You Need a Work/Life Balance

Oh no, I have that report due by the end of the week, and I have to make sure the numbers were run correctly, have to make sure the fax was received at the office.  Did I call them and tell the warehouse to make sure to have these papers faxed back here?

If this is you on your day off or vacation....you need to continue reading this.

The majority of us have been down this path probably more than once and know all too well that it is mentally and physically exhausting.  We worry about work when we are at work, when we are getting off of work and before we sleep and after we wake.  We are going to work early, on our days off, and staying late.

Needless to say this is not a healthy lifestyle, because it is in fact a lifestyle that we set ourselves in and it is very taxing on our minds and bodies.

The following examples I will use from my personal experience and hopefully open a new light to us work-a-holics in know that we DON'T need to be there every single day.

It has been engraved in my brain from what I've worked and whom I've worked with that most people do not want to fail in anything they do, and chances are you fall into this category. We want everything to be good and we want to make sure that we do the best that we can to the best of our ability not only to satisfy our desires to know that we have done a good job, but it is in our nature to want to make others happy. The 'others' in this case being our bosses.

So in order to do this what do we do? We become martyrs, to where some of us sacrifice time and self to make sure that we do the best that we can. We stay late hours, work early shifts come in on our days off because "we have nothing better to do." WRONG! We always have something better to do than to be at work every damn day of our lives.

On reason we become like this is because we allow our bosses to talk us into staying late a day or two and then it becomes habit.  They then expect us to stay every time they ask us to and that shouldn't be the case.  We need time for ourselves and our loved ones.

I know its hard sometime to say no to those responsible for our raises and promotions, you want to know what's even harder?  Recouping the time lost while working that is impossible, to do to get back the time you spent at work when you could have been with family and friends and making memories.

The best way to avoid putting yourself in this detrimental situation is to have a hobby, something that you enjoy doing more than work and make a note to make time for this.  Second best is to have time set aside to make sure you make time for friends and family during you're schedule to avoid "not having anything better to do."

I'll be the first to admit that I put myself in this situation years ago when I was manager for a fast food restaurant I was there literally EVERY DAY.  Not healthy.  Since then I was laid off and have found that no matter how much work you put into a company you are still 'expendable' to the company.

With that I have made myself a rule, a 40/60 rule, to dedicate 40% to work and 60% to life and its great endeavors.  Now this isn't engraved in stone and I don't want to imply that you shouldn't care about work.  There are times that we may need to dedicate a bit of extra time into our work to advance, but we need to try to not make it a habit and to say no to our bosses from time to time and let them know that we have lives outside of work.

While working with the fast food company I missed too much and was almost married to my job, I would joke with the employees there that the restaurant was my wife and to treat her well.  Jokingly we would all laugh and life would go on, but in all seriousness this put a tremendous strain on my life mentally and physically.  I was constantly stressed out, I gained weight because all I did was eat to, in my mind, keep moving, and constantly had head aches.

Your ratio may be different it is something that is able to be tailored to your situation and needs but I do recommend for most of us to invest more time in our lives than in our work.

What you want to do first is to make sure that you make 'events' to cover your off time to make sure that you have something to do and aren't compelled to want to go to work or check that email.  Here are a few suggestions:

• Find some exercise that you enjoy doing
• Pick up a hobby like blogging, reading, or building something so that you can see the fruits of your work.
• Spend time with friends family and loved ones.
• Organize something, whether it be your finances, house, garage, or car.
• Have variety, because you don't want to bore yourself with life either.

The best way I've found to do this is to lay down on the ground, or a bed and sit in utter silence with only the wind of the ceiling fan blowing and just think...what have I wanted to do?  and jot these things down and make note to put a foot forward towards making that a reality.

I've given a very, VERY brief summary on a the need of work life balance.  I could literally fill in about 3000 more words but I decided to keep this one short and sweet. 

There is nothing more valuable to us on this earth than our time here because it is so fleeting.  Today we are here and we're not guaranteed a tomorrow.  We need to appreciate the time that we have here and use it to our fullest potential.

  Granted we have responsibilities at work and we need to be able to take care of ourselves and those we love by putting food on the table and roofs over their heads but what is it all for if we can't relish in the fruits of our works and we are stuck there 7 days a week?

I've finally come to understand what my parents have been telling me all these years while I was killing myself at work and now I'll pass on those words on to you my audience:

'No matter how hard you work it's not enough, there's enough work to go around for centuries and you will never finish it, but your life, it doesn't have that luxury."

With that I hope that you will take the time to make yourself a 40/60 plan to make time to spend it with those you love. 

Let me know what you think in the comments section.