Yes, I'm a workaholic. Here's my plan.
Hi, Everyone! I’m Jorge, and I’m a workaholic.
It’s no secret. My friends know it, and so does my family. It was also on my CV header when I was hired by Amazon.
I had it under control
So far, a number of external factors pulled me away from my laptop. To be honest, I thought I had it under control, but I now understand that I was in fact being pulled by others around me, due to a number of commitments and norms that I was happy to accept due to my social nature:
- My daughter needing me to pick her up after school;
- My colleagues pulling me for a drink after work at the pub;
- My manager telling me to go home and get some deserved rest;
- My family’s scheduled dinner at 7pm and my long commute home;
- Scheduled meet-up session starting at 6pm on the other side of town;
- Theater starting at 7pm and I still need to pick up my girlfriend;
- Working late at the office with the lights turning off automatically every 5 minutes.
I need to get my work-life balance back
Everyone’s saying that I should control my work-life balance while working from home, but how can I balance anything if I was never in control, and the external factors that pulled me in the past are now diminished? Now that meet-ups and coffees have gone virtual, I end-up spending even more time looking at a screen. But to be honest, I can’t complain. Work is currently my main escape from this confinement, a strong source of joy and meaning, and a reminder of how grateful I need to be just for having it amongst this chaos.
Please make me stop
So, I elaborated an audacious plan: I’ll reach out for others for them to regain control of my schedule in a number of ways:
- Promise my daughter I’ll play with her every day after 5pm, after we do her homework together (I'm sure she won't forget my promise);
- Ask mom to give me a call at sunset, to check if I’ve been eating properly and to talk about her neighbor (I just need to tell her that I'm losing or gaining weight);
- Ask my mother-in-law to move the family mandatory gathering from dinner time to 5 o'clock tea (no way she will forgive me for being late again after the altar episode);
- Propose a daily rota for a nominee to organize a social event for the evening, pulling everyone in (the harder the effort, the less chance I'll have to skip it);
- Get a pet.
And then I’ll sit down relaxed on my chair… working.
Global Solutions Architect @ AWS | Cloud Influencer, Public Speaker
4 年Thank you for your comments, Mike Mackay, Dinesh kumar Subramani and Shivang G. ! To be honest, this text was successful in sparking a reflection on the felling of overwhelming work, but was not in any way intended to be a request for help – I’m a proud and happy workaholic: * I understand who I am, by applying a number of EQ introspective techniques to identify and map my behaviours; * I accept who I am, while practicing EQ empathy on others, I consequently learned to forgive myself; * I learned to be proud of myself, what resulted from questioning daily “what have I done today to make me proud?” * I have a work-life harmony, and although that doesn’t translate into “work-life balance”, it results in immense joy. Conversely, this is a vocal exercise of vulnerability and recognition of the importance of those I love, by allowing them to love me back. If it contributes to at least one person to feel better about herself on her EQ-learning journey, then I have made my “proud-quota” of the day. ??
Senior Specialist Solutions Architect - Databases (NoSQL), EMEA at Amazon Web Services (AWS)
4 年It’s good to have a plan; to aim for, to guide us and keep us aligned on our path. But we need to maintain a balance, too. I’ve been a “workaholic” before, I see it in others and get why some choose to adopt the approach. From it, I’ve also been burnt out and work has made me physically unwell from stress and pressure - I vowed I’d never return to “that place”. A frequent word that’s mentioned is control. There are things you simply cannot control, but have to be flexible with. We have an amazing job that offers incredible flexibility, this then naturally ripples down into home life. Try not to index on the uncontrollables but embrace fluidity, we don’t have to make our lives so rigid. You don’t need to over work, prove anything to anyone else (other than yourself). Learn what’s right for you and that balance will naturally come through. Manage, don’t control. Am I a master at this? Definitely not, but I try to adjust all the time as I learn from situation to situation. Some won’t agree with me, and I’m happy to hear all sides. I’m not saying don’t do what you’re planning, but appreciate that not all things, or people, can or will be controlled. Focus on how to optimise yourself for each & every day; no single day is the same.
Senior Technical Program Manager at Akamai
4 年An audacious plan is so much better than having NO plan :)! Good luck, Jorge!
Principal Machine Learning Architect | Ex-Amazon
4 年Working hard, having fun (in and out of work) and making history.. balancing them is more important. As Tom rightly said... this is a Marathon Jorge ??