A few ideas on work life balance for freelancers

inspired by HBR' article:

(https://hbr.org/2020/02/how-to-leave-work-at-work?utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=hbr&utm_source=LinkedIn&tpcc=orgsocial_edit)

There are many definitions in the current literature around the concept of work and life balance. To mention a couple of recent examples there is the “relative perception” an individual might have when it comes to his professional and private life (Nam, 2014), but also the “ability to affect own border management” (Kossek & Lautsch, 2012). For a freelancer, who is an independent worker, it can be the equilibrium he manages to maintain and control, so that lifestyle and professional interests happily coexist without harming each other.

Lack of work-life balance or a poor management of these two aspects could eventually de-motivate?individuals, can generate negative impact on a company’s retention numbers and, also, impact on organizational culture and perception on the market (Neimisto et al, 2017). At an individual level, an altered balance between life and work can cause burnout (Leung, 2011), which impacts dramatically one personal wellbeing, but also on performance and motivation.

Times have changed for the past decades substantially, and determined the economies to became 24/7 machines, so consequently workers are at times reachable also 24/7. Not only the market has transformed but also the way people work (Presser, 2003). The fact that nowadays there are cell phones and laptops, tablets and smartwatches have made workers more connected and connectable to their professional environment than in the past century.?

It was shown that the more individuals use the recent technology, more the balance between their personal life and professional life is breached, but the level of impact is ultimately determined by the own personal preference and permission of certain borders to be crossed (Leung & Zhang, 2017). To this end, there are studies that show a negative impact on personal life from the use of electronic devices (Sarker, 2012) affecting an individual physically, psychologically but also when it comes to productivity, but also it was shown that the same devices can have positive outcome by Hill et al., 1998 and Stewrad (2010), substantially increasing work satisfaction, productivity and improving overall workers’ happiness out of having so much?flexibility.

Another definition of work and life balance is that of accomplishing different roles related to variate expectations that are shared and negotiated between one and his/her partners in different aspects of life (Grzywacz & Carlson, 2007), while being composed out of six factors connected roles: equity, multiplicity, satisfaction, fulfilment of role, conflict and facilitation, control (Kalliath & Brough, 2008).

Studies showed that long working hours, bad management, high workload, lack of time off influence negatively work and life balance (Allan, Loudoun, & Peetz, 2007) while spending more time with family and experiencing high quality of personal time increase substantially the positive impact of work and life balance. (Greenhaus, Collins, & Shaw, 2003)

Some scholars showed there are several work life ideologies (Leslie 2019): a fixed pie work-life ideology, a segmentation work-life ideology and a work priority ideology.

The fixed pie work-life ideology is based on the idea of two types of approaches towards life and work: (1) the extensive one where an individual expands and invest in life or work depending on needs and context, and if required more resources they are willing to allocate those to work or to life, one at a time, and (2) the strong fixed pie idea where a finite set of resources got either to life or to work, with no crossing between.

The Segmentation work-life ideology where individuals believe that work and life are independent and not interdependent. Those with a powerful segmentation between the two manage to separate and not combine, using impermeable boundaries. On the other end, there are people that strongly believe work and life are interdependent and you can’t manage one going well without the other being balanced.

And the Work priority ideology, proposes that certain individuals value more work over personal life, and prioritize work related deliverables over personal interests.

Even if there are no precise studies to determine the freelancer’s ability to balance work and life, being a freelancer can be considered a choice and an effort in finding the right recipe, as working remotely and independently offers the prospect of an improved control over certain life choices like: schedule, location, leaders and even projects to work on.

Any negative impact on this precious freedom can heavily influence on upcoming choices in terms of productivity, working preferences, and returning to work for an employer/customer/freelancer.?