A couple of years ago I did this post -
Work Every Waking Hour! (phiarmor.blogspot.com)
- and felt it is worth revisiting it.
My Thoughts and Background
I've been massively struggling with my work recently. Really, it's mostly due to distractions. I do love what I do, I'm very lucky with my work, but the problem is that there are things I love move.
So, that's what has been happening, is the things I love more have been getting in the way of my actual work. Of course, this is very bad of me. My priority must be getting work stuff done and not indulging in pastimes when I should be working.
One issue is the whole "work life balance" debate. It's easy to think "well, I'm paid to do 40 hours a week, I should do my 40 hours a week, the other time is my personal time." And in my situation, this sentiment is clearly wrong. I've had it wrong for a while now. And I should be approaching things with an Elon Musk mind set:
"Work Every Waking Hour!"
When I think of my most successful career period, it was greatly driven by almost being workaholic. I did my office shift 8 to 6 every day (50 hours a week) and my evenings and weekends would be spent doing more work stuff (i.e., overtime, researching stuff, learning extra skills, writing on a technical blog.)
I have been workaholic before, and I enjoyed it. I can be workaholic again.
Workaholic
"A workaholic is a person who works compulsively. A workaholic experiences an inability to limit the amount of time they spend on work despite negative consequences such as damage to their relationships or health."
From the above definition of workaholic, it's not just working long hours, it's working hard in those long hours. Avoiding the negative consequences is important though, no point working hard and ruining your health (relationships are not important to me, I like freedom, especially freedom from people who do not share the same values as me and expect me to bend to their ways.)
Final Link
Does it challenge the "Work Every Waking Hour!" philosophy!?
I don't think so. It depends on what is important to you. What is most important to you?