Xian Yu answered the reader's question: How to balance work and life?

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This question reminds me of Brian Dyson's 1996 graduation speech at Georgia Tech:

Imagine life as a game of tossing and catching five balls in the air—work, family, health, friends, and mind—and you can’t let any of them land.

You will soon discover that the job is a rubber ball that bounces back if it falls, while the other four balls are made of glass and if missed, they are irreparably scored, damaged, or even broken and will never be same as before.

Thinking that if you want to perform acrobatics, throw and catch five balls, it is really a little difficult. It makes people think how difficult it is to balance these 5 things in life, but the abominable thing is that those who succeed tend to do well.

Take Zuckerberg, for example, as the CEO of Facebook. Although he is busy at work, he still insists on running, traveling, and spending time with his family, and he has not fallen behind. Another example is Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. In her book "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead", she shared her work-life balance. Lots of ideas and techniques.

Are you saying they really did it? I don't know the specifics, but even in terms of work achievements, the performance in all aspects is much better than ours.

But successful people are successful people after all. For example, many problems can be solved with money: housework can be solved by a nanny, but I am reluctant to spend money, so I can only clean up the house by myself. , I feel unhealthy to order takeout. I have a special car driver when I travel, and I can only squeeze the subway because I can't afford a special car. I have top-level coaches to guide my fitness, and I am still hesitating whether to apply for a card or buy a private education class... …

Thinking about it this way, although everyone has the same amount of time, whether it is the time that can be spent on things or the efficiency of completing things, they are actually far inferior to them. The same thing is normal mode for them, maybe hard mode for me, which will somewhat weaken the reference.

And from the perspective of an ordinary person like me, work-life balance is more of a lie than a vision.

First of all, the "balance" that most people imagine is to have complete control over everyday things, whether it is tasks in work or things in life, all can be loaded, and none of them will be left behind. But there are only so many people's time, 24 hours a day, one side increases, there is a decrease, and if something can't be completed, one begins to feel guilty, and perfectionism is haunting in my heart.

The essence of this kind of thinking is to expect to use a set of frameworks to hold everything, which is obviously an underestimation of the difficulty of life, and an overestimation of oneself at the same time, and will eventually be educated by reality.

Why do we seek balance? Think about it, the reason why we pursue balance is that our present is not balanced, but in fact, from the perspective of life, our present will not be balanced.

In the book "Your Happiness Curve", I talk about a life happiness curve. After adjusting for income, gender, education, work, marriage, health, etc., it is to filter out other factors that affect life satisfaction. , the relationship between age and life satisfaction looks like this:

You can find that the relationship between happiness and age in life follows the smile curve, from positive optimism in youth to long-term downturn in middle age and then to a gradual recovery in happiness after retirement. What I want to say is that although there are individual differences , but for us, at this age, we are in a state that tends to be "out of balance". There are too many things to do, too many responsibilities to shoulder, things are coming, and your abilities are limited, and pain is an inevitable state.

But citing this survey is not to make everyone give up the struggle, but many things. Only after you accept it will you have the courage to start again, will you be more indifferent in the face of failure, and will recognize the truth of life. still love life.

Speaking of work and life, we often deliberately separate work and life and establish clear boundaries. The reason for this is probably because in our view, work and life are opposites. Some people feel that work is painful, only relaxing and enjoying and spending time with family members are happy. By extension, work is a kind of pain that must be endured. That is to say, work is a burden, and I can only complete it as soon as possible. to enjoy my life.

Whether this statement is beneficial to you depends on a lot of circumstances. But I want to talk about work first. What is "work"?

In the beginning, there must be no such thing as work, let alone the concept of going to work. It is only in the industrial age that in order to achieve higher production efficiency and to facilitate management, wage earners must go to a fixed location to work every day.

So can we not work? This is mainly because we live in a society with a high division of labor, and we need to work, pay labor and time in exchange for the material materials we need to live. So you see, "work" is not human nature, its essence is a two-way exchange. Human individuals pay time and labor in exchange for material materials and spiritual pleasures (such as various hedonic activities).

If you think about it from this angle alone, it is likely to conclude that we work to enjoy a moment of pleasure in exchange for work. It would be nice if you could accept this reality, but one of the sad things about this conclusion is that it denies the meaning of our work, it thinks that work cannot bring spiritual pleasure, which is very personal. different.

