From time to time, I struggle to find balance between my work and home lives. Sometimes things I’m working on at home drift into the workplace. Other times I can’t seem to find the off switch when I leave the office for the day. When the imbalance issue crops up, it causes some serious problems in my life – but it does force me to take a fresh account of my perspective about things.
I’m blessed to have a job I love. I’ll put in a long day at work and come home, anxiously awaiting the chance to head back in and finish what I’ve been working on. I love to share what I do with my friends and family – their approval is just as important to me as my colleagues’. I’ve found myself awaiting the after dinner hey-look-at-this with as much nervous excitement as the hey-boss-I’m-ready-for-the-OK meeting.
I’m also lucky to have a lot of friends and family with whom to do things away from work. There’s never a shortage of hikes, board games, or neighborhood trips. I can tell you from experience that having people to blow off steam with after a bad day is just as valuable as having people to celebrate a good day. It’s also rewarding to have climbing and hiking partners ready to go at a moment’s notice.
The trick is balancing the two parts of my life. If home takes over, I find my work struggling (an issue that eventually damages home as well). If I let work take over, home quickly delves into darkness and pulls work down with it. Considering much of what I do at work started in hobbies I picked up at home, it’s no wonder I have difficulty separating the two. But that makes it all the more important.
We live in a world that tends to clutter itself. Lines become blurred and passions intertwine. Each of us has our own style and method to managing the different forces in our lives, and we share common support systems that strengthen them.
So, how do you manage your work-life balance? Is Monday morning just as exciting as Friday afternoon?