Remodeling: Remember going to the playground when you were young and riding the see-saw? Some people call it the teeter-totter. Little more than a board centered on a fulcrum, you and a friend would get on each end, alternately pushing one another up and down.
11 comments:
I think the Work-Life balance discussion has been flipped on its head during the times of a global pandemic because people have different lifestyles and priorities. One element that I think is very important is that in order to have a work-life balance you have to have a separation of work and life, which is much more challenging when you work from home. I wonder what tips someone who works from home even when not in a pandemic has for those of us who are struggling to create this divide. I think the point the article brings up is the concept of priorities. I think that as adult priorities become family and friends and so that is what you put in the planner first. I think in college that can be different. You come to college to get an education and that is often the priority so that goes into the book first. That’s why Friday night shows come before Friday night festivities. Of course, this has its exceptions but I think the core of this article is finding your personal priorities and starting there.
I definitely feel that I struggle to fund a balance between time spent doing work and time spent enjoying myself or relaxing. I often find that when I do not keep moving down my to-do list I feel as though I have wasted time and was not productive. I also find myself thinking about the work that I have to do all the time. I think that it is really important to have a healthy balance between the time that you spend invested in your work, and the time that you spend not working because ultimately if you allow yourself to enjoy downtime, you work more efficiently. I also think that you are much happier, no matter what kind of work you are doing. I feel very fortunate that I am pursuing a career that I love and enjoy doing, however, there is still a line that comes between work and enjoyment. Elena Keogh
Work-life balance has been much more difficult since this quarantine started. I think for many people, once their zoom classes are over, their day is over. They might have individual assignments to do after the workday, but not too much. However, with the number of group projects that I and many of us have going on right now, it's difficult to create a work-life balance. I feel like there's a pressure to be available all of the time, and that's not really good for anyone. People feel like if they don't necessarily have something to do, they need to be working, which makes people feel obligated to work all of the time. I think there's also an accidental assumption by many people that a meeting can be scheduled for almost any time, but there does need to be boundaries. Yes, if we were at school we would be having random constant meetings, but people have different lives now. Family is a huge distraction and priority in a time like this and we can't discredit that, and that's only one example. Being at home is obviously much different from our lives at school and work, and I just think it's really important to adjust to that in a healthy way.
It’s kind of hard to create and work on work-life balance when the two are so closely intertwined.
It was hard enough while living on campus, but at least I had a studio space and work environments separate from the desk across from my bed in my bedroom. I spend most of my time in my bedroom, so it becomes really hard to define a line between work and enjoyment, and just wasting time. I have fewer in-person classes than I did while in Pittsburgh, so now I have to force myself to work on those classes and make sure I get those assignments done even without live check in’s with teachers. It’s kind of a slap in the face of what I’m actually able to get done through self motivation alone. It’s become harder and harder to focus on school assignments, especially when the industry I’m studying and working to become a part of doesn’t really exist in full.
I mean, right now the work life “see-saw” in my life is more of a ferris wheel. Or perhaps it resembles one of those rides where you are flipped in four directions while trapped inside a tiny cage. Yeah I think that makes more sense. If you couldn’t already tell from my blatant existentialism, being home with my family is not the best for balancing my life. There is very much a battle between work (school) and life (my family’s normal at-home functioning). I think this article means well with all these tips, but I do not really think they are practical solutions, especially not right now. While taking care of myself during this pandemic is important, I can’t just “fit” classes in around my self care schedule. I can’t even do that normally. That just isn’t how life is for me, and I’m sure it isn’t like that for many other people who need to work to provide. I’m sure this article helps people who have the luxury of balancing their work and life, but it seems a bit shallow in terms of recognizing people’s situations.
I have always believed that finding a good work-life balance is extremely important in living a healthy lifestyle. As humans, we thrive with others. Human connection is so important when it comes to the way we live our lives. I've always been the type of person who would rather spend endless hours doing my work than going out and having fun with my friends or family, and it's been an ongoing struggle to find the balance between the two. I always tell myself that I have too much work and there's no time to go and have fun with my friends, but that's simply not true. There will always be time for you to create those special connections with people if you truly want to. At this moment, during the Coronavirus pandemic, however, it's a bit difficult to focus on your social life rather than your work. Yes, spending time with family is something can be cherished and appreciated, but after a while, you can't deny that you might get tired of seeing them all day every day. I feel like most of the people I know, are taking this time to devote most of their time to their work as there isn't much else to do.
