work/work balance
getting the work/work balance right (or what to do with your overtime)
A lot of people in the tech industry don’t know how to stop working. This is a personal demon each person needs to take care of. The best thing to do with your free time is enjoy yourself. It’s good for you and your employer for you to unwind when you aren’t obligated to be producing. But, if you find that you feel like doing the kinds of things you do at work in your free time, do it, but don’t do work. Find the same stuff to do, but not for your employer, this has the amazing benefit of getting yourself to learn something that is not in the scope of your current projects, while still practicing some of those skills you need at work. It will make you better at what you are doing, and you might even find a better job accidentally in the process. The other side of it is, when you work overtime, you set the expectation of overtime, which can lead to disappointments when you actually don’t have time for it.