In this solo monologue, Emily McDonald argues that the conventional notion of work‑life balance is a "scam" because trying to balance all domains simultaneously yields only mediocre results. She shares her personal experiment of writing from noon to 2 am each day while still getting sufficient sleep (about 9 hours), sacrificing social life for 2–3‑week stretches to complete a book. McDonald emphasizes that true balance occurs between "waves" of life—intense focus periods followed by recovery—rather than constant equilibrium. She notes that this perspective provides relief to students and founders, who often need to accept temporary, all‑in phases to achieve major goals.
Chapters
Work-life balance is a scam. If you try to balance everything at one time, you're going to get balanced results, and a lot of times balanced results are mediocre results. I was still getting my 8 hours of sleep when I was writing from 12 PM to 2 AM every single day. I was still, I was still sleeping. I would sleep till like 9 or something, so I was still getting enough sleep. Was I doing anything else? No. I was maybe getting up, moving my body, doing a little mobility, and then eating and getting right back into it. My brain was filtering for nothing other than write your book. That's how you get things done. Now, that didn't happen forever, right? I did that for a stretch of time and now I'm not doing that anymore. So that's where the balance happens. That's where the balance happens, right? It happens between the waves of life, not all at once. And I've spoken to a lot of my students about this and a lot of people about this, and I think it also, it, it's, it can be a huge relief. When you realize that. It can be a huge relief when you allow yourself to be like, oh hey, I don't have to balance everything all at once. The balance can happen between the waves of life. I didn't have a social life in that stretch of like 2-3 weeks. No social life at all. I wasn't doing anything except for eat, sleep, write. But that's what it takes sometimes. And I think a lot of people don't want to hear that, but if you talk to a lot of founders, they'll tell you that's what it takes sometimes.
