Is there really such a thing as work-life balance in IT?

If you believe the grindbro orthodoxy, the only way to get ahead at work is to put in 120 hours a week. Now, I’m a workaholic’s workaholic who has been working 50-plus-hour weeks for decades, and I don’t believe that for a minute. That’s no way to live. It’s also no way to work.

Managing a happy work-life balance in IT begins with putting life first.

A working life doesn’t mean all work, no life

I know, I know, tech culture, particularly the start-up side of it, is all about putting in macho hours. But, does that approach actually work? As entrepreneur Karl HughesOpens a new window wrote a while back, “Most of the prevailing wisdom about startups said that you should be ready for an 80-hour per week grind. So, I made it my mission to work longer and harder than anyone else on the path to success. … While I did a lot of tasks in those early days, looking back, I realize that I didn’t actually accomplish much.”

Surprise!

Over the decades, I’ve covered innumerable start-ups. It’s not just founders who fall into that trap of confusing worked hours with productive hours. I’ve seen rank-and-file worker bees fall into the same pit.

There is indeed an illusion, which I would call a delusion, that the more hours you put into tech work, the more productive you’ll be. I’m sorry, we’re not working in factories where widgets per hour is the metric of choice.

It’s not just start-ups. I’ve seen this attitude in company after company. Other employees may take time off, but far too many businesses seem to expect that IT workers must work into the wee hours of the night and must always be on call during weekends and holidays.

Just because that’s what some bosses think doesn’t mean it’s right. As Stanford University economics professor John Pencavel found, productivity per hour declines sharply when a person works more than 50 hours a weekOpens a new window . After 55 hours, productivity drops to the point that putting in any more hours is a waste of time.

Pencavel also pointed out that there’s nothing new about his findings. Studies have shown this to be true since 1893. Yes, seriously, the 19th century.

Healthy work-life balance in IT, even from home

It’s not just about the hours at the “office,” of course. There has also been this idea, as the Wall Street JournalOpens a new window put it, that “an unspoken rule of office culture has been that much work happens outside the 9-to-5 window.” The pandemic and the resulting working-from-home revolution have put an end to that idea.

Sure, working from home isn’t perfect for everyone, but for many, I’d say most people, working from home has been a godsend. As study after study has found, working from home is simply more enjoyable and — dare I say it — more relaxing than working in the office. I find it telling that a recent StatistaOpens a new window study found that “20 percent of employees would quit their jobs for more flexible work-from-home options.”

Indeed, even before working from home and hybrid work became the pandemic’s most enduring work legacy, the National Institute of Medicine foundOpens a new window that employees were more interested in flexibility and freedom in their workplaces than ever before.

Some businesses have gotten the clue. They’re the ones that, as the meeting company, BookEventzOpens a new window , put it, “Many successful professionals in 2025 focus on task-based productivity rather than clocking hours. If work can be completed efficiently in fewer hours, professionals can dedicate more time to their personal lives.”

Others, I’m sorry to report, such as AmazonOpens a new window and IBMOpens a new window , are still insisting that everyone must come back to the office. Would it surprise you to know that a survey by an anonymous job review site, Blind, found 73% of Amazon employees would consider finding another jobOpens a new window because of the policy? I thought not.

So, what’s the point? A survey from HR software company BambooHROpens a new window has shown that in 2024, the return to office movement has been a failure. BambooHR also found, in a telling result, that 25% of C-level executives admitted they hoped for people to quit by forcing them to return to the office. In short, return-to-office mandates are layoffs in disguise.”

What can you do about this? If working from home is essential for your happiness, take them up on their “offer” and quit, as one overworked Spicework reader, TomBradshaw444, put it some years back, “I left my previous [job] due to being sometimes in the office for 12-14 hours with an hour travel to and from, not having a lunch break with little to no toilet breaks.”

No one wants a job like that. Besides avoiding abusive workplaces there are other things you can do.

Productivity tools can help

Spiceworks readers have had several helpful suggestions over the years for maintaining a healthy work-life balance. Yellowshirtcc, an IT Support Engineer, said, “Even while working from home, I leave my desk when the day is done. Physical separation helps immensely. I also practice mindfulness techniques and take short breaks to walk around. Sitting at a desk for hours on end is not good for anyone.”

I wish I were better at setting and enforcing boundaries myself. It’s important to define clear work hours and communicate them to your team, family, and last but never least, yourself. Use tools like “Do Not Disturb” settings to signal your availability and resist the urge to check emails or respond to work messages outside these hours.

Another helpful idea is to prioritize and manage your workload using the 80/20 rule, aka the Pareto PrincipleOpens a new window . In short, this means focusing on the 20% of work tasks that deliver 80% of the results.

That sounds easy, but how do you figure out what’s what with Pareto? This is where your Spiceworks friends come in. ErikN, a business owner who knows his way around IT, came up with an excellent, simple spreadsheet-based way of working it out. I highly recommend it.

If you need more, there are always productivity tools such as TrelloOpens a new window or AsanaOpens a new window to help you get a handle on what’s important and what’s not with your workload.

This method may also help you determine what you can automate to make your job easier, which in turn will help you balance your work-life teeter-totter. Of course, you need to be careful with AI. As PipeItToDevNull (love the name) observed, “if I already have domain knowledge, it’s very useful indeed. But if I don’t yet, its usefulness is back to about only 70% if not less. Because when it messes up and I have domain knowledge, I know what could possibly have gone wrong and fix it promptly.”

I’ve found that to be very true. If you already know what the answer is likely to be, you can correct AI results; if you don’t, you’re likely to be fooled into passing out AI hallucinations as gospel, and that way lies disaster.

You should also take care of yourself. No one else will. Self-care can take many forms. For me, it’s walking my dogs, playing bar trivia with my buddies, listening to music, and watching 30s and 40s movies. You do you. Whatever makes you happy, make time for it.

You’re worth it. Take time out for you. Life is not all about work.

Otherwise, as our own Peter Tsai pointed out last year, you’ll be in danger of burnout, which is associated with coronary heart disease, hypercholesterolemia, musculoskeletal pain, neck-shoulder pain, back pain, prolonged fatigue, headaches, insomnia, depression, hospitalization for mental disorders, and even early death. You don’t want to go there. It’s bad for your physical and mental health and your career.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to walk my dogs from my home office.

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