I read the book Maverick by Ricardo Semler and learnt that every one wants to do well by themselves instead of a supervisor telling them what to do and watching them closely. It was a very new concept, though I was not able to influence my managers, I was able to follow this for people whom I had to lead. The results are often that people end up punching above their weight most of the times, people who try to game are often exposed within a few weeks and they themselves are not able to continue to work with our teams. I also stumbled on his second book The seven day weekend, which was more thought provoking on how to approach life in general and not to differentiate work and life as two different identities.

While I was in college, I learnt a lot and read a lot of books even though I spent a good deal of time commuting and playing. When I moved to be a full time worker, I found that my time for reading and learning quickly dried away. My managers insisted that I spend 12 hours a day, 6 days a week in order for me to meet expectations. What I observed was that most of the work got done within a heads down time of 3-4 hours. If I was stuck, no matter how hard I tried, I could not make headway until I got some focus time away or sleep. My attention span also varied throughout the day and throughout the week.

In the course of time over a few work years, I also forgot about leisure reading, arts/crafts and exercise/sports. This led to only two outlets, food and media. No matter how hard I tried, I was always finding excuses to eat out and binge watch. One fine day, I got to work with a new team. The rule of the team was, we stop working by 6 and go out to play. This was different from what I was used to before, it worked wonders because it forced me to come out of the work mode and unwind and find friends in a non eating/drinking setup. The self formed XP team ensured that the peak productivity window as a team is aligned for team work and the rest individual contribution can come at a different pace.

This blended work/life mode was unnerving as there was a feeling that I was not doing enough. At the end of a release we retrospected along with the client on how did we do? Our client said a similar complexity and scope that was delivered by 40 people from another team, this team had done it with just 11 people. As I grew in career, non linear working mode was the norm. I always carried a pen and paper with me, ideas struck me when I least expected, solutions appeared out of nowhere while waiting at traffic lights, cooking, gardening, having coffee….

My experience was also validated when I read the book The pragmatic programmer where the author talks about linear mode and random mode in one of the chapters. Don’t listen to ideas like 996 working style and promise of progress that comes with it, they are not fit for collective knowledge work. It also drains the mind and the body, because of the constant war mode that an individual will live in. As I read in the books and experienced, I have not been able to separate out my life and work as two separate jobs, it is what I am. So instead of talking about balancing two different jobs, I look to plan my days as a whole.