About Me Hi. I’m Harry. I’m a Consultant Front-end Architect from the UK. I travel the world helping teams write better quality UI code. I didn’t realise this needed to be a non-technical talk…
Work/Life Balance Everybody wants it. But it’s really not that simple. Especially when we’re connected all the time. When most of your life is work, it’s even harder.
Work/Life Balance I don’t have any routines. I don’t have any consistency. I spend weeks at a time away from friends and family. I seldom get weekends. My schedule is offset from everyone else’s.
Work/Life Balance My work and life constantly intermingle with each other. I create life wherever my work is. I’m an optimist—I look at things as positively as possible. I see my life as a constant vacation punctuated with work that I love.
Traveling For Work Travel is expensive, inefficient, and seldom enjoyable. It means huge stretches of time away from loved ones. It puts immense strain on friend- and relationships. But… it comes with the territory. How can we make it suck less?
Hobbies One of the key aspects to a good work/life balance. The best hobbies contrast and complement your work. Hobbies that don’t tie you to a location are very handy. Hobbies are good for your outlook.
Adapting I’ve had lots of hobbies of the years. Some are just not at all suited to travel. The best ones are ones that can be taken anywhere. Even if you’re thousands of miles from home, it’s nice to have ‘your thing’.
Cocktails Steeped in hundreds of years of history. No truly right or wrong way. All about taste—very subjective. Deals with actual, physical things. A break from the fast pace. A chance to indulge, to make, to craft…
— csswizardry.com/2013/11/the-problems-with-crafting-code “Craft is, by its very nature, slow, meticulous, bespoke, indulgent, self-serving, and inefficient. Code should be none of these things.”
Code is not Craft ‘Craft’ implies one-off, labour intensive. Subtle imperfections. I don’t want crafted code—I want engineered code! Fast, testable, reproducable, consistent, unambiguous. I have a hobby which is an escape from that.
— wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_(liqueur) “The exact recipes for all forms of Chartreuse remain trade secrets and are known at any given time only to the two monks who prepare the herbal mixture.”
Meeting People If you’re going to a new place, try and meet strangers from there. If you see someone new is visiting your city, be that stranger for them. If you have to travel for work, this is almost mandatory—it keeps you sane.
Takeaways Work/life balance is hard—just do your best. Hobbies are super important—remove yourself from work. Openness is what sets this industry apart—don’t take it for granted. The web is more than just ones and zeroes—it’s about people. Only shake drinks with juice or dairy in them—stir everything else. Even the best advice has a time limit—know when to use new information.
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