Balancing work and life is an intentional step that we all have to take if we want to live a happy, fulfilled life. And no, work is not life. At least, we don’t think it should be. We like to say that work is only an aspect of our life, just like our relationships, family, hobbies, even.
Sometimes, we notice that we get too occupied trying to set that career goal that we failed to set any goals for our personal life. Imagine going to work at 8 am and returning at 6 pm, then having to send in “one last deliverable” by 8 pm, and now you don’t have time for yourself—this was our life until we couldn’t take it anymore. We had to find ways to strike a balance, and what kind of friends would we be if we didn’t share the tea with you?
The first thing we did was to learn to say “No”. Because we’re sweet, it was hard to do at first, but you’ll get the hang of things eventually. We noticed that when we stopped helping with more work “favours,” we got a lot of time for ourselves outside of our work hours.
Setting a work schedule and sticking with it. We try not to work when we’ve left the office. This way, we’re able to spend time with our people. We also keep the rule as remote workers. At a certain time, you should turn off your laptop and stop responding to work messages. Every other task would be delivered or sorted out the next day.
We talk about work-life balance with so much passion because we know how dangerous it can be to our health, especially if you live in a fast-paced environment like Lagos. The traffic is enough to give you burnout, not to mention adding several more hours of work to your already-packed schedule.
There are more strategies to balancing work and life, like making use of your lunch break or setting out family time. But the most important one is prioritizing your personal life much more. There’s more to life than earning a paycheck. We don’t say that to undermine your career achievements and goals because we have some of our own as well, but we want you to enjoy all the aspects of your life and not just work. We wouldn’t want you to miss out on the fun stuff while the rest of us are having a blast.
