Balance. Take the long term view.<p>Your skills don&#x27;t stagnate because you have the weekends off coding. No one is a 100% efficient human being [the word for that is robot].<p>My advice would be to set a baseline of working hard during work hours, but also develop habits and routines outside of work hours where you actually attend to the other things you want to do (exercise, hobbies, and socialising).<p>With that basic balance and limits in place, then you add a little bit more of the thing you want to excel at (in your case coding). By a little bit, I mean maybe an extra hour or two per day, if you have the time and energy.<p>Your big achievements will probably come from chipping away a little bit each day, and making whatever you work on a little bit better each time you work on it. Not from busting a gut when you are 23 and burning out by 25 [ignore my assumptions about your specific age].<p>PS, working for a conventional company can be very satisfying, you might just need to try a few different ones until something clicks into place.