Work-Life Balance
By: Lauryn Gladd
Whether you live to work or work to live, one thing is for certain: striking a healthy work-life balance can do wonders for your overall well being.
While interning abroad in Ireland, I was pleasantly surprised by the work-life balance I witnessed. I quickly learned not to expect email responses outside of work hours, and it was common to have workloads adjusted so that one person wasn’t being spread too thin. One day, my coworkers and I left the office to go to lunch together down the street. When we arrived at this charming restaurant next to the River Liffey, called As One, I was still thinking about a current work project as I scanned the fresh daily grain bowls and salads for what looked most appetizing. Upon sitting at a table, my boss declared the one rule for lunch: All talk about work was prohibited. We wound up having a nice break where we discussed everything from their favorite cities in America to what pranks they’ve pulled over the years.
While workplace culture in America might have different norms and expectations, there are a variety of ways we can individually improve our work-life balance. But first, what does work-life balance really mean?
Some people coin the phrase “work-life balance” to an even split between time spent on work and your personal life. In reality, a healthy ratio looks different for everyone, and it likely changes on a daily basis. The key is finding what works for you and allocating your time wisely to remain productive and satisfied. In one 2008 study in the Journal of Management and Organization, work-life balance is redefined as “the individual’s perception that work and non-work activities are compatible and promote growth in accordance with an individual’s current life priorities” (Kalliath and Brough, 2008). Given this perspective, it is valuable to check in with yourself and your priorities in order to identify areas for change or improvement.
Research from one Harvard Business Review study of 78 working professionals similarly suggests that work-life balance is not a one-time fix, but rather a cycle we must continuously engage in (Lupu and Ruiz-Castro, 2021). The following 5 steps provide a useful framework for balancing your professional and personal life as your circumstances or priorities inevitably shift.
Pause and denormalize
This step is all about reflection. What is currently causing you stress? What areas of life are you prioritizing? What tradeoffs are you making? In college, the “work hard, play hard” mentality is championed. As good as it sounds, this approach can be unrealistic to constantly exhibit. For example, I probably disappeared from all social events the last three weeks of last semester while battling the flu and final exams. On a less extreme note, it is beneficial to notice anytime when you might need downtime, or when you could focus more time on either your work or personal life.
Pay attention to your emotions
This step is about emotional reflexivity, or “the capacity to recognize how a situation is making you feel.” How does your current situation and your answers to the first step make you feel?
Reprioritize
Now that you’ve increased your awareness of your situation and how it’s making you feel, you can determine what changes you may want to make. How can you better align your time to reflect your current priorities?
Consider your alternatives
This step involves thinking about what options you have to achieve your new goals. If you want to focus on work or school more, what are some ways you can make this happen? Could you go to the library before class instead of hanging out with friends?
Implement changes
Time to act! Whether you make “private changes” such as self-imposing times you’ll go work in the library, or make “public changes” such as asking a manager for time-off from a job, it’s time to take action. After this, the cycle repeats in a continuous loop of overall awareness and reevaluation.
Why should we care about work-life balance? According to one neuroimaging study, it was found that dissatisfaction with work/nonwork balance is associated with “a state hypervigilance to work-related cues, and a trait neural marker of fatigue, both symptomatic of lowered cognitive capacity” (Jones et al., 2019).This means that poor work/life balance is associated with burnout (as seen by participants’ increased resting alpha power) and difficulty suppressing automatic responses to work-related stimuli (as seen by participants’ diminished alpha response to oddball distractors). Furthermore, another study found that a positive work-life balance positively influences job satisfaction and performance in small and medium enterprises (Susanto et al. 2022). Overall, it is clear that improving work-life balance can have substantial positive effects on both an individual and organizational level.
Improving work-life balance is not an easy task. Keep reading for some additional tips to help us navigate this balancing act together:
Set boundaries
Today’s time pressure paradox makes it hard to separate work life from personal life. Seemingly perpetual contact with smartphones makes it hard to draw a line in the sand. To counteract this, try creating separate browsers or emails for work, and consider putting the phone down outside of work hours when possible. Along these lines, really try to focus on one task/area after deciding to dedicate your time to it, i.e. do not try to do what I did last night and multitask watching The Bachelor and doing homework.
Prioritize your health
In true hol3health fashion, prioritize your holistic health in order to feel your best, so that you can tackle balancing your personal and professional goals. Whether it be eating nourishing foods, exercising, or taking a relaxing bubble bath, it’s helpful to view self-care as the nuts and bolts holding together the work/life balance scale in the first place.
Be intentional with your time
As an avid list-maker, I love to plan my days out, sometimes from start to finish. I find it helpful to schedule errands or social plans ahead of time, so that I can visually see gaps of time I have free. Whether these gaps are dedicated to rest or spontaneity is up for question everyday. Seeing where you dedicate your time can help you align your work-life balance goals with your daily activities.
Take your vacation days
In 2018, 55% of Americans didn’t use all their paid time off (U.S. Travel Assoc., 2019). It’s important to take these breaks for physical and mental health benefits as well as help you in your balancing act.
Referencec List:"
Jones, R., Cleveland, M. and Uther, M. (2019) “State and trait neural correlates of the balance between work and nonwork roles,” Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging, 287, pp. 19–30. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pscychresns.2019.03.009.
Lupu, I. and Ruiz-Castro, M. (2021) Work-life balance is a cycle, not an achievement, Harvard Business Review. Harvard Business Publishing. Available at: https://hbr.org/2021/01/work-life-balance-is-a-cycle-not-an-achievement (Accessed: January 25, 2023).
Kalliath, T. and Brough, P. (2008) Work-life balance: A review of the meaning of the balance construct, ResearchGate. Journal of Management & Organization. Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/29468512_Work-Life_Balance_A_review_of_the_meaning_of_the_balance_construct (Accessed: January 25, 2023).
Susanto, P. et al. (2022) “Work-life balance, job satisfaction, and job performance of smes employees: The moderating role of family-supportive supervisor behaviors,” Frontiers in Psychology, 13. Available at: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.906876.
US Travel Assoc. (2019) Study: A record 768 million U.S. vacation days went unused in '18, opportunity cost in the billions, U.S. Travel Association. Available at: https://www.ustravel.org/press/study-record-768-million-us-vacation-days-went-unused-18-opportunity-cost-billions (Accessed: January 25, 2023).