One thing that makes this possible: I’m living with gf but have no children.

Being able to set priorities is important. Focusing on the task at hand requires not doing other things. I told Melissa that she’s good at multitasking and doing things, but that I’m better at not doing things.

Of cousre, all of this gets thrown out the window in a startup situation. ISP-Planet’s not a startup — it was founded by Ted Stevenson in 1999 for internet.com. I have a clear goal: one article every business day of the year, plus two to three blog posts per week, plus a conference or two. Having that clear goal allows me to do things — and to not do things.

Setting achievable goals allows your business to deliver.

Of course, unattainable goals can be inspiring, but they need to be idealistic goals, not the sort of unattainable goals you’d set when, say, you wanted to cut the sales team’s bonuses.

The Valleywag salary issue is an interesting (link) example — does it mean you get what you work for, or does it mean that if you work too hard, your per-pageview salary gets cut?

It’s all new, and it’s a privilege (link) to be part of it.

I have been reading about various others as well, such as Dave Winer and Doc Searls, who also had health setbacks in recent times. And more and more people are now talking about focussing on the quality of life rather than the pace of life, about work-life balance, and a need to get out there in the outdoors more often.

A friend recently underwent surgery to treat severe RSI, induced by long hours on his office workstation. For months he endured extreme pain before resorting to surgery.

I guess, Stacey’s right, a ‘disconnected’ (for lack of a better phrase) life from time to time would do good to our health.

Om, I don’t know you but I have heard a lot about you. Please take care! All the best.

I interviewed at a hot startup in Cupertino last year. One lady was telling me about her 7-day schedule, how she’d rush home (80 miles one way, south), shove food in her kid’s mouth, pile him off to bed by 8pm, then get back to work. Saturday was more of the same, but Sundays were the ‘absolute best’ because she could actually work on other, non-core company projects in relative peace. The other potential coworker was similar in her anti-responsibility, cocaine-taking work/lifestyle.

But not to be outdone, I talked to a guy just the other day about a job down here in relaxed (?) Austin, and he told me that Monday evenings would be late ones (’not past midnight’) for the next (first for me) three to four months because of…whatever lame excuses any company ever uses to exploit its workers.

“Thanks man - you sound like a real nice guy, and you guys sound like you’re doing a lot of great work, but…” - but someone needs to have some time left over to pay attention to what’s important. grrr.

So, yeah - turn off the crackberries.

If you check out my blog you’ll see posts written at 5am or 10pm, during the week or on weekends. What you don’t see is the meeting the kids everyday after school and going home with them, the 9-10am pools sessions every day etc etc.

I work at multiple locations on a strange kind of time scale but I balance that within my various demands and responsibilities. I guess there are three issues here - one is flexibility (in my mind a good thing) the other is the umbilical connection to an rss reader (sometimes problematic)while the third is the panic that a breaking meme will get away if it’s not commented on immediately (probably a bad thing)

don’t you think?