www.usatoday.com: If you can't remember the last time you left the office before dark, or you spent your so-called free time not constantly checking job-related emails, then chances are your work-life balance stinks. And that's problematic, because it could not only wind up hurting your personal relationships, but also messing with your sanity and putting you at risk of burnout.
13 comments:
I like this article and I think it is important to keep these things in mind. Unfortunately, we are on a college campus and we live and work in the same place which seems to be a bit of a challenge. In high school, I would leave school and go home, but being so close to Purnell makes it feel like we'r eat work all the time. Something about work and play being in the same place is strange and new. I like the idea of not worrying about work-related e-mails while at home, but the reality of the situation is we get e-mails on our phones, and the faster we respond, the better outcome we're likely to get. It's a real challenge, especially in this program.
I agree with Owen above; my work and my life seemed so tightly intertwined throughout high school, and only more so here since I live and work on the same campus. In high school and now, theatre comprises my work and my life: the theatre classes I took in high school helped us prep for rehearsals after school, and I brought my work home with me to type up reports and paperwork for the next day. It was a constant cycle of learning, doing, and prepping that consumed my work and my life. Theatre seems to demand such a high degree of near-constant communication and collaboration that it is nearly impossible to leave your work at the workplace. I have also been struggling with the fact that my creative outlets, which were previously a stress relief and a way to relieve tension in every facet of my life, are now my work and I’m going to be graded on my art and creative work.
-Bridget Doherty
These four tips for work-life balance are great but also can be really hard to implement at times, particularly “1. institute email-free hours at night and on weekends”. In the theatre industry, we are always moving and always changing, so it can be hard not to check and email or make sure you are up to date with all the information, but I do see the importance of taking a mental break and having that disconnect. Especially as college students, we are constantly getting updates, canvas notifications, class feedback, and new information via our emails that can pertain to class the next day or even the work we are doing at that very moment, so while that disconnect would be nice, it is very hard to implement at this point in life. In terms of the other tips, working more efficiently is the one that I can improve on the most, since I don’t necessarily utilize all the time that is presented to me during the day so I constantly find myself working late into the evenings trying to get tasks done, just so I can chip away at the to-do list I have created for myself. A work-life balance is definitely important, but I also think that there is little room for true balance when it comes to being a student.
In a program like this where the amount of time spent participating in school work is strenuous, it’s important to take the proper care to manage the time spent outside of class. The ideas presented in the article that were most meaningful to me were committing to a family or friends dinner at least once a week and to work more efficiently. Working more efficiently can work hand in hand to having time to spend with friends and family. This also provides with the opportunity to spend time relaxing, which is essential for rest. Constantly working and not being able to set these boundaries will lead to burn out. As someone who sometimes thinks he thrives without rest, I am often mistaken about that. Enjoying a personal life is essential because it allows you to form lasting connections with other people that will last a lifetime. Designating time to work and to not work is a great motivator to finish work in a limited about of time.
As mentioned above, these are good tips for striking a good work-life balance, but can sometimes be impractical or comprehensive. I do have an automatic do-not-disturb time at night for when I sleep and try to organize my work to be as efficient as possible, yet I know i could be doing way more. For me, one personal measure I take is to keep most if not all my work on campus, so that when I travel home I can relax without having the feelings of stress and anxiety that I need to be working. In some cases, this may not be feasible, but keeping stress out of my living space means I can get restful sleep and take care of myself when I am there. It can also be challenging for new students to find the time to eat meals with friends or family since they may be several hours away, and our theatrical schedules tend to be not-so-friendly, but it is certainly doable. One thing I believe is missing from this article is talking to your peers and even your superiors (or in our case professors). Far more often than not, they want you to succeed or may be going through the same problem you are. It is certain though that we all need to make sure we take care of ourselves, whether that is in school or in the "Real World".
The tips in this article are all a good idea but I found them somewhat unrealistic, especially in the context of school. For example, tip number 1 was already contradicted on the first day of class by the professors. It’s good to have email-free hours but I was told by the professors to check my email at least a few times every single day. You don’t want to miss any emails from a professor or manager. I think one of the reasons why it makes having this balance so challenging is that we prioritize our work over anything else. It’s an important part of our lives and our full-time responsibility. Moreover, some of us have this mentality that if you have time to do other things, you should be working. But at the end of the day, you can’t work properly if you don’t have a healthy mind and body.
