Back in February of this year I was assigned as the Technical Lead Architect for Manila of a new project, a SharePoint + web services based development for a large utilities company in the U.S.

I got very excited because it was a large project that required hardcore SharePoint development which would push my skills to a number of levels up; but things wasn’t as pretty and excited as I thought to be. The last 7 months was the worst “work life balance” experience I had in a very long time. These past months were packed with intense pressure, countless overnights, long working hours, frustrating environments and all the negative things I wouldn’t want to live on.

Long hours is probably an understatement here, it’s more like insane, inhuman working hours because I am talking about having worked multiple 35 straight working hours, numerous 12 straight hours of conference calls, normal 14-16 chargeable hours in a day, forced to work on weekends, special non-working holidays, etc. To top it all, we don’t get legit overtime pay but some cheap premium and food/transpo allowance that is just enough for your expenses.

I have previously written that one of the solutions to moving up the corporate ladder is being visible in the organization.

I was reminded of a scene in Grey’s Anatomy where Chief of Surgeon Richard has applauded McSteamy about his “Now” strategy instead of the overly impressive 10 year plan of most attending surgeons vying for the top position.

Sometimes we lose sight of our immediate and pressing problems because we spend a lot of time thinking so far ahead building long term plans and strategies.

Building long term plans is fine as long as our “Now” strategy is given enough attention and continues to improve things around us.

image source here.

People judge, assess and create your corporate persona based on your external actions; your corporate persona defines your career.

External actions and not your good intentions is who you are at face value.

I have previously written a post on Work Life Balance and for the past two years I have been a big fan of this concept.

Perspectives change over time, and now I am beginning to feel how overrated Work Life Balance is. How can you beat someone who spends at least 14 hours a day 7 days a week honing his craft?