Episode 8 - Striking a Balance

Junior Developer Toolbox

In this episode, we discuss our experiences and thoughts about finding a work / life balance in development roles.

0:54 – Sharpening the Tools

Erin is continuing her Treehouse track for iOS development. She’s also earning some WordPress basics, with an eye on helping a local church with their website.

Dave attended a meet-up that took a look into the D3.js library for data visualization.

Jason is continuing his exploration of the Angular framework and starting into using Ionic to be able to use Angular for mobile applications.

4:33 – Opening the Toolbox

We are sad to announce that Jason is stepping down as a regular co-host and contributor. He details the reasons for this decision and his focus at work, leading into our discussion of work/life balance.

6:46 – Sometimes work/life imbalances are self-imposed, sometimes for good reasons.

7:13 – Erin’s Bill Lumbergh impression from Office Space.

13:54 – Work / Life balance is going to fluctuate and may never be a constant, but do you have a healthy balance over the long term?

17:59 – Work / Life balance is an illusion – we discuss popular development blogger John Sonmez’s article about this balance being a mindset. Work is going to take up a huge part of your day, so you should enjoy what you do. If not, you will compartmentalize and begin to think of work as detracting from your life.

Take care of yourself, choose your relationships carefully, and live as much as possible in the present moment, and you’ll find your life doesn’t need “balance”, because you’ll find joy and fulfillment in whatever you are doing.

22:22 – One of the inventor’s of the Scrum process points out that overtime does not equal more productivity.

27:36 – Dave brings up one of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People about the prioritization of work based on an urgency / importance matrix. This is also known as Covey’s time management matrix, or the Eisenhower decision matrix.

30:01 – Does working from home complicate work/life balance? Or make it harder to separate the two?

34:58 – Erin’s Job Search Update

Erin has accepted a new job, and gives us the details and some of her decision making process.

Takeaways From This Episode
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Work / life balance isn’t 100% in your control, but you may feel pressure as a junior to tip the scale towards work

Balance isn’t a constant, but a marathon pace

You don’t necessarily want to compartmentalize work

Working from home requires an effort to distinguish between work and home life

Thanks for listening, see you next time!