Work / Life Balance

cxzar20

How many hours do you average a week and how well does it integrate with your personal lives? I average between 40-45 hours a week and study when I have some down time at work. By the time I get home from the gym it is already almost 8pm and I need to get something to eat with the girlfriend before winding down for the night. I don't know how you guys studying for the CCIE do it .

Turgon

cxzar20 wrote: »

How many hours do you average a week and how well does it integrate with your personal lives? I average between 40-45 hours a week and study when I have some down time at work. By the time I get home from the gym it is already almost 8pm and I need to get something to eat with the girlfriend before winding down for the night. I don't know how you guys studying for the CCIE do it .

I relate. Well basically I dont 'do it'. It will be 5 years in April and still no lab attempt, but I think some daylight is opening up this year. I do a bit inbetween meetings at work when I can and not much evenings or weekends. Im usually very tired after work and my wife needs a hand with the kids and we both need to relax in the evening when they are in bed. Weekends she needs lots of help with the kids and there are chores and all kinds of things to catchup on. If I was to suggest I dissappear for 8 hours to do labs we would row. So it doesn't happen.

Career going well though and wife and kids fine with my approach..CCIE a long termer, Im comfortable with that. Rather that than burn out affecting my performance at work which pays the bills or winding up living on my own. It has happened to CCIE candidates.

Be realistic about your bandwidth and use it sensibly. There is more to life than being a number, especially if you already have a demanding schedule and senior role.

Tackle

I work 45-50 hours every week.

I suppose I live a pretty chillaxed life compared to a good majority on here. I'm 21, I live in an apartment with my girlfriend, maintenance is a minimum (No yard to mow or stuff to fix). I have no kids, I don't volunteer and I don't belong to a Church.

After work I usually go home and cook supper with my gf. Then I have an hour or so of "me time" where I'll work on my home network, work out and get caught up on the latest tech. After that I'll spank the girlfriend, shake hands, pee and go to bed. Usually 4 hours of doing stuff after work before I'm sleeping.

Weekends are usually always open. Anything from Fishing, helping my parents, working on my car or drinkin the goofy juice.

elTorito

Averaging 50 hours a week also, plus about 8 working from home. Pressures at work are pushing me towards increasing my hours though, mostly due to increased responsibilities, a neverending stream of new projects, the manager's wish to push me towards a senior role and the need to keep up certification-wise.

I'm having trouble deciding if the sudden career opportunity is worth giving up the social life

lordy

I have reduced my contract to 34 hours that I deliver Monday through Thursday.

That opens the whole Friday for studying, other projects, sleeping, video games and other fun stuff

Turgon

LucasMN wrote: »

I work 45-50 hours every week.

I suppose I live a pretty chillaxed life compared to a good majority on here. I'm 21, I live in an apartment with my girlfriend, maintenance is a minimum (No yard to mow or stuff to fix). I have no kids, I don't volunteer and I don't belong to a Church.

After work I usually go home and cook supper with my gf. Then I have an hour or so of "me time" where I'll work on my home network, work out and get caught up on the latest tech. After that I'll spank the girlfriend, shake hands, pee and go to bed. Usually 4 hours of doing stuff after work before I'm sleeping.

Weekends are usually always open. Anything from Fishing, helping my parents, working on my car or drinkin the goofy juice.

Those were the days. Spank the girlfriend indeed. Enjoy.

Trifidw

I usually finish work at 4pm (8am start) and only live half an hour away so have plenty of time in the evenings to do what I want to do (usually music related). However when we do project work it completely ruins me for the week. For example on Wednesday I finished an upgrade at half past midnight (does that make it Thursday?) and had to be back in for 8am the next day still. I average 37.5 hours as I get time in lieu for any extra work.

chappys4life

I understand I keep trying to find a balance it used to be I worked 40 hours went home drank, bars, etc no certs and slacking. Then I went back to school 40 hours mon-fri at work then school 6-10 at night mon-thurs. Its been a crazy time and I feel like its either a life and no job/career progression or all work with no life.

Right now I am mostly school/work which sucks because I find myself scarred of getting burnt out (has happened a few times) so being careful now but its hard if you want to pursue in a more technical role. I am in a stagnant place at my job and company so doing certs and school to get a better job with a new company as I am 7 years in IT but if not careful going to be labeled just a desktop support guy.

petedude

To the work/life balance question-- three words: it doesn't exist.

Work/life balance: What it does and doesn't mean | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld

That is, expecting your work to give it to you is unrealistic. But with any luck, you can carve out time for yourself when you need it.

cxzar20

petedude wrote: »

To the work/life balance question-- three words: it doesn't exist.

Work/life balance: What it does and doesn't mean | Adventures in IT - InfoWorld

That is, expecting your work to give it to you is unrealistic. But with any luck, you can carve out time for yourself when you need it.

An important point about that is how far you want to go in your career. I am at the architect level, however this is the furthest I plan on going for those reasons. Lucky for me I work in a very chill atmosphere. The next level is director/executive and money isn't worth the death to my personal life. I leave work at the same time every day unless I am putting out fires and my blackberry gets turned off at that time unless I am on call.

N2IT

Right now I work ~40 hours a week and study about 5-10 hours a week. I hit the gym 3 times a week for about 1 hour each clip. I have children and after the PMP the breaks are going to hit the rails. Whether they stop the train is a different story. (Hopefully it does, I really need to stop)

ptilsen

When things are slow at work, it's about 45-50 plus another 5-10 commuting. Get up at 6:30, leave, get home between 6:00 and 7:00. When things are busy, it's 50-70 hours plus commuting. It's definitely too much overall between that, trying study, and getting ready to go to college again. I really think 50 is the most one should do to keep things balanced, maybe 55 with short (less than 30 minutes round trip) commute.

johnnyarks

My personal/social life has completely shut down since I got my job, I work 45hrs a week, I don't live close to my job so I travel about 3-5hrs a day on a train... that hardly leaves me a good hr to myself to do anything. I'm going to try incorporate some gym time because I've gain 15ish Lbs since I started this job, I try to get my study time in on overnight shift when it's slow, my off day is a Tuesday so no date nights or hanging out w/ friends, I get a lot of afternoons off, which is useless to a 20 something, hopefully this is what ppl consider paying dues and next job will be better, whether it be pay, location or better hrs.

Slowhand

I'm finally working part-time, trying to get in about 15 - 20 hours per week at my target pay. This is something I've been trying to accomplish for several years so I could return to school and move forward with my goals. For the next six months I'm going to be using the other 20 - 30 hours per week that I would have been working if I was full-time for studying certs and brushing up on math and physics. I'm also hitting up the gym to decompress and make sure I keep my health up as I hit the books. My girlfriend comes and stays with me on the weekends, my roommate works and is planning on taking classes with me in the fall, things are good.

I'm not quite sure what a typical day is going to look like for me, but I plan on filling up the hours with either work or study for the time being, make sure I work out and move a bit, then take the weekends to relax so I don't go insane. Perhaps I'll make it a point to go out and do some things this summer I haven't done in a while, like go surfing or hiking, maybe try my hand at some chords on my guitar again. The way I see it, if I'm going to go all in with my studies, I might as well go all in with my off-time as well and balance out both fun and relaxation in my off-hours so I don't just end up sitting on my butt playing video games. (That can lead to more video games later, and less studying or even less work.)