Ladies, do you know where your husband is? If he’s anything like me (or the rest of my team), he’s at the office. At 4AM. Again.
For the third week in a row I find myself at work at the wee hours of the morning preparing for a project launch. Though today more than ever I find myself asking questions; what takes priority, the needs of a company, or the needs of a relationship? What’s more important, the health of a project, or my own health? Should I be working to make this project a success, or sleeping to stay healthy?
Normally these questions are simple and obvious – yet so often we choose our projects over ourselves, our companies over our loved ones. Why? Is it the drive for success, the challenge of doing the impossible? Maybe it’s the money? Why do developers so often sacrifice so much?
This isn’t a guide to better managing time, or a treatise on setting priorities; no, it’s a developer’s lament. So much is given for a company that does little but ask for more; yet more we always give. We know there are things far more important, but yet so much rides on our efforts, so many people counting on us; how could we dare let them down? Though I appreciate my paycheck, it doesn’t drive me to do more – it’s the people, the challenge, the fact only I can make this happen.
Sometimes though, I wish I could bring myself to accept failure; maybe then the pressure wouldn’t be so great. Maybe then, I could sleep at night.
But this is what we do, we make the miracles; we do the impossible. Every day we face another challenge, every day we find another solution. Now if we could just find a solution for all this time lost from what matters most.
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
“Now if we could just find a solution for all this time lost from what matters most.” <– I’ve got to beg to differ here. IMHO, where a person spends his time is the single-best indicator of what does matter most to him.
Perhaps you’re right; though I don’t think it’s that simple.
When you are being tugged in so many directions at once, it’s hard (if not impossible) to make time for everyone and everything that needs it. It’s all too easy to run out of time, and almost impossible to make it up later.
Recently I’ve found myself cutting sleep out of the picture just to free up a few extra hours to deal with a few more things that need to be done. Even then, even when ignoring sleep, there just aren’t enough hours.
Perhaps though, there are times that you should let the project slip, let the final product ship with a couple extra bugs. After all, even though as a developer and a professional I want my work to be perfect, life really is more important than the career.
The challenge is knowing that you could make it perfect, you could fix those last bugs – and just walking away to leave it for another day. I guess it’s just the perfectionist in me.
Adam,
I used to suffer that same problem and to a lesser extent still do. The reality is that while you and your team continue to work like you are – absolutely nothing will change at your business.
Your priority should be yourself and family first, everything else needs to be prioritised after that. For your own sanity, you should re-read your post from 2006 on the pressure to be great.
Al.