know what?
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need just a family night.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_01: I think we just need a me night.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: I think we need to have a quiet weekend.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_01: So learning to say no effectively is really important to hitting a good balance.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_01: If you can't say no, you're going to get run over.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_01: So learn to say no well and up front.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because the other thing that happens is if your boss comes to you and says, Hey, I want you to do this extra thing, well, if you don't have time to do everything, what you're going to do is eventually say no.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_01: But the way you're going to say no is I couldn't get it done.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_01: I failed.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: So now the no is your problem.
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's your failure.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: So instead of making it your failure, early on have a conversation about I can't do both.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_01: So one of these is going to get dropped.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: How do you want to deal with that?
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so learn to say no effectively.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: So the overall idea here is to be intentional about your time.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_01: You can't just let life happen to you.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: You have to make choices about how you spend your time.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, it just slips away and you get burned out and exhausted.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: All right?
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: So make good choices about your time.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for listening.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_01: And as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to IamTimCorey.com and enroll in a course.