Member-only story
My Ten Rules for Work-Life Balance
I run a global organization with hundreds of volunteers and over 25 teams. This is how I literally save what’s left of my sanity and my life.
I famously have no work-life balance. I run an international org that has hundreds of volunteers around the globe and over twenty-five teams from video editing to engineering to mental health. We have community outreach efforts launched in Nigeria, India, Philippines, the U.S., and Pakistan.
To just keep it all running, I work over twelve hours a day, seven days a week. My Saturdays and Sundays are so full of meetings I can’t even grab lunch with my parents. Late night and early morning calls are a requirement when it’s the only way to get people in San Francisco, Lagos, Vienna, and Yangon on the same meeting. There is no concept of off-time, a sane schedule, or the ability to say no.
Then there’s the fact that I work with my family. I’d love to take an afternoon off to play board games with my sister and my husband like we used to do, but there’s no way for both Executive Directors and the President to just be unresponsive for 10 hours. When we eat dinner, we talk about work. When I’m bed with my husband at night, we talk about work. I wake up and we discuss who bathes first based on meeting time and…
