We all know how stressful balancing work is with personal life, especially for family men and women; it is a lot better with singles than married couples. For those doing time-demanding jobs like medical practitioners, be it doctors and nurses, balancing work with personal life can be so tasking. Maintaining good health, strong relationships, and personal happiness amidst having a successful career requires quite a lot of effort and planning.
Work and personal life always go hand in hand, or should I say compete for energy and time? With access to proper means of technology, work seems to have the upper hand in taking over one's time rather than focusing on oneself. In a world that is growing at a fast pace, where money seems to be the only key factor to survival, self-care, relationships, good exercise, nutritious meals, and sufficient sleep are absent. Meanwhile, these are the things needed to maintain good physical and mental health so as to help our performance in our daily activities.
Setting boundaries and time between work and self-care is very important, as the common saying goes, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." After dedicating so much time to work, sparing out some time to do things one enjoys in the form of relaxation is a good way to manage stress. Sometimes being with our loved ones generates happiness; setting aside time for family dinner or get-togethers, dates with partners, and activities with friends requires leisure time where one can be fully present without having to rush out for work. Not allowing work to interfere while spending quality time with loved ones prevents relationships from suffering and feelings of being overworked. Having enough time to communicate and reflect on things makes bonds stronger, but all this cannot be achieved if there isn't a balance between work and personal life. Work will always stand in the way of enjoying oneself.
Taking doctors for example, they are expected to respond to calls at any time of the day irrespective of what they are doing or where they are because their job is to save lives. They can't be enjoying themselves at the expense of another person's life, which is at risk, but then this should be done wisely to avoid mixing work with self-care. Respecting work hours and not combining work with free hours, which should be utilized in a good way by taking good care of oneself or one's family, protects personal time. Saying no to additional tasks outside standard work hours could be a solution.
Time isn't just always enough; before you noticed, 24 hours are completed, and you are still left with things you would love to do but couldn't due to insufficient time. I do witness this too; in fact, today I had a lot to do but yet still couldn't finish them all. This is where I like to make use of a to-do list; I write out the things I would love to get done at an at an hourly or two-hour interval. This makes one set aside specific time for work and one's personal life; this allows for efficient prioritization and preparations so that commitments won't be a last-minute rush.
Maintaining a work-life balance requires planning, intention, and setting boundaries. Some just don't know when to stop. I mean, in terms of work, after spending several hours at work, the little time that would be spent for personal evaluation and relaxation is still somehow work combined in between, which is not supposed to be. Like the common saying in my tribe, "the lifespan of work is sure longer than that of humans," which means work can stay forever, and that is undisputed, but humans or humans can never be forever. Then taking it easy with work and taking the steps one at a time will save a lot of stress to avoid health-related problems, which would make one retire from work completely.
Thanks for your time, and your comments will be appreciated.