Work/Life Balance

Summer may seem like a weird time to practice work/life balance. However, practicing work/life balance when you are not feeling overloaded, as you may feel in the fall, is ideal. With that in mind, I attended a workshop this week put on by the Colorado School of Public Health on work/life balance, presented by Dr. Gwen Fisher and Kelly Cave.

Work/life balance is achieved when you feel content in all areas of your life or feel like you have enough time to allocate to all the things that are important to you. If you don't feel satisfied with how much time and attention you have to spend on different aspects of your life including work, family, and personal time, there are some things you can do. You can increase resources or decrease demands. Below I offer some suggestions under both categories, gleaned from the workshop.

Increase resources:
When it comes to the resources that make the biggest difference in terms of work/life balance, the best resource to have is time. However, since we cannot create more time, it's important to look at ways that we can conserve time. This can mean things like finding an editor to review articles and/or grant proposals or finding and training a graduate student that you can delegate some tasks to. Another way to save time is to be judicious in the extra responsibilities you take on. It's important that you master saying no to things that are not necessary or worth the additional stress in your life. Make sure that you're not getting so busy that you're cutting into sleep, exercise, or family time. Other ways to save time are to avoid traveling during high-traffic times.

If you're not sure where all your time goes, try logging your time for a few days to see how much time you are spending on things. You may be surprised and realize areas that you could save time. Multitasking is a deceptively large time suck. Although most people think that multitasking saves time, research shows that people really can't focus on multiple things at the same time, and they actually lose time switching to new things and remembering/refocusing what they're doing. So, instead, prioritize and do one thing at a time.

Reduce demand:
Prioritizing can help you to get the work that needs to be done done and can alleviate some of the pressure that you feel in the short-term. Setting reasonable expectations with colleagues is another way that can reduce demand, especially in the near future.

In the workshop, one of the facilitators introduced the idea of telepressure, which refers to the stress or urge to continually respond to messages through email, text, social media, etc. This constancy of telepressure can create unnecessary stress, so consider finding times to turn off your technology, especially around bedtime.

Self-care:
When things get stressful, it's easy to kick it into overdrive in the short term. Problem is when this gets to be longer term, there are serious health repercussions. So remember, taking care of yourself makes you more productive during your working time. So make sure you get the sleep you need and consistently exercise. Also, take the breaks that you need. Perhaps go for walking meetings or on walks as a break to your work. It's important not to keep at it until you feel like you're banging your head against the wall.

Resources:
6 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance - Deborah Jian Lee, Forbes
Work Life Balance - Mental Health America