29 Apr
2008

The work/life balance

Category:RamblingsTag: , :

Being in the tech industry is far beyond a full-time job. We all quip that everything we do is work. Bowling? Get your neighbor’s card, twitter about it and then find them on Facebook. On vacation? Blog about it, post your pictures to Flickr then Twitter about it all.

Finding that balance between work and life is difficult. For me, I was a husband before I was a marketer. I was a brother before I was a journalist. And, I was a friend before I was a professional.

A realization

I realized on yet another flight home that I had not heard from a fair number of friends from high school or from college lately. This is a two-way street and I think I’ve been going the wrong way. I have been so involved in growing my tech-world social circle that my “IRL” friends have fallen off my radar.

I’ve made several acquaintances that are closing in on the “friend” label rather quickly from the tech scene and they’re great people. But I don’t yet have the history with them that I have with some of the people that I’ve pulled all-nighters with or the people I’ve played football with or the people I’ve barbecued with.

This realization made me kind of sad.

Find your balance

Finding your balance can be difficult at times. I’m feeling kind of lazy, but there’s some venture capitalists that take off-the-grid weeks quarterly to re-charge and to refresh. I’m getting ready to take a one-week break to Mexico and will be largely off the grid. The iPhone will be at home and the laptop will be mostly in the safe.

I think that going offline is a good start, but it doesn’t go far enough. I find myself leading two lives: One life is online and the other is offline. In my day job, I’m in marketing and PR, so why shouldn’t I market to my offline friends? If they were all on Twitter, it would be that much easier to keep in touch.

So, what do you do to keep in touch? How can I get everybody on IM or on Twitter or somewhere else? How do you find your balance?

One thought on “The work/life balance”

  1. Hi – very good site you have made. I enjoyed reading this posting. I did want to publish a comment to tell you that the design of this site is very aesthetically pleasing. I used to be a graphic designer, now I am a copy editor in chief for a marketing firm. I have always enjoyed working with computing machines and am attempting to learn code in my spare time (which there is never enough of lol).

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