My default mode is to phone it in at work. Been doing this for years, and I've been at my most happy when I have phoned it in. This is usually after some holiday or other personal life moment that gave me perspective on how little value my work really has to me. Occasionally I slip, get serious, 10X it, and get burnout. Somehow I don't seem to learn from this.

"That’s not balance, it’s wasted years."

It's only wasted if there were better (realistic) options. For many people, they don't.

>Phoning it in at work is bad for you in the long term.

How is it "bad" for you? Make an argument that doesn’t simply devolve into vacuous platitudes and protestant work ethic nonsense.

It's only wasted years if work is an important part of your character. For most of us, it's an obligation we reluctantly do so we can pay bills and actually live our life.

Sure, if you consider "work" to be the end-all-be-all. I "phoned it in at work" for a while and it was one of the best things I did for myself. But the reason was mostly that my evenings were spent working on learning data analysis and working on bunches of civics-oriented projects and FOIA litigation. I did eventually leave to find more meaningful work in a different career. But "phoning it in" is what enabled me to eventually leave.

I'm not going to get too much into the discussion of it being directly bad for you, but nothing builds resentment like a coworker making your life harder by not actually doing their own.

If you start phoning it in, don't be surprised if you start becoming isolated. And that can definitely be bad for you in the long term.

> find a way you can do meaningful work at work

This is silly. 90% of corporate work employing millions of ppl is not 'meaningful work'

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