The Work/Life Balance

31st May 2016

The Work/Life balance is something that I’m sure we all think about at some point, and wonder if we’re getting it right, which can be tough, particularly with today’s online world meaning we are potentially contactable at all times of the day.

blogging work

It’s a really hard thing to get right I think. If you care about your work, or if it is super stressful then it can be so hard to switch off in the evenings and at the weekend. The 9-5 job role isn’t so typical anymore, and many people work longer hours or carry on doing some work at home on days off.

With blogging, there is so often no balance at all. Your work carries on over into nearly all aspects of your life, you are always switched on, thinking about keeping social media updated and taking photos of things you are doing in daily life. I think it’s so important to take some time away sometimes, and remembering that everything you do doesn’t have to be content for your blog. It can be really hard when you’re doing something that would make a great post, but obviously spending time with your family and being present is so much more important, and needs to happen regularly and come first.

Being a parent and blogging can be difficult, as you so often have to fit it all in around your child, and nursery or school time, often working late at night to get things done. So there is no clear boundary between the working day and the rest of your life. But that also means that you can work around your family and be there for the school pickups and work almost completely on your own time, so it is completely worth it to me.

Calibre Office Furniture have created a quiz which asks a series of questions based on your work life balance, and estimates your life expectancy based on your answers! The quiz aims to get people talking in a lighthearted way, about how negative work habits can be detrimental. Have a go yourself and see what you get here.

I did the short quiz, and despite it not all being entirely relevant to me as someone who works from home rather than in an office environment, I got an office life expectancy of 86 years – so I’ll take that!

My combination of exercise, healthy eating and taking those much needed breaks at work means that I could even make it into triple figures apparently! Do you reckon I could be the number one parent blogger in the Tots100 by the time I’m 100?!

Of course a lot of that is about your general lifestyle, not just how you do things when you are at work, but looking after yourself during those many hours at work is obviously very important, as well as how you manage any stress.

I do find it hard to switch off from blogging, and not feel guilty about just sitting and watching tv for a bit in the evening when there are posts that need writing and promoting. And of course there are some evenings that I do work. But I do really need that down time; to just relax and attempt to switch off from the blogging world. Ideally that would often include also switching off from social media too, but I just can’t do that, and to be honest I don’t really want to – I love it. I would like to spend more time reading books though – it’s so good for me to just immerse myself in that world for a little while, forget everything, and not check my social networks for a while. It’s probably one of the only times I am actually not online for a bit (apart from sometimes when I’m with my daughter obviously).

iphone

It’s so important to try and maintain some kind of work/life balance – we don’t live to work do we? Obviously the majority of us need to work, but it is everything else in our lives that is really important – our families, friends, and actually living our lives. It’s hard when we spend so many of the hours we have each week at work; but that just means that we really need to make those other hours count and attempt to switch off from ‘work’.

Do you think you have a good work/life balance? Is there anything in particular you need to change? If you did the quiz created by Calibre let me know what age you got!

This is a collaborative post.

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