Musings of Dan McComas, Founder and CEO here at Imzy!
How many hours do you work?
I sat in my psychiatrist's office today talking about my brain and he asked me the question I hate so much: "how many hours are you working?"
This is an odd question because there's two ways to answer it:
- Do you take the total of the hours you spend in the office + the time you spend in front of your computer doing work at home?
- Do you take the sum of 1 and add to it the amount of time you think about work and work problems and their possible solutions?
Because I think for me, the answer to number 1 is probably somewhere between 60 - 70 per week. But the answer to number 2 is probably closer to 90 - 100.
I also think about this topic a lot when people ask me about "work-life balance"? What the hell does that even mean? The time I spend thinking about work versus not thinking about work? I don't fucking have work-life balance. I try for it, but I don't have it, not even a little. I think about work ALL of the time, literally. I wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it.
How do you answer this question?




Now imagine being asked to fill a timesheet when you are an electronics engineer and you have the absurdity of my current job.
I just copy and paste the same 8-hour period into every workday even though I almost certainly work much more than that.
Time cards are the worst
Oh god I'm not the only one who doesn't understand this question \o/
I'm a work-at-home mother. So even if I'm not doing worky stuff, I'm doing mothery stuff. Or thinking of one or the other. Or sleeping or pretending to sleep.
I'm not sure there's a good way to answer it, because work and life are incredibly intertwined for many people nowadays. We read emails as we eat lunch. Take business calls while driving. As more people telecommute, the distinction of leaving things at the office becomes far more blurry.
I think a better way of looking at it is personal time/vs everyone else time balance. And that is going to be different for everyone. Are you getting enough time for yourself. What is something that you do for you? That can be with your friends or alone, but it's something that is about meeting your needs rather than the needs of work. Read a book, go for a walk, see a movie, cook, learn something new. See how much of THAT time you need for yourself a week. /my two cents
I feel like I'm in the office 45~50 hours a week, then add probably another 15~20 from home, or wherever I am when something goes awry. Often times, those extra hours are more watching television, quilting, or knitting and thinking through something, not actively pounding at the keyboard.
The work life balance is always a struggle for me, but I find that a few hours away (like when I go /curling a couple times a week) does me far more good than taking whole days.
My more productive day is usually Sunday to be honest. I can sit down, relatively distraction free, and pump out something, or work through a multi hour task.
Having said all that, I'm also the type of person who starts twitching two days into vacation because I want to be working.
I think for us, because we work entirely on the internet, there isn't a "end of day" where you know if you need someone, they will already have gone home, or aren't available.
8, some OT occasionally. 2 hour commute each way though,
I do an engineering job in IT for hourly pay and OT. They get antsy when I get over 65 hours in a week. I do not have a degree but my current company cannot figure out how to pay me salary without breaking some contracting rules they are subject to. Which OK works for me because I'm on call one week a month and its a two hour minimum when I get called after 9pm so those weeks can get nice checks. I wish I was salary with a higher rate but I can make up for it most weeks by working OT and paying the ridiculous tax rate for time and a half.
I don't have a TV at home and have multiple computers and monitors so if you took the time I'm logged into a VPN to the office in the course of an evening combined with my office hours it would be in the 55-70 range. I may be playing a game on one and writing a script or monitoring a script on the other. For two I almost constantly think about work and try try to think of ways to work to improve the place and stop some of the We are On Fire method of running the way we do currently (Stop, Drop, and Roll then reevaluate not Run a mile to a body of water, then light yourself on fire again and run to the next lake....)
I'm recently separated from my wife per her request, why do you ask? :p Work has some things to do with that but we do not have children and we both work 50-60 in office hours (she is a DVM) a week so its not just my bad work habits.
I've tried work-life balance but I'm not a morning person so I always feel like I'm short changing half of my day at the office because I have to be there by 8:30 every day even if I don't function worth a damn until 10 or so.
I usually am in the office for 45 to 50 ish depending on the week and what is going on. I will say I spend more time outside of work trying to solve problems or researching how I am going to solve those problems.
Work-life balance is what you get when you are working at a boring job that dosesn't interest you. If you love what you do and are engaged in it. It becomes what you do and what you think about most of the time.
I haven't been able to actually enjoy a tv show in weeks because as soon as it starts I go back to thinking about my current project and what else I need to do to get it working and out the door.
It's a good feeling to have. I would much rather have my head in a problem then have it trapped in fantasy.
Ok, last comment. There is nothing wrong with thinking about work all the time. If you see my first post that nourishes me. Go for it while you are young. Never give up, never stop. I said that.
Or zero. See below. I am retired.
I work every moment that I am awake. Either I am making a shitty video, or practicing guitar, or meditating to mindfulness. The mindful existence is constant work. I also have no job since 2011. I really wish I had a DVD to explain this and to share my shitty videos, but I don't. I do have a Facebook and a YouTube. I used to have a Reddit but no more. Puerile youngsters. Hope that makes sense. I never stop. Even when I am stopping.
I consider myself to be working every waking moment because I'm always thinking about some piece of some project, trying to work out the right solution, even if it's happening in the background while I'm out at a bar or watching a movie or driving the boat.
Hell, I even dream about system solutions from time to time and will wake up in the middle of the night to jot down everything I remember. Most of the time, I'll wake up in the morning, review my notes, and find that my solution entails turning some sort of rare sports car into a time machine, going back to when the system I'm trying to improve/replace/fix was first designed, knocking the analyst out, and correcting the initial design in order to suit the future needs. Sometimes, the solution is a little cheaper and less likely to result in irreparable damage to the space-time continuum.
Not surprisingly, human resources and the budget office do not agree with my assessment of my work hours. They're also not wild about the budgetary impacts presented by most of my dream solutions. Fine... I'll do it their way. No time machines...