People frequently ask me what my work-life balance is like at my current company. Aside from the fact that I don’t agree with the term itself since work and life are not a trade-off (see Shyam Sankar’s take on why it’s a false dichotomy), the question normally mixes up various interpretations of the term.
People normally conflate “lots of work” with “being forced to work” and “not having a life”. I think when most people think of hard work, they picture an investment bank: you are essentially forced to work extreme hours on tasks that you might actually hate, and it precludes you from developing other aspects of your life.
But that’s not the only way to work much. Think of a favourite side project you did. Did anybody force you to work a lot on it? Did it ruin the rest of your life? Conversely, did you only work set hours on it? Did you forbid yourself from thinking about your project during “off hours”, like travelling on the bus or on the weekend?
I feel very similarly about my current work. I believe in its importance. I enjoy it. And it fits into the broader vision of my life. Consequently, I work hard: when the national security of a country is compromised, I care, and I’m willing to work long hours, even at night if necessary; I think about work projects after “business hours”; I travel for work sometimes on Sundays; I put in extra effort before pilot deadlines. But this does not prevent me from having a full life: company work is just another project in my life, next to teaching kids in Hungary, tutoring at university, writing blog posts, socialising with friends.
That’s why I draw a distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic[1] motivations. While in the investment banking case you are forced to work, here you’re not - people work hard because they care.[2] Somewhat ironically, we have the opposite problem: having to force people to take breaks since they are so invested that they are unwilling to stop solving problems on their own.
So the right question to ask is not “do you work long hours?” but rather, “do you enjoy your work?” and “does your work prevent your from enjoying other aspects of life?”. As Ricky Gervais so succinctly summarised: “Remember, Mondays are fine. It's your life that sucks.”
So do I work long hours sometimes? Yes, I do. Does it mean I don’t have “work-life balance”? No, it doesn’t.
Life is life, and I’m glad I get to spend a significant part of it on these kinds of problems.
Footnotes
[1] It’s not actually “extrinsic” in the sense that you chose to do that job - but extrinsic in that within the context of your job there’s a stronger external force (being told to work long hours and being afraid of getting fired) rather than an internal one (wanting to solve a problem).
[2] I realise a lot of people don’t have the freedom to choose to work on something that they care about. I think it’s a privilege to have this option - one that many people don’t make use of.