Why does work-life balance matter?

I think the key is self-understanding and self-regulation. I'm not sure everyone can do that, and certainly in my previous job I was really bad at it when I was working in banking. But I guess I also didn't have much latitude to regulate anything. I think now being able to understand how the amount of time you work, and what other things you do during the day, and things like exercise and taking a break, and your creativity, how all these things interrelate. Work is always going to be both physical in a way and in some way emotional. You cannot abstract the human body and human emotion from the intellectual act of working. I think that's a very important truth.

And to the extent that you are aware of how these things relate and that you need everything to be aligned, you're able to make corrections when things are out of balance of when you think that you perform best. And especially this applies to knowledge jobs, software engineering or manager roles. It's not like in the days of the industrial revolution where you are essentially a robot. Now, I think in order to have this kind of intellectual performance, you need all of these elements to be aligned and to really understand yourself. I think that's really, really important and important for sustainability. Especially in the managerial role, you can't fully switch off very often because there is a company to run.

So that's why you need to create a state of equilibrium internally where you're never at the state of burnout where you need to take a break. You are always at the state of just being kind of in a personal equilibrium because of taking regular breaks or because of just the way that you work day to day being not taxing on you psychologically.