I am still in continuing education, so for the longest time (or forever), I have felt that I don't deserve a life (you know what I mean). Disclaimer: for those of you who are not aware of the lives of professional or post-doctorate students, this post might sound exaggerated. For a moment, let's just pretend that I was supposed to enjoy a life outside of work . . .
I wouldn't even know where to start because I have lead this life style ever since professional school. As for my earlier years, I did have a few hobbies. . . but more on my hobbies another time.
A couple of questions I have about work-life balance are as follows:
1. How do I push myself to accomplish enough during the work day to feel comfortable leaving right at 5pm?
2. How do I prevent myself from feeling like I am slacking every time I have a free weekend?
I came across an article or two online about this subject, and I'll share what I gleaned. Please chip in, because this is currently a large issue in my life as a budding professional (this could shape my life!).
Answer 1: Set reasonable goals for the day. Pay attention to your daily workload and figure out the optimum and acceptable amount of tasks to accomplish during the day. Everybody is not a superhero, and it may take you longer to accomplish some tasks compared to the next graduate student, intern, resident, co-worker. Such is life. Do not be unrealistic with your capabilities. When that amount of work is accomplished for the day, feel free to leave (unless you finish early-at which time, you would continue to work until 5pm). If you do not set a goal for the day, there will always be more tasks for you to complete.
I think making lists would also be helpful in this regard. Have you heard about the system of making lists as follows?: important and urgent tasks, important and non-urgent, unimportant but urgent, unimportant and non-urgent. Basically, prioritize the important tasks (instead of listing items as they occur to you or chronologically), so that if you run out of time, you are more likely to not have completed tasks that are unimportant.
Answer 2: If you have set goals appropriately and are reaching your landmarks, then you will feel more at ease to relax on your time off. As for me, instead of leading a healthy work-life balance, I have started an unhealthy life of binging on free time. Whenever I feel like I have a free night or weekend, I will go out, or surf the internet, or hang out until the very last minute. Then I will suddenly remember the assignment I had not completed or the preparation work I had not done for the coming week. I will proceed to play catch-up late on Sunday or early on Monday morning or try to multi-task as I audit a lecture. Clearly not ideal.
But knowing is half the battle, is what they say, isn't it? At least I've admitted it publicly. And now that I've offered up some solutions, maybe it's about time I followed my own advice.
Why the banana bread? Baking is one of my hobbies, and as it is the weekend, and I had several neglected bananas, I put them to good use. The recipe is off of my all-time favorite cooking site--allrecipes.com.
