More honored in the breach...
And yes, I know the original quote has the opposite intent than my usage here. But it's 1:30 AM, and the Bard can, most respectfully, bite me.
For many, many years, I have kept (or failed to keep, as the case may be), what I refer to as the "Twelve hour rule of workdays". Which is not that I don't work more than 12 hours a day -- that would be silly. After all, I worked in startups. And when crunch hits, sometimes you need to work 36 hours straight. Thank goodness that kind of behavior isn't expected of me anymore... I'm certain I can't do it anymore.
But the "Twelve hour rule" means that when I do leave work, I don't return for a minimum of 12 hours. Just check the clock when I leave, and say "Ah, well, flip the AM and the PM, and that's when I can come back next." Preferably that means leaving at say, 10pm, and returning at 10am, as opposed to leaving a 2:30am and coming in at 2:30pm. But depending on where I was working, and when my coworkers got in, I definitely would observe that even in those cases.
The real principle here is that if I burn midnight oil, I'm going to need several hours of degaussing, in addition to the 8-9 hours of sleep to really be effective. And generally speaking, if I stay late and plan to get in early the next day too I'll just end up pounding the snooze alarm and getting lower quality sleep and get in late.
But, lately, I've been violating this rule like mad. I got a buttload done today after dinner. But, damn, that was after dinner. And it was a late dinner. I'm going to miss my 12 hour rule by quite a bit tomorrow morning. And I've done this a lot lately -- especially coming in Sunday night, getting a bunch of stuff done by midnight, and then heading in Monday morning bright and early (for me).
All in all, this isn't saying good things about my sanity. That's the rule that's kept me sane in the past, and I'm breaking it a lot. Part of this is because I (in general) am working fewer hours a week than I used to in the bad old days. Averaging less than 70 hours is good. Breaking my rule once or twice a week is not.
And, oddly, taking a week off work to recover from surgery doesn't do as much to fight burnout as I'd hoped. I think I'm going to try and get a day or two off immediately after we hit beta to putz around the Puget Sound Area on vacation. I can see the propaganda poster now: "When Burnout wins, we all lose."
But, on the bright side, Paul Oakenfold sure can spin a nifty remix of Led Zeppelin's "Baby I'm Gonna Leave You" done by Anne Bredon, Edward Darling and Paul Bennett.
For many, many years, I have kept (or failed to keep, as the case may be), what I refer to as the "Twelve hour rule of workdays". Which is not that I don't work more than 12 hours a day -- that would be silly. After all, I worked in startups. And when crunch hits, sometimes you need to work 36 hours straight. Thank goodness that kind of behavior isn't expected of me anymore... I'm certain I can't do it anymore.
But the "Twelve hour rule" means that when I do leave work, I don't return for a minimum of 12 hours. Just check the clock when I leave, and say "Ah, well, flip the AM and the PM, and that's when I can come back next." Preferably that means leaving at say, 10pm, and returning at 10am, as opposed to leaving a 2:30am and coming in at 2:30pm. But depending on where I was working, and when my coworkers got in, I definitely would observe that even in those cases.
The real principle here is that if I burn midnight oil, I'm going to need several hours of degaussing, in addition to the 8-9 hours of sleep to really be effective. And generally speaking, if I stay late and plan to get in early the next day too I'll just end up pounding the snooze alarm and getting lower quality sleep and get in late.
But, lately, I've been violating this rule like mad. I got a buttload done today after dinner. But, damn, that was after dinner. And it was a late dinner. I'm going to miss my 12 hour rule by quite a bit tomorrow morning. And I've done this a lot lately -- especially coming in Sunday night, getting a bunch of stuff done by midnight, and then heading in Monday morning bright and early (for me).
All in all, this isn't saying good things about my sanity. That's the rule that's kept me sane in the past, and I'm breaking it a lot. Part of this is because I (in general) am working fewer hours a week than I used to in the bad old days. Averaging less than 70 hours is good. Breaking my rule once or twice a week is not.
And, oddly, taking a week off work to recover from surgery doesn't do as much to fight burnout as I'd hoped. I think I'm going to try and get a day or two off immediately after we hit beta to putz around the Puget Sound Area on vacation. I can see the propaganda poster now: "When Burnout wins, we all lose."
But, on the bright side, Paul Oakenfold sure can spin a nifty remix of Led Zeppelin's "Baby I'm Gonna Leave You" done by Anne Bredon, Edward Darling and Paul Bennett.