How can Elon Musk put in 80-100 hours a week and still have a life?
(Originally answered on Quora)
Most probably you want to share your surprise that Elon Musk, who reportedly stayed overnight at Tesla site on many occasions, still looks and behaves like a normal sociable person, gives interviews and is altogether in good health and good spirits, right?
This is because he is fortunate enough to have a solution to the ageless dilemma of “work-life” balance.
For most people, this problem exists, and exactly in this form – work vs. life – implying that the negative portion of your existence, called ‘work’, is balanced out by the positive ‘life’. When the balance is in place, then the negative impact that work leaves on your personality and health is cured by the positive emotions you get from what happens after work. Or that is how the unfortunate majority sees it.
There’s not much of an overlap between the Life and Work, and as this overlap is not considered healthy, we are advised by holistic gurus that we must disconnect, shut off etc. and not mix the two. Hence, there’s not enough room to have both, we either displace one at the expense of the other, or meticulously separate them, having not enough of either as a result. The rest is a multitude of ‘chores’, neutral in their nature; we just take them for granted, neither good nor bad.
However, for some lucky people, everything is Life, filled with Work and Love. There is no clear distinction between the two because THEY LOVE THEIR WORK. Graphically, it is a major overlap, and with this overlap, they can fit considerably more Work and more Love into their Life, with only a small space left for what they would refer to as ‘chores’.
They are extremely productive, although they never assess the efficiency of their being. They have every minute working towards their Goal.
These are happy people. And Elon Musk must be one of them.