The Thing About Work-Life Balance
I used to have this peculiar problem of being someone who loves their work, is an overachiever, and is part of a generation that’s connected 24/7 through their phones. Long story short, I overworked myself.
I was addicted to my work and I couldn’t pull myself out of it. It came to a point where I was always working in some form or another, regardless of where I was. I’d often check my email or chat to see if a project that needed my attention even if I was at home or outside with friends or family.
So there was no work-life balance or even work-life imbalance, it was all work and life was just there on the sidelines looking at the game.
Was I happy? Nope. Was I stressed? Hell yes. But was I more productive? Good question… but no. I used to automatically assume that I was more productive because I worked more, but that wasn’t really the case.
This is a fairly common scenario, especially for people in my generation. Your boss or client messages or emails you outside of work hours to get you to do or fix something. Of course, we comply because according to them it’s urgent. But the thing is, what’s urgent isn’t always what’s important. Is sending one email really always more important than our mental health, or our relationships?
I get it, it’s hard to do, especially if we’ve got goals or we love our work. But there’s a reason why we don’t and can’t work 24/7. We need that extra time to rest and enjoy life. Working all the time doesn’t make us more productive. It just stresses and tires us out. In the end, we’ll probably be less productive than if we took the time to rest. Remember: being busy isn’t the same as being productive.
So if like me you love your work, you’re an overachiever, and you’re connected 24/7, then you need to eliminate one thing from the equation. Of course, it should be your love for work! Okay, I’m kidding. The thing is, we don’t have to be connected all the time. We need to learn to stop and say, “No more work for now, it’s outside my work hours.” We need a proper work-life balance.
How do we do that? Well, we need to set our boundaries and make it clear that we only work during our work hours. It’s not easy to tell your boss or your clients that they can only contact you on set times, but the alternative is a lot worse. If we don’t set boundaries, then they’ll assume that any time is okay. So make it clear and set expectations because if we don’t make them clear, then other people will make them for us.
Just don’t make the mistake of thinking that because it’s called work-life balance, then you have to spend exactly the same amount of time on each. The whole point of work-life balance is the healthy relationship between work and life. One improves the other. Your work should allow you to live a better life, and your life should push you to work better. It’s not easy to achieve, but it’s definitely possible. And you can start doing it by learning to focus on work when you’re working and life when you’re living.
If you liked this, I write about personal development, intentional living, and more at my blog.
