A nurse has recorded the most common regrets of the dying, and among the top ones is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. What would your biggest regret be if this was your last day of life?

Is there a formula—some mix of love, work, and psychological adaptation—for a good life? For 72 years, researchers at harvard have been examining this question, following 268 men who entered college in the late 1930s through war, career, marriage and divorce, parenthood and grandparenthood, and old age. Here, for the first time, a journalist gains access to the archive of one of the most comprehensive longitudinal studies in history. Its contents, as much literature as science, offer profound insight into the human condition—and into the brilliant, complex mind of the study’s longtime director, george vaillant.

The problem is that most “exciting new company” lore is intermingled with that of Startup Culture™. This means it’s hard to find your identity when it doesn’t match the latest company write-up of How Those Crazy Kids Turned VC Millions Into Billions!!!

Most people will look at that and say that’s not me. I don’t have 110% to give. I have a family, I have a mortgage, I have other interests. Where’s my place in the startup world if all I have to give is 60%? What can putting in part-time give?

The good news is much more than you think. The marginal value of the last hour put into a business idea is usually much less than the first. The world is full of ideas that can be executed with 10 to 20 hours per week, let alone 40. The number of projects that are truly impossible unless you put in 80 or 120 hours per week are vanishingly small by comparison.

This is of course nothing new. We’ve been playing this bongo drum for years. But every time I see people crumble and quit from the crunch-mode pressure cooker, I think what a shame, it didn’t have to be like that. It’s the same when I read yet another story about someone who won the startup lottery, and the stereotypical startup role model is glorified and cemented again.

What do you do when you have to study? Do you find a cozy nook, cuddle up with a book or tablet, and concentrate? What about checking your e-mail? Answering your phone? Talking to friends? It’s not easy to concentrate these days.

With distractions like super awesome blogs (Edudemic FTW) to great educational apps and more, it’s important to figure out how to get your work done. This chart by Learning Fundamentals may look a bit chaotic but is extremely helpful. Click image to enlarge!

So if your goal is to enrich the Arringtons of the world while maybe, if you win the lottery, scooping some of the groundscore that they overlooked, then by all means, bust your ass while the bankers and speculators cheer you on.

Instead of that, I recommend that you do what you love because you love doing it. If that means long hours, fantastic. If that means leaving the office by 6pm every day for your underwater basket-weaving class, also fantastic.

Take Control of Your Paperless Office

Learn the best ways to cut back on incoming and outgoing paper!

Join Joe Kissell as he helps you clear up the chaos of an office overflowing with paper. With Joe’s guidance you can develop a personal clean-up strategy and choose your Mac-compatible tools—a document scanner and the software you need to perform OCR (optical character recognition), devices and services for storing your digitized documents, and tools to categorize, locate, and view your digital document collections. Once you have your gear in hand, Joe then shows you convert your paper documents to digitized files and gives you ideas for how to organize your office workflow, explaining how to develop the day-to-day techniques that reduce the amount of time you spend pressing buttons, launching software, and otherwise managing your war on clutter.

TheCodingMonkeys om hur försäljningen av SubEthaEdit gått och om att leva "the life", dvs leva på att vara en oberoende macutvecklare.

Gus Muller, som gör VoodooPad, om hur han blev en oberoende macutvecklare. Är en del av artiklarna om att leva "the life".

Allan Odgaard ser tillbaka på hur försäljningen av TextMate gått sedan releasen. Är en del av artiklarna om att leva på macprogram, dvs att leva "the life"

Utvecklaren av SQLGrinder och MacGourmet mm om hur det är för honom att leva "the life", dvs leva på att utveckla macprogram.

Utvecklaren av WebnoteHappy om hur det är att lite "the Life", dvs att satsa på att leva på att vara en fristående macutvecklare.