If life is a work/life see saw, I’m currently stuck touching the ground on the work side. I’ve always been someone who prioritizes work (while keeping in mind WIN: what’s important now), but I feel like I’ve been pushed to extremes with quarantine in the age of this coronavirus pandemic. I, and plenty of other friends that I’ve talked with during this mess, have felt a heightened sense of restlessness as it’s become increasingly difficult to do my work. It’s taking much more physical and mental strength to get ordinary tasks done. That, coupled with working and living in the exact same space every day, and having an inconsistent sleep schedule, is causing the days, weeks, months, to all blend together. Time doesn’t quite feel real anymore. However, there is a light at the tunnel with summer coming—getting over the hump of the end of the year. I appreciate what this article said about remembering what’s really important at the end of the day, life, relationships, accomplishing what you’ve wanted to accomplish. With a 4-month summer coming up, I’m hoping to practice living in the moment with no work holding me back. And I hope that having a long time to get into habits, that they will stick with me as work picks back up in the fall.
I think that theatre students at Carnegie Mellon have one of the most horrific senses of work life balance in the world. I think that we all become so passionate about what were working on, it becomes our life. There is a guilt about not working 24/7 for me to be honest. I feel like every time I am not being productive, even if I am doing something that is fun, it feels like a waste of time. FInidng motivation to work on things in my bedroom amidst quarantine is really hard, because usually the work space is separate from the hanging out space. It is almost too easy to fluctuate between working on my model for imaginarium and laying in my bed, whereas on campus I would have to walk to my dorm and commit to staying there for at least an hour so that I didn't feel like I walked over for no reason. Bottom line: I miss 33!
Maintaining a work-life balance is really difficult and really important right now, as the two are kind of frustratingly blending together. Effective work-life balances require separation, time when you choose to focus only on your personal life and refuse to allow work to intrude on that. But with everyone working from home, there’s a lack of physical separation between the two that causes work and life to feel so similar that they’re hard to differentiate between. The ‘good news’ here is that pretty soon here we’re all going to run out of at-home work, so this won’t necessarily be an issue for us any more. But for the time being, it can be really helpful to sit down and analyze the work you’re doing, and when and where. I’ve seen so many things about ‘don’t work in your bed, have spaces in your house specifically for work and some that are just for life’, and yet here I am, writing this comment from my bed. It’s where I’ve done basically all my work this quarter, because my brother has commandeered the dining room as his online high school work space, and my mother is using our office room as her space to keep teaching. My room is therefore where I’ve been doing all my work, and I’ve noticed that it’s having a subtle impact on how I feel when entering.
Work-life balance was already hard enough before this pandemic and now the current situation has complicated things even more for a lot of people. From job layoffs to creative block I feel like everyone's experiencing something, but there is some comfort from solidarity in numbers. Even before the pandemic, my work-life balance was complicated; it's a strange shifting lifestyle when your hobby, what was your escape from work, becomes your work. but maintaining a healthy work-life balance is important to being productive in both your work and your life. That healthy work-life balance looks different for everybody and might take a while to find. I don’t think i have found it yet, but that's always something I can work towards. Making sure you are healthy mentally and physically is first priority, but also like, not being miserable is cool too! Enjoying your work and life balance is the goal, having the right amount of both.
It is very interesting to think about work-life balance during a time of global pandemic, because I have realized that there is a difference between what type of work felt important 2 months ago, and what type of work feels important now. The thing is the idea of work- life balance is crucial in a world after coronavirus, but something I imagine will fall to the side when we begin starting our new normal because of the eagerness to get back in. Something I have also realized when thinking about this see-saw of work-life balance in my current quarantine life, is that in the same way it is important to make sure the “work” aspect doesn’t swing too far one way, it is also important to make sure the “life” aspect doesn’t either. With work feeling intangible since it is so distant and online, I have had more than enough time to be motivated in my own life, yet I lack this motivation because my work isn’t motivating me as well. Ultimately, I think it is important to find the line for work-life balance more than ever after we return to life.
Post a Comment