Working too much - what about office hours?
I currently work too much. I can feel it in my shoulders and I know it because I hardly ever exercise. Even worse, I know it because Julie tells me so and Abbie doesn't get to see enough of her Daddy. In addition to working all week, I work early mornings on the weekends, but that tends to spill into late mornings. I also try to cram in a couple hours during Abbie's nap - which usually spills over past when she gets up. During the week, I'll start at 4 or 5, and I'll need to get something done, so I'll work until 7. After Abbie goes to bed, I often hop on the computer again and work until midnight or later. It's easy getting 8 hours in a day or 40 hours in a week for a client. It's hard doing AppFuse support and writing Spring Live on the side. I virtually ignore all the e-mail on the other open source projects I'm on - it's the only way to keep my sanity.
This madness is likely to continue. The only way to reasonably handle my e-mail (> 1000 day - after spam filters) is to check it every couple of hours. That can't continue, so I'm going to have to change my e-mail address. Sorry folks, it's the easiest solution. I'll decide my new one after the holiday weekend, but matt AT raibledesigns.com will start going to /dev/null.
Julie and I've been talking today and we're trying to come up with more solutions to me working so much - especially since a fair amount of it doesn't pay. We're thinking the best solution is Office Hours. When I work from home, I work too much. When I go into a client's office, I tend to end my day when I get home. So, from now on, I'm going to try and only work from 8 to 5 MDT (-7 GMT). Actually, Julie says she doesn't care if I work before 8, I just need to be done at 5 to play with Abbie and join Julie when she goes to bed.
To help accomplish this, I'm going to start closing the door to my office and using the backdoor to leave and come back during the day. Hopefully it'll be like an office away from home. I'll likely be working on Spring Live in the mornings from 4-8 and doing some AppFuse support as well. My best bet is probably e-mail/blogging from 4-5:30 and writing from 5:30-8 (at the local bagel shop). I'll let you know how it goes. I'd also like to hear other ideas from you "I work too much" guys/gals out there - I know there's lots of you.