Unfortunately, it’s all too easy to let work-related responsibilities expand to the point where they obscure our responsibilities that aren’t work-related.
Fortunately, the same technique Jason describes in an earlier post to protect the time you need for writing, lab work, grading, and other work tasks can also be used to protect the time you need for exercise, for dinner parties, birthday parties, dates, time with your family, and other essential parts of life. (Yes, things that are not related to work can be essential, too.)
I learned in graduate school that unless I write something down in my calendar, I tend not to treat it as important. Now, however, if someone asks me if, say, I can attend a work function on a night when I plan to go for a walk, or go on a date, or cook an ambitious meal, I just tell them that my calendar is already booked that night. (Full disclosure: I’m not as good about doing this as I would like to be.) Period. There’s no need to go into more detail, really. It’s your life, after all. It’s okay to say “No,” sometimes. In fact, it’s better to turn down a request to do something than it is to accept the request and then do a mediocre job.
Another scheduling strategy I’ve adopted with good-but-not-perfect results is to enter birthdays and other significant, recurring events into my Google Calendar and set email reminders for each birthday. At the beginning of each semester I buy a bunch of birthday cards and stamps, which I keep in a desktop box devoted only to cards. Then, when I get an email reminder, all I need to do is open the box, pull out a card and a stamp, take a few minutes to write the address and a brief note, and then stick it in the mail.
Although I cannot claim to be perfect–nor is that my goal–my track record for remembering birthdays and sending out cards is much better this year than it has been in years past.
My overall point is this: Take seriously your need to devote at least as much time to personal needs as you do to professional needs. Your career will only suffer in one way or another if you let your health, your happiness, or your relationships with other people atrophy while you’re strengthening your professional identity. You do a better job at your job if you’re not always thinking about your job.
What are your strategies or habits for maintaining a healthy balance between work and life? [Image from flickr user pinksherbet. CC-licensed.]
5 Comments
Yes, yes, yes. I also find time mapping especially helpful for essential but somewhat irritating things — designating a set half hour a week for billpaying, shredding postal mail, etc means I don’t have to think about those tasks on any other day.
When I first read your comment, Natalie, I though you wrote “I also find time napping especially helpful” and I was ready to write, “Me, too! Me, too! I love naps!”
…mapping… Ah, okay.
I think what you’re describing is akin to what Merlin Mann describes as “Ganging”: keeping all of your small, similar tasks grouped together in lists and then taking care of them all at once in one sitting. So, one could “gang” all the household-related correspondence tasks–paying bills, shredding snail mail, addressing birthday cards–and take care of them in one 30-minute timeslot every week.
In a work context, we might apply this to–say–answering student emails: 30 minutes in the morning then another 30 minutes at the end of the day.
Very nice.
Now, if only I could practice what I preach.
I will go on record as saying that napping is an excellent lifehack.
Time mapping is Julie Morgenstern’s term for a strategy for planning your week — if I block off time on my calendar for exercise, or socializing, then it has a place on the map. It’s a way of making sure your priorities are actually given space in your schedule. (maybe I’ll write more on this someday?)
but time napping is definitely good too!
The only way I was able to really right my life during my early twenties was to hyper organize my time. I did this by hand with a daily .odt document until GCal came along. Now I organize my day into color coded “subject” calendars and break up my time as needed. I have daily, or not so, scheduled items to make sure I complete tasks. My down time, running, etc is scheduled right into my calendar so that I can try to keep to it.
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