Crikey! First few days in and I am already slacking. Tsk.
Mind you, I was working from some ungodly hour yesterday morning, through to just after 22:00 GMT. I actually had my dinner/tea whilst dialling into one teleconf, such was the rush throughout the day.
Still, this leads me nicely onto an issue we hear a fair bit about nowadays: work/life balance. Is it possible to ever get it just right?
I am up early in the morning and, if I'm not driving, I roll into my office at 06:30 (no later than 07:10). I then stop for breakfast and a quick play (normally Star Wars or Dr Who) with my youngest son, and I am back in work at about 08:15. From then on in, it's pretty frenetic all day with calls and emails coming in pretty much constantly.
If I grab a bite to eat, it's normally a cheese roll. Coffee is made on the fly, while in meetings/calls.
Dinner/tea is about 17:30, after which I am straight back upstairs working.
If I haven't got a conference call, or the proverbial isn't hitting the fan, then I will try to make sure I am downstairs and ready to rumble with 'Junior' at 19:00-ish.
Once he's having his supper, I'm back on the machine working, and I nip in and say goodnight as he's getting off to sleep.
Then I'll be working until 21:00 or later (as happened last night).
I'm also studying later on, but taking time out to sit with my better half for an hour or so...
Weekends are spent as a family for most of the time but, if I am behind at work, I'll login and attempt to clear some of the more priority pieces. Again, study tends to happen at the weekends as well.
I do wonder as I actually type up the time I spend doing various things - this isn't a blog on how hard I work I hasten to add; I know people who work far harder than I do - is this what we really mean by work/life balance? Is it the 15 minutes here, or the half hour there spent as quality time (I hope!), as opposed to a full day just sitting around in the same room, that gives us the work/life balance?
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Is it possible to get the balance right? Probably not. Well, not perfect, anyway. There are always competing priorities in life. Those of us that use our "spare time" for something other than watching TV have a tough time squeezing things in the "cracks". I suppose though, if TV were a "priority" there'd be the same problem.
ReplyDeleteEverything we add, such as a blog, or twitter, or someone online activity, comes at the cost of what we do "in real life". Ultimately, we choose what's important now and what'll have to wait.