Finding the balance between personal and working life
It was 7:30pm when I closed my laptop, and it was already dark outside. I usually like to run watching the sunset – it is one of the simple pleasures I try to keep every day. Frustrated, I put my running shoes on and went for a jog anyway asking myself what the ideal hour would be to finish working.
Like me, I am sure all of us are struggling now to find a balance between personal and work life. Closing our laptops when there is still work to do has just become much harder since covid, and after this episode I rose this topic to my mentor. I felt I needed to get some perspective about the topic. I would like to share her thoughts with you as I believe I received very wise words. :D
The first thing my mentor told me was that she could not give me an answer in terms of the number of hours people usually work – as everyone is different - BUT, instead she asked me two questions. Daniela:
1.Are you working late hours because you want to become an expert in the field? And for that you want to learn as much as possible and you are willing to sacrifice a few more hours to advance your career.
OR
2. Are you working late hours because it takes you more time to do certain tasks? If that’s the case, then you might need more training in certain areas or understand who to reach out for help to avoid longer working hours.
This might be silly but once I heard these two questions, I automatically started classifying my tasks into either one of these two buckets, asking for help more often and making clear that certain extra hours I did were only a little sacrifice of the long term learning for my career – of course everyone is different and have different priorities, so please do not feel you have to follow what I am saying.
However, one thing I definitely changed since that conversation was about having a more flexible schedule. And by this I mean, if sometimes I have to work longer hours then I make sure I take a little break during sunset for my quick jogging and then I return to my desk to finish a few things I might have. So, you might ask – What is the right amount of hours to work? – well, I still don’t know and I guess it depends on everyone’s job but I feel this way is working for me.
Let me know if you have faced issues with this subject and how you are overcoming this.
Thanks for reading,
Daniela