20 Apr Secret #14: Work-Life Balance
Achieving a good work-life balance is really hard. It is harder than learning the Laplace transforms or doing FEM problems by hand. Here are some insights that you can implement to attain better balance in your career and your life outside of work.
Plate Spinning
Imagine a performer who is spinning plates on top of some poles. At first it is easy for the performer to spin multiple plates at the same time, but then as more and more are added, it becomes more difficult for the performer to balance so many spinning plates. Luckily the performer is able to perceive when they need to go back and re-spin a plate as it bobbles and begins to lose its balance.
We are similar to this performer, but instead of plates we are balancing our priorities. Sometimes we need to really focus on our ‘work’ plate and at other times we need to focus on our ‘life’ plate. It may vary from week to week depending on our circumstances. We know our situation better than anybody else, so we must pay attention to our own ‘plates’ and re-spin them as necessary so that they do not fall to the ground.
Remember that plate spinning is a delicate process and so is the time that we give to our families.
Set Priorities
What is important in life for you may vary from me or others. We are each different and that’s okay. Whether your priorities are God, family, work, skiing, music or continuous learning, write them down. You may also consider writing down a few small achievable (yet challenging) goals to help you get to where you want to be.
The past few weeks, I have had to work on my own work-life balance. I was in Florida on vacation, then I came back to some pretty urgent projects. This left me working long hours. My balance in this instance was to focus on my main priorities. I only had time for work and family, so that meant that my posts for ‘The Hipster Engineer’ struggled.
Let the record show that I am back and I am going to bring you all quality content, even as I struggle. I have set my priorities and some goals to achieve this.
Be There 100%
Whether you are spending time at work or spending time at home with family/friends, be there 100%. If you are looking at social media while at work or responding to emails while at home, you are not only cheating others out of your time but you are cheating yourself. By putting 100% of your attention into the task at hand you can increase productivity and finish what you are doing quicker. If your project tasks are done then you can go home…. Sounds easy enough, right?
As an engineer, we deal with stressful situations daily as we design, deal with clients, and coworkers. It isn’t fair to bring those stressful situations home with us. Likewise, we may have personal issues that we are dealing with that affect our work. The better we are at leaving those stressors at the door, the better we are maximizing our time and being there 100%. Ultimately we are professionals and we have to be responsible and responsive as the project may require, but not every project needs us to take our work home with us.
Remember this… if your client, contractor, coworker, etc. knows that you are on vacation, they will leave you alone and let you be there 100%. They will go on vacation sometime as well, and they will want the same respect to be there 100%.
Treat Yo Self
I am a big advocate of working hard and making the impossible project deadlines possible, even if it requires some 16-20 hour work days, but sometimes you need to also ‘Treat Yo Self’.
If you are working long hours, you should feel guiltless in taking some time off to recoup and recover once you have achieved your project deadline. Remembering to ‘treat yo self’ is just as important as treating your family/friends. I know that after a long stretch of working hard, I need to make sure to treat my wife because she has been working just as hard as me to maintain our home while I have been at work.
Whether you ‘treat yo self’ with ice cream and Netflix, a trip to Hawaii, a few days camping, or a concert is up to you. Just remember that you work hard and so you should also play hard.
Subscribe to my newsletter to receive monthly notifications for new ‘Secrets for the Modern Engineer’. I will notify you of new posts on the website, as well as other updates to help you further your career.
Keep on keepin’ on.
Life’s a garden… Dig it!
If you have any additional topics or subtopics that you would like me to cover, please contact me at josh@thehipsterengineer.com
No Comments