2017-08-05

TIL - An Epiphany while reading The Richest Man in Babylon

todayilearned, book, epiphany, therichestmaninb

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I started reading The Richest Man in Babylon a few days ago.

One of my coworkers is a voracious reader so I was telling him how enticing the book was.

While having a conversation, I had an epiphany

I've been putting 100% at work and sometimes work extra hours over the weekend. I was always tired and had low motivation to develop my technical skills, which resulted in downward spiral of inefficiency. Then during a conversation with my coworker, something hit me hard.

The book is a parable with a richest man named "Arkad" in ancient Babylon about building wealth. Arkad teaches students that one should set aside 10% of what they earn and invest it to fatten their "wallets".

The epiphany was that, I could apply the same concept of building wealth in my work/life balance.

Instead of giving 100% at work, I should set aside minimum of 10% of energy for my own development

After coming back from work, I used to always feel exhausted and had low motivation to learn anything new.

It's quite funny that I ran into this podcast episode #35 - Working Hours by James Studdart, the Cynical Developer (check out this awesome developer podcast) after the epiphany.

To rephrase James,

Put extra hours if you slacked off but don't do so unless you have to

And also, Jamie (@GaProgMan) has also given me advices on how to distribute one's effort on Coding Blocks Slack channel.

Here is the conversation on #books channel (posted with a permission from Jamie)

What I learned Today

I should set aside self-development time of my own.

Doing so would not only help me relax and also improve my work/life balance