Work / Life balance is something that we talk about a lot at work. I think the problem with it is, work AND life are often intertwined and leaving the office, especially when you work from home, is challenging.

With this years theme, I want to get more hands on. I want to see the results of the work or craft that I put in. This can be seen as a rebranding of the year of learning where I wanted to learn certain skills in the shop and ended up learning the skills needed for a new role. While successful, it didn’t hit all that I was looking to do.

If you want to look back and what I set out to accomplish this year read the original post.

How did it really go?

Its that time of the year when you can sit back, reflect on the things you accomplished and wonder…what did I actually do? Where the f&ck did the year go?!?!?

If you look back at what I was hoping to do there was a heavy theme about spending more time in the shop creating and making things. IF anything this year, I spent noticeably LESS time in the shop. This is a failure on many levels. My stress increased and more time was spent sitting in front of a computer working.

Its been a while since I have shared a few things that I’ve been listening to. If you are looking for a new album to dive into or new podcast, be sure to check these out.

What are you listening to?

Ramp data shows a trend in the 996 work lifestyle.

9AM - 9PM, 6 days a week.

Ugh

This is the stuff that some of my fellow engineers would tell me about China doing. And one of the reasons that they were working in the US to have a more sane work/life balance.

Ramp admits that their customer base is tech biased and I’m guessing that they market heavily in San Fran to skew the data towards tech folks. But the trend happening at all is worrying.