At the Helm of Your Personal Life
“Stress is the feeling you get when your gut says ‘No’ and your mouth says ‘I’d be glad to’”
Finding balance is crucial to holding your wits together and maintaining a great social life. Imagine having your life in a constant cycle of ‘work-eat-sleep-repeat’; not a nice picture. So how can you prevent this pattern of life or if you are already living like this how can you re-arrange your time? You cannot just go with the flow, wait till you have a vacation or till you get to the weekend. You have to put in more muscle than that.
Have some laid down rules. It is extremely easy to have work sweep you away every time. Make some rules for ‘me-time’ and ‘family time’. Do not let your work life and personal life become so mixed that you cannot tell the difference; working is not a form of relaxing.
Respect your time. Take record of the time you will need to devote to work factoring in the nature of your organisation, roles at work and personal ambition; decide if it will include weekends and how long. Arrange them into a schedule and resist the temptation to add in some extra work (or next thing you know you are leaving work 11 pm every night). You can use David Allen’s Workflow diagram to make a schedule and place your priorities according to their importance.
Do a sane check. If every day for 5 years, you wake up 5 am, got to work, eat lunch by 12 pm and go home by 11 pm, you might want to do a sanity check. Ask self-reflecting questions like: Am I happy with my job and life cycle? Will all the sacrifices be worth it later? Is there anything I can do to make my work schedule better? Should I consider changing my job? Answering these questions can help you stay grounded and focused on your personal goals.
Involve others. For married workers, you need to share the load. Divide the house chores and family responsibilities together. Be open about your work’s demands so you can both work around it. As you plan all these you must also involve your boss and colleagues. Learn also to say no (however if your boss assigns you a task that you can’t get out of, you gotta do it). There will be times when work would infringe on your personal time but it would be minimal since everyone knows what to expect.
Relax at intervals. Take out time to relax personally or with friends. If you are always on the road be sure to find ways to entertain yourself.
“Your ability to generate power is directly proportional to your ability to relax.”
-David Allen
Tolu from Gumi
Fun Trivia: Those who purposefully set out to relax their minds and bodies are found to be less stressed by small struggles of daily life.
