A big misconception that most people have is that when you dedicate all your time to work, you are more productive.
Keeping a healthy balance between personal time and dedicated work time is essential to being more efficient and getting things done correctly. Work-life balance is a trade-off between time spent at work and time spent doing non-work activities. As time progresses, it becomes problematic when the boundaries between work and home become increasingly blurred.
Achieving the equilibrium
So how do we figure out how to see that line clearly and achieve equilibrium as much as possible? By its very definition, work-life balance affects all aspects of one’s life, and it tends to show up differently in different people. For instance, some people might constantly be thinking about work, their brains can’t seem to differentiate and block out thoughts when doing other activities. Some of them cannot even participate in other activities when facing trouble at work. That is enough to put loads of stress on the person, making them prone to fatigue and stress-related health issues and at a higher risk for burnout.
Strive not to be a success, but rather to be of value.
Albert Einstein
Being able to make time for self-care is essential to being able to work productively for longer periods. Simply put, we dedicate break time to fully disconnecting from work. For example, people working in a call center might face issues concentrating as they need to spend long periods focused. To counteract that, it is advised to spend their break time doing some energizing activity, maybe socializing with a colleague, doing some stretches, getting some fresh air, or even eating a light, healthy meal.
Recuperation
As much as the old myth that working constantly means achieving more seems legit, it is healthier to give every activity we do all of our undivided attention and focus. Whether that is an after-work activity, a weekend away, an annual vacation time, or even a 30-minute break, the fact is as our attentional resources drop so does our ability to focus.
It can seem frustrating and even sometimes impossible to equally prioritize career and personal demands. Still, with intentionality, one can recalibrate and learn to follow their inner compass to find out what works best for them. One rule can’t apply to all in this case, but a common thing to focus on when trying to achieve such equilibrium is to give whatever you’re doing your undivided attention.
By trying to work too hard and not taking any time off, people jeopardize their productivity and achieve a lot less than they intended. So a healthy mean is always the goal.
