Nerd Life Balance : Achieving Work Life Awesome

For years now people in technology have been part of some seriously amazing movements in the software industry. To reach these great heights of innovation developers have always accepted that sacrifices have to be made. Often times the unspoken mindset was that you work until the task is done or that more hours often meant more code (good or bad). The idea has traditionally been that if we focus on the tasks and work we will inevitably achieve our goals and everyone will be happy. Most of us can remember working some really long weeks and hitting the "goal" but not feeling very happy.
Here's a challenge for all developers who can relate to the above scenario: Go for work-life awesome not work life balance.
There is no such thing as "work-life balance" or at least the phrase implies something that cannot be; balance assumes equality on both sides. The fact is that work and life are not faucets we can turn off and walk away from, so instead of becoming frustrated at trying to compartmentalize we should try to make these aspects of our lives more congruent. Work should fit into our lives not go against it - more like velcro and less like sandpaper.
This talk will disprove some common developer work-life myths then work to equip you as a developer, manager and/or all around geek to be able solve you're own personal conundrum of how win at life and work, how to create amazing things no matter where you are and to be able to successfully do the things that make your inner nerd tick with your friends and family.

Transcript

1. Performance tuning your life to maximize awesome NICK FLOYD FRIDAY OCTOBER 25TH 2:30PM
2. Refactoring var currentWorkLife = "behaviors that destroy the balance";
3. Refactoring var currentWorkLife = "behaviors that destroy the balance"; var newWorkLife = currentWorkLife.Replace(“destroy”, “build”);
4. var currentWorkLife = "behaviors that destroy the balance"; var newWorkLife = currentWorkLife.Replace(“destroy”, “build”); => behaviors that build the balance Refactoring
5. Behaviors : the dark side
6. Behavior : more working == more winning! x = Time spent working x image courtesy of : http://ashpodtheportalfur.deviantart.com
7. x = Time spent working x image courtesy of : http://ashpodtheportalfur.deviantart.com Behavior : more work == more win!
8. Behavior : gold plating The Infinite ZIPLINE
9. Behavior : gold plating The Infinite PLAN
10. Behavior : gold plating Spoon boy: “Do not try and bend the zipline. That's impossible. Instead... only try to realize the truth.” Neo: “What truth?” Spoon boy: “There is no zipline.” -The Matrix ZIPLINE == null
11. Behavior : compartmentalizing image courtesy of : http://ooklah.deviantart.com
12. Behavior : being an impostor
13. Behavior many, many more...
14. Build : the light side
15. Nerd’s hierarchy of needs health environment mind
16. Acting like someone I’m NOT health
17. Being someone I AM health
18. Clean your desk TOP environment
19. Device wipe (Apps)olute zero environment
20. Enablers and accountability environment
21. environment
22. Scrum board your day mind
23. Work in achievable chunks & bits mind
24. BAD: GOOD: mind
25. images courtesy of: xkcd.com Stop ideas Start projects “There be the dragons, I can’t go.” “Sure you can, just bring a resistor color code chart.” -- me having a conversation with myself mind
26. The Choice
27. images courtesy of: Alamy
28. images courtesy of: wikipedia
29. images courtesy of: gracehopper.org
30. images courtesy of: voxelblog
31. images courtesy of: f-secure
32. mediocrity.pop exceptional.push
33. The Functional 24MI
34. I love to... code work on hard problems help others win make a difference in a kid’s life automate all the things create useable software
35. Welcome to the Hall of Heroes
36. Thanks archcoder.com/nerd-life @nickfloyd
37. Resources : books
38. Resources : apps Rescue Time Clear Triage Sleep cycle Epic win