Do programmers have work life balance?

Some don’t have a work-life balance but a large number of programmers, developers and software engineers are actively trying to find an equilibrium between work and personal life.

What is ‘Work Life Balance’?

Work-life balance refers to an equilibrium state, where one effectively balances work or career demands and those of their personal life. 

An individual who lacks a work-life balance has more work and home obligations, works longer hours, and lacks personal time. 

According to hrzone, work-life balance defines how well a person prioritizes personal and career demands, and how much work is present in one’s home. It is best to create a schedule that creates a balance between your work and personal life. 

Importance of Work-Life Balance

1. Work-life balance helps maintain mental health

It is a proven fact that having longer working hours is linked with increased chances of experiencing anxiety and depression. 

A study reveals that those who worked more than 55 hours per week were 1.66 times more exposed to depression and their chances of developing anxiety were 1.74 times higher than those working less than 55 hours per week with obvious signs of exhaustion and burnout.

When you feel balanced you’re more capable of dealing with negative emotions and thoughts.

Having a healthy work-life balance means that employees will be happier when they come to work. This, in turn, helps reduce stress and the chances of burnout.

2. Also helps with physical health

If employees are being too overworked, they are much more likely to be plagued with physical ailments. This is especially true if they aren’t taking appropriate breaks throughout the day.

Part of creating balance for yourself includes taking care of your physical health and it includes regular exercise, eating healthy meals, good sleep habits and reducing alcohol and sugar intake.

3. It increases productivity

A company needs its employees to be productive. That’s where the importance of work-life balance comes into play – if an employee’s work-life balance is steady, they will be much happier at work and this leads to greater productivity. 

4. Creative thinking, Problem Solving and Decision Making

Once people have ample free time from work, they have an enhanced capacity to think out of the box. With lower stress and anxiety, they are better able to get their problem-solving and critical thinking skills going. They even make better decisions with a work life balance.

When you’re stressed, overwhelmed and/or anxious, you have no capacity to think creatively. But with balance comes clear, creative thinking.  And that means better work product too!

Work-life balance enhances creative, problem solving and better decision making skills.

5. Real Balance Brings Happiness and Fulfillment

One of the big reasons why work life balance is important is for your own happiness and fulfillment.  

Balance is about feeling good about yourself and being in control of your life and career path.

How many hours do Programmers actually work?

On average, programmers work 40 hours a week. This breaks down to an 8 daily hours work duration, Monday to Friday.

It’s usually a 9:00 am – 5:00 pm work schedule but for others, might be 8:00 am – 4:00 pm.

Do Programmers work 8 hours a day?

Yes, they do, but this doesn’t mean they sit on one spot brainstorming, debugging and writing codes throughout the 8 complete work hours.

There are often intermittent breaks between work for lunch, team meetings, general review and briefing and in some workplaces, task allocation.

Common signs of Work Life Imbalance

• Frequent exhaustion
• Lethargy
• Symptoms of depression
• Social isolation
• Stressfulness and anxiousness
• Emotional upsurges
• Loss of motivation
• Reoccuring burnout

If you experience these signs in the course of discharging your duties, then it means you are experiencing a work-life imbalance.

The next section will expose you to work and life balance tips for programmers.

How to Achieve Work-Life Balance as a Programmer

1. Prioritize your time

• Do this for both personal and professional tasks
• Create a list if needed
• Order from most important to least important

2. Have a strict coding routine

• Find the best routine for you
• Suggestion: Do something relaxing during your first hour
• Know when you are at your best and use that time wisely.
• You may need to restructure part or all of your day.

3. Take work breaks and try to relax

• Many quick short breaks
• 1 – 2 longer breaks
• Short vacation a few times per year
• Try relaxing techniques (meditation, breathing)

4. Don’t tip the scale too much:

• Save time and energy for people and things you love and enjoy
• Find a balance especially if you have kids
• Don’t spend much time on social activities as well, find an equilibrium.

5. Cut out the nonsense

• Stop things that are not productive AND serve no purpose
• Stop mindless web browsing
• Go through your schedule and cut things out that are not needed.

6. Be aware of burnout

• Programming and similar jobs do a number on burnout
• Try and conserve some mental energy
• Exercising and improving your physical health also helps.

7. Don’t be a perfectionist programmer

• Most of the time, you are the only one that will notice
• You can save a ton of time for more meaningful things
• It’s great to care about doing a job but know when it gets counter-productive.

8. Don’t take on things you can’t handle

• Be sure you can handle it
• Higher stress is equivalent to less work
• Weigh the pros and cons before taking on opportunities

Do programmers work on weekends?

Most programmers don’t work on weekends, it’s often a time for relaxation and prepping up for the incoming week.

However, some programmers with side projects or into business and freelancing tend to pounce on from where they stopped at weekends leaving no extra time for social activities.

Final Thoughts

Work life balance is essential for the success and well-being and success of a person regardless of professions.

Coding can be stressful, especially when starting out and without work-life balance, the stress-induced from coding can lead to anxieties, depression and re-occurring burnout.

Regardless of if you work as an employee, freelance or work on personal pet projects, it’s up to you to find an equilibrium between work and maintaining good health.

Balance is not better time management, but better boundary management. Balance means making choices and enjoying those choices.

As Hillary Clinton once said, “Don’t confuse having a career with having a life”.

In life, you will never find time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.

Most programmers are quick to blame it on their work, stating your daily workload is too much.

As a programmer or software engineer, you should know when to cut off from work activities and you should also know your daily limit.

In the words of Mathew Kelly: “Work life balance is not an entitlement or benefit. Your company cannot give it to you. You have to create it for yourself.”

It’s fun and fulfilling to be a programmer, developer or software engineer steadily resolving code issues, advancing technologies and making the world a better place.

But don’t get caught up in the fuse, always remember that health is wealth and we only get to live once.
No programmer on his deathbed ever said, ‘I wish I spent more time debugging and cloning more repositories’.

If you are just getting started with programming, I hope this article enlightens you and prepares you beforehand of what is expected.

I wish you all a balanced programming journey.

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Happy Coding!