This is a great piece to begin learning how to take better care of yourself in an industry that we feel usually requires us to be “on” twenty-four seven. I find for myself, even though I have been working at various capacities in theatre for ten years, still working on some of these basic ideas.
It can be hard to do this especially since we’re in a school environment, but I think that by remaining firm about your own self-care practices, it can only get easier.
The ‘no email’ policy, for me, is one of the easier ones in my opinion to implement as students. I think any updates that come to us via email late at night usually aren’t so drastically important that we are missing much. More so, I think that as students we should be pushing together to keep certain hours off limits with work. I feel that if more of us are stronger in this capacity, the other tactics given in the article will fall into place for us.
This article is very helpful in the sense of if the tips that are given are actually used and maintained. The idea of setting boundaries can be is great but maintaining those boundaries is where the work comes into play. Sometimes, it is very difficult to recognize where the boundary line is and where to set it. In an industry where everything tends to blur into each other, it seems impractical for these tips to be put into place and work efficiently but I do believe that it can be done. People tend to believe that in order to do well one has to give space for the other to rise. Changing that mindset and believing that both can work well with each other allows an opportunity for change to happen. I do also believe that at certain points, there will be a time where one has to take a back seat for a very short while (even if it is for a day) to get some things done but at the same time it should not be a constant thing. Not having a work/life balance can lead to a huge amount of burnout.
This is a good article. It keeps the advice simple and easy. Some of this I already do, I found out to do this the hard way through trial and error, but I basically came to the same conclusions. Not doing work at night and on weekend, including glancing at emails or other is important. Think of it like sleep to physical activity. If you don’t sleep, then your body doesn’t repair and rejuvenate making the next day harder as you find yourself in pain just getting up from the chair. Not doing work makes doing work easier and more efficient. Having a life outside of work helps reinforce the same principle, plus the whole point of work is so that you have money to go live your life! The final piece of advice is something I am just now starting to grasp which is boundaries at work. Saying no is a good thing but you must find the balance on when saying no would be inappropriate or saying yes is unhealthy for you.
I think this article skims over its most important point: setting boundaries. I would, however, rephrase that as “setting priorities.” In my mind, the most important element of proper work/life balance is identifying what your priorities are. If your career goals are of the utmost importance to you, and other things in your life seem unimportant, then it makes sense that your work/life balance would be skewed heavily towards work. However, if you find yourself feeling frustrated, like you are struggling to make time for the people and things you enjoy, then you are letting work take over too much. I think it takes a constant examination and re-application of your priorities--is it more important to you personally that you get this work thing done, or is it more important that you spend some time with your friends? The balance is going to change as you change, and as you work on projects that are more or less important to you. The important thing is to continue to check in and not forget that you do, in fact, have a choice.
Immediately after reading the introduction, I recognized that I don’t have a healthy work-life balance. In high school, I never left the theatre when it was light outside, and obsessively check my email about school, internships, and work opportunities. I always find myself prioritizing work and projects over social life, though I understand how important the latter really is. Tip number 2 in this article, “commit to a family or friends dinner at least once a week” is a good reminder for me to build some time into my week. The fact that it’s dinner is important, because it’s not committing oneself to something extremely lengthy, but it still provides an important break. I definitely don’t work as efficiently as I could, so looking at where I spend time that’s not necessary would be beneficial, as the article points out. These tips will help my productivity through school and into the working world so that I don’t burn myself out and am able to produce my best work.
This article provides good and useful advice for a life after college. The way the system is set up in our school leaves little space for boundaries. Luckily, some of us are pushing the modus operandum and are learning to create boundaries for self-preservation. Our school is only a projection of the real world with a safety net, after all, all we do is just a school play, but as we leave and joining the workforce, we bring those already set boundaries with us to the industry. As we modify our working hours, our email response time, and all those things that eat into our personal life, we are live-tweaking the way the industry works. The current structure didn’t’ get build over night. It took hundreds, thousands, even millions of people, saying no, and saying yes and changing their working ways. Hopefully one day, the industry will move to more sustainable practices.
After being in college for three weeks, I’ve realized that I need to find a better balance of work and fun. Seriously, I should win an award for the best procrastinator. The article mentioned something about planning dinners throughout the week, and this is a time management tool I used back at home. I would plan dinners or coffee dates with my friends throughout the week, but I wouldn’t let myself go unless I got to a certain point with my work. Not only did this make me more efficient because I wanted to see my friends, but this break of social interaction gave me a clear head when returning to my work later in the evening. This helped me prevent burnout in my work.
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