How unhealthy is living in your office?

I'm wondering... it seems like somehow there has to be some kinda undisciplined self discipline - that you have to control yourself to work and not to work - and somehow stop the places from merging into one...

Where does it start that if I work beyond this point x to point y that actually it's more productive to call it a night? It's finding those uniquely individual balances - timing combinations etc. where the secret lies...

I love my job - no doubt - perhaps that's part of the problem. If I didn't then I could just as easily sit all the out of office hours somewhere else watching DVDs...

I'm a definite believer in working hard - damn right - without it nothing ever got done.... But I'm wondering where the right balance is - consider...

Is working so long actually partly a sign that you're working inefficiently? Or that you're not delegating and supporting others effectively? Is it that you're actually somehow not shooting in the right direction? Perhaps you don't have it adequately valued by others such that a reasonable amount makes a reasonable amount to live off in the rest of the time?

Of course in starting anything that's where it's really gonna be tough. Then how long should that go on for?

Putting my mind back over the last year - it occurred to me that I really perhaps should have done more at an earlier stage for training / supporting / then delegating - but then - some issues... well it just wouldn't have been possible- maybe even after spending the whole year doing training - to get new folks ready to take them on - fundamentally - how long will it take me to train more people to do this to create the sustainable capacity vs. when does the customer demand that this get done and how much time is it gonna take now?

Then technology comes and throws something else into the mix - you can somehow come to the middle ground - where you create a bit of a toolkit first - then the training can be based on that. One could argue it's just McDonaldisation by the backdoor - I would say not really - and particularly in emerging markets it's going to be more and more important to create the toolkits that make the more complex work a bit more reproducable.

In Afghanistan are we ever going to reach the stage where every office has a competent Linux (e.g. relatively advanced) IT Administrator able to manage all the services, optimize connectivity, make it all work faster, and keep the system secure? uh, not now anyway...

Is it possible that we could create toolkits / standardised products that could be put in en-masse with control panels that then enable them to run it with advanced remote support if required? Why, yes - that might be possible...

So where are we at now? Well we're at effective decision making rule #0 - consider the options...

Then let's go back to the original point - how do we best make sure our mind is ready to consider all the options? Well - my plan for that - more project management - more systems to clean it all up - and a new house down the road ;)