We work 24 hours a day, at least 1/3 of the time, and I regard work as a "burden", which undoubtedly accelerates my mental internal wear. When working, I feel very tired and tired, and then I have a seemingly instinctive disgust and rejection, and my life begins to become tormented.

That's why the emphasis on work must find its meaning, sounds like a capitalist, but it's not for others, it's for yourself. One-third of the day is spent in pain, or suffering in boredom. Who wants to live such a life, so all we can do is to find a sense of meaning in our own work.

However, most people are desperate for this, because many people think that the vast majority of work is not the improvement of self-ability, but the squeeze of surplus value. Such an overview may be true for the whole, but for the individual, it seems to be saying that you cannot change your destiny.

Fortunately, my readers are basically front-end, most of them work in Internet companies, how can there be so much stability, and at the same time wandering in various cities, they also have more freedom of choice. I just hope that everyone can find a job that they like and have a sense of value, and can grow accordingly. You can endure a temporary salary for temporary growth, or you can dormant in a small company for the sake of entering a big factory in the future. It doesn’t matter. Nietzsche said that if people know why they live, they can endure any kind of life.

What I want to say is that when you feel that this job brings more spiritual inner life, you should bravely choose a different environment. Facing this kind of internal friction, many people still curl up in their comfort zone, making excuses for not leaving, while sighing that their work is meaningless. Fearless, hesitating in the seemingly dilemma, procrastinating decisions and suffering. There is no doubt in your heart that you know the right choice, but the right way is often too damn hard.

Considering that my readers are of all ages, I would like to say a little more here, that is, I would recommend that students who have just graduated, don’t think about any balance, you should put all your energy into your work and be a workaholic Also better than a lay flat salted fish.

Life is unbalanced. In junior high school, you can devote yourself to studying without any scruples, but after you get married, your day is full of trivial things in life. Do you think this is the time available or the gap in physical energy? Not only that, I think the most important thing is that after work and getting married, the mental internal friction is much stronger than when you go to school, and when you are young, you make mistakes as trial and error, but after getting married, you will find that the time is so short, you only It is a good thing to be able to spend more prudently on the cutting edge, but it will also make choices difficult for some people, and it will waste more time.

Furthermore, I think when you just graduated, you are free. When you go to school, a lot of what you learn is what you are forced to learn, but after graduation, you can freely choose what to learn. There is no time when you are more interested than now. .

There is also the law of 28, 80% of the return in life comes from 20% of your efforts. The sooner you work hard, the more benefits you will enjoy with the addition of time. Think about it, aren't many people eating until now just because of their hard work in high school? I worked hard in high school and went to a good university, so I used my school to get rid of a lot of opponents during the interview, so I went to a good company, and then I jumped to a second, better company with the first good company? . The same is true of blogging. The sooner you write, the more influence you have accumulated in the early days. So there is no better time than this, you should invest in it, you only need to fight for a year or two, in fact, you can eat for many years, and you have already earned.

Where you spend your time, the final harvest is there, and this kind of sacrifice will only work well in special times. Although this choice can effectively reduce the mental cost and avoid entanglement, it is not the way to maintain it.

After talking about work, let's talk about life. I think many young people do not have the concept of "life". Most people understand life as transactional work, such as washing face, brushing teeth, bathing, cooking, washing dishes, and cleaning. , go to work, drive, or just lie down activities, such as watching anime, watching TV, playing games, going to Internet cafes, short videos, etc.

Personal choice is part, and so is social pressure. For us when we were young, it was low ability and low wages. Low ability leads to overtime work, low wages lead to far rented houses, high transportation costs, both sides are accumulating our time, exhaustion from work, exhaustion from commuting, we no longer have the energy to enjoy the so-called life after get off work, and when we get home, it becomes With Ge Youlai, I know that I have to study, I know that I have to struggle, but when I have free time, I just want to use it for nipple music.

This kind of problem is the normal state of many people. The way to solve it is to keep learning, to master professional skills at work sooner, and to balance work and life.

But about life, I don't mean to say this, the business content is very boring, I can only say try to reduce the workload, lying down is very interesting, but to quote "Flow", it can only help us restore our The inner order does not help to create a new order. Like eating when you're hungry, it helps us restore balance, but it doesn't help us get better. If we want to "live", what is essential is hobbies. In other words, life, you have to do something interesting, it is life.

