Being highly career-focused is overwhelmingly seen as a positive attribute. Productivity and results seem to win out over everything else, and people are eager to find ways to maximize their efforts and achieve success.
However, excessive attention to your career can come at the detriment of other vital aspects of life. Working too much, which comes with stress and burnout, eventually takes a toll on your health. Manageable workloads and prolonged breaks are crucial for attending to your personal well-being, relationships, and mental health.
The Myth of Work-Life Balance
I find the concept of work-life balance to be foundationally inaccurate. Consider the modern American’s relationship with their job—there is hardly ever a hard and fast line between professional and personal.
We make friends at work, and those relationships become part of our personal lives. Sometimes, work matters need attending to outside working hours, allowing work to seep into our personal time.
In other words, we don’t have one life that’s only professional and a separate one that’s strictly personal. Believing that you can cleanly compartmentalize the two is unrealistic, not to mention unattainable and taxing in practice.
When Working Hard Becomes Burning Out
The risk of burnout is rampant. Between outside expectations and internal pressures, you can easily overwork yourself by simply striving to do your best. A robust work ethic is often recognized and celebrated, but the truth is those who possess it have a greater potential for burnout.
In addition to affecting individual well-being, burnout can also erode productivity levels over time. Even the most high-functioning person will find that the quality of their output suffers when working continuously in a state of burnout.
Moreover, maxing yourself out all the time stymies creativity and innovation. Considering all this, it’s safe to say that working too hard for too long may set you back over time rather than help you get ahead.
The Relationship Between Productivity and Leisure
If we’re going to praise periods of breakthrough and high productivity, we must also accept the vital role rejuvenation plays in helping us achieve our goals.
It’s common for people to think of time away from their professional responsibilities as slacking off, but this mentality is skewed. There’s an interesting relationship between one’s ability to produce and the amount of respite one allows oneself.
An endless back-to-back schedule leaves no room for the mind to rest. This is where the importance of white space (free time in your schedule) comes in. Reserving room on your calendar for periods of rest and rejuvenation is a key ingredient for creative thinking, problem-solving, and self-care.
One exercise that has been especially helpful to me is doing a time audit study, which helps you better understand how you currently spend your time. For a week or more, track what fills up your days and for how long.
By keeping a record, you can see the percentage of your time you dedicate to things like work, family, friends, and others. Compare this data against the things you value most in life. You might be inspired to restructure your schedule.
Rejuvenation Looks Different for Everyone
When we feel rejuvenated, we are energized and refreshed, ready to take on whatever comes next. But what you do to achieve this feeling for yourself will look different from what others do for themselves.
Of course, there are the usual methods for relaxing; think a massage or a relaxing getaway, but that doesn’t mean those have to fill your cup. Maybe it’s working on a home project, volunteering for a cause you feel strongly about, or making art.
Think about when you’ve felt rejuvenated in the past. What were you doing around that time? Who were you with? How can you use this information to build rejuvenation into your everyday life? It’s important to explore what might work best for you to ensure you can get the vital recovery needed to press on.
In our always-on world, don’t forget to prioritize time for yourself and the things that you value. Avoid tethering your identity to your title; leave room for leisure and personal fulfillment outside the office. With a little intention, your work can complement your life rather than dominate it.