Work-life balance, as I thought it to be in the start of my career is basically for me to work for a maximum possible part of my working hours and never any more than that. Life had a higher priority than work so I used to always involve is smart work and kind of planned "under estimate, over deliver". Rest of the "life" contributed to study and enjoy freedom alternatively.
I slowly started to feel, that's not the way. Currently, with a ~4 yoe, I partially think the "Narayan Murthy"s around us aren't wrong. WLB is subjective, at the very start of your career you should hardly look out for it (doesn't mean to work your as* off for the employee with peanut salary, no) but don't expect to work for 8 hrs a day and chillax the rest. To me, it comes in phases and I'm okay with it. There could be a month or few when you might work 70+ hours a week, and then there could be a month where there's hardly any work.
Just keep the smartwork going, but don't time yourself at the early stages. Learn and earn as much as you can, so someday you can gift your grandchild a few million ₹ as well.
Its completely my perspective, probably because I've been blessed with the my kind of work as a SDE.
Let me know, what's your take?