If there is a rest law, do Moffat's rest law. It believes that if a person continues the same work content for a long time, he will feel tired and less efficient, so we can switch to different types of work in time. For example, we work and write code every day, which consumes a lot of brain power, but when you get home, you still want to continue learning, often because you are too tired and unable to persevere. So instead of studying, it is better to choose physical activities, such as cleaning, exercise, or emotional activities, such as piano practice, singing, painting and so on. Study on weekends.

All the time, we need to look at what we do every day. Make a list of how much time each spends, how much time is wasted, and how much time is spent on things that interest you. No matter how busy or tired you are, make time for hobbies rather than pleasures. The kind of deep joy it brings to your own attention and immersed yourself in one thing can bring a lot of excitement to your life.

So much has been said about work and life. In my opinion, the pursuit of work-life balance is actually for overall happiness, but happiness does not come from balance itself, but from happiness in work and life. So if you just pursue balance, but ignore the meaning of work and life, this is a kind of sacrifice.

So instead of pursuing a balance, what I want to say is, work happily and live happily . Although this sentence is very Ali, I have to admit that this is actually the state it should be in.

Regarding work and life, here are some other tips:

1. drink less coffee

Many people are addicted to coffee. It is said that the first Starbucks opened in Ali Park is the Starbucks store with the highest turnover in the country, which is enough to show how much Ali students love coffee. Coffee is really good, the so-called spirit can be obtained through coffee, but the result is often that more and more are needed, but less and less spirit can be obtained.

In my opinion, coffee is an overdraft. It only temporarily puts your future energy into the present, but your body itself is not rested. If you really want to adjust your energy, meditation and fitness are actually better choices. .

2. Improve concentration

The way many people solve things is to pile up time. The so-called pile time is to squeeze out the time for other things as much as possible, and set aside a lot of time for the completion of one thing. It is quite a kind of sacrifice all unnecessary things just for the sake of The courage to complete a task, but when it comes to the specific task, it will be distracted, find an excuse to take a break, check the relevant information and the results will be farther and farther, and unconsciously pick up the phone and click it. After receiving WeChat news, I haven't done much yet. Whether it is internal or external interruption, I have been interrupted dozens of times. Even if this kind of thing is completed, after enjoying a short-term sense of achievement, I still feel very tired psychologically.

Therefore, for such a large time block, it is necessary to clearly divide the time for work and rest, otherwise, you will automatically fall into the trap of 996.
When doing specific activities, you can use the Pomodoro Technique.

Let me say something more about the Pomodoro Technique. You must have heard the name many times. It is not complicated in itself, but it is not as simple as everyone knows it. Take a 30-minute break”, why is the Pomodoro Technique effective, and what is the rationale behind it? How to deal with interference situations? What is counted and processed at the end of each day? For these issues, you may not know about them, but you should read one or two second-hand articles to get a general understanding.

I won’t say much about the specific content of the Pomodoro Technique here. I just want to say that if you want to learn this Pomodoro Technique, you don’t need to read any second-hand articles. Read the original book, WeChat reading search "Pomodoro Technique" for free, this is written by the author of the Pomodoro Technique, and there is also a "Illustration of the Pomodoro Technique", which is also very good, the preface written by the author of the Pomodoro Technique, WeChat reading It is also free to read on the Internet. After reading these two books, it does not add up to more than 5 hours, but you can have a more comprehensive and profound understanding of the Pomodoro Technique, a very classic method.

As a method that is highly praised by many people, the possibility that everyone is a fool is relatively small, and the greater possibility is that you are a fool, so students who have failed should also take a look at it, and try it for at least two weeks.

3. break up

I think the concept of "breaking away" covers a lot. Our lives are full of all kinds of useless items, and the existence of these items cannot bring us happiness, it will only make us more powerless to clean up.

Our thoughts are filled with too many useless emotions, worrying, overthinking, wandering, doubting, fearing, hurting, struggling, clinging, confused, anxious, low, resentful, inferior, whining, complaining, moaning, critical , Criticism, often nothing has happened in the outside world, and our hearts have been overwhelmed by countless emotions, surging.

The things we do on a daily basis are constantly tending to be more. Even if today seems to be perfect, we will only add more things tomorrow and the day after tomorrow. , eventually exhausting himself.

Therefore, in daily life, when you perceive negative emotions, you should reflect on the reasons behind them in a timely manner. When you stop constantly, you will be chaotic, but you don’t need to stop all the time.

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