Yesterday I ranted a bit about the seeming disregard for work-life balance in 2025 tech. I’d like to propose us one better:

Work-life harmony.

The idea that your work and life complement each other well and combine to form a holistic way of living that works for you and your work.

I think I’ve somehow landed this incredibly lucky thing at @Buffer. I spend more time with my family and my main creative outlet (music) than ever. And I also feel like I’m doing the best work of my career.

In terms of raw time, I do feel a sense of balance between work and the rest of my life. We work a 4-day work week. My job keeps me very busy from Monday to Thursday, but I still have flexibility to organize those days how I see fit. I drop off & pickup my kid at her preschool because I can work at the coffee shop next door and deep focus, while my wife has some peace & quiet at home. If wife and/or kid are sick, I can help them during the day and work at night if needed.

I can use Fridays as if they’re weekend days. I often have a few things to catch up on, but this means I can tackle them as I see fit over the (now standard) 3-day weekend. This also nets me more time with my wife & kid and a little time to carve out for music and house projects I’d otherwise not have.

The product I work on is something I actually use almost daily and likely would even if I didn’t work on it. My wife plans to too when she’s ready to revive her photography & crafting business. I get satisfaction from the idea that I’m improving something we (and others I care about) use.

Beyond this, we are encouraged as Buffer teammates to really embody our target users - that is, we don’t just “dogfood” the thing but rather think of ourselves as a “team of creators”. I am actively encouraged to be a creator as part of my job – I’m empowered to put time into creating & publishing own ideas & projects (like Kid Lightbulbs, my music project) and learn from it.

This helps me be a better product manager because I’m doing one better than empathizing with our users – I’m literally being one of them. I build my own intuition on what’s missing from the product and in the market of creator tools, and I can act as a steward & champion of fellow creators in my network, while also gathering their ideas & feedback as inputs.

It totally works, too, from a raw acquisition marketing standpoint – I have personally encouraged dozens of folks to try Buffer and become active users by simply being online, doing my weird music/small-tech-product-manager thing.

My work can be challenging at times, and I’m often busy, but it’s by design and balancing the multitude of things in my life (work, family, creative outlets) that make me me. It’s rarely stressful or frustrating, and yet I’m still having an impact.

I think more companies – especially ones building consumer products –  should consider this framing instead of assuming that throwing more hours or more AI at the problem will help.