How many of you feel you have managed to achieve the perfect work-life balance? As someone who is feeling a little frazzled around the edges of late, I have been giving the subject some thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Life has been a little hectic, a continual balancing act between keeping the little bumbumbees fed, cleaned and watered, childcare arrangements and demands at work, all conspire to squeeze my creative time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If you are up for a mini history lesson, the idea that working hours should be limited to create the fabled and mythical \u2018work-life balance\u2019 goes back to the 1800s. Manufacturing laws were passed to restrict the number of hours women and children were working and by 1938 the Fair Labour Standards Act established a 44-hour work-week. It\u2019s such a shame I can\u2019t put Adam and Rosie to work just yet, but laws are laws I suppose.
The Women\u2019s Liberation Movement brought work-life balance back to the forefront in the 1980s to accommodate women in the workforce who were also mothers or primary carers in the home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Throughout the decades we’ve seen progress and backward steps in equal measure. Rising prices mean that both partners generally have to be working to own a house and even then, it\u2019s a stretch. Everyone is too busy, too stressed with too little time for the important things. The story is the same in the majority of homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The big rethink<\/strong> The idea of the 4-day week has been floated by New Zealand\u2019s Prime Minister Jacinda Arden as a way to help with work-life balance while still improving productivity. A 4-day week would mean clocking up around 30 hours instead of the minimum of 40.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So with all these great strides in the name of progress, I do wonder why it is I feel frazzled as I write this? The work-life balance feels more like a fantasy than ever, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019m not alone in that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So why is \u2018work-life\u2019 balance so important? Achieving and maintaining a work-life balance isn\u2019t just important \u2013 it\u2019s imperative for creating a healthy, balanced life. Apart from anything else it significantly <\/strong>reduces stress and helps prevent burnout. It\u2019s vital for mental health and that\u2019s something we need to be especially careful of through such unpredictable times.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Being content in the moment<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n If you are wondering what the optimum work-life balance is, you may be forgiven for thinking it\u2019s all about splitting your time equally between work \u2013 and the rest of life. Most of us think of it in terms of \u2018time\u2019 \u2013 when what it\u2019s really about feeling \u2018content\u2019 or \u2018being in the place we would prefer to be at any given time\u2019. With this in mind, it makes sense that I\u2019m feeling work-life balance is out of whack. It\u2019s not simply down to the hours I\u2019m working (many people are unaware of just how many hours teachers put in outside of the classroom \u2013 but I\u2019m not starting that discussion here). I\u2019m generally happy in the moment at work and I\u2019m happy as a mum, though undoubtedly would love more time to cuddle my babies while they still let me. The clue was right at the beginning of this article. My creative time is being squeezed and that\u2019s when I start to feel things are off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So what’s the answer? If you have a passion or a hobby in life, something that clears your mind or lifts the stress of the day, you HAVE to make time for it \u2013 no matter how busy you are. It\u2019s good for your health.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Feeling work-life balance is out of kilter?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n These may seem like basic things to start working into your day, (and they are) but it\u2019s amazing how much resistance we feel to carving out time for ourselves. That is a story for another day \u2013 when I have more time (cough cough).<\/p>\n\n\n\n To conclude these thoughts, I\u2019ve been having on work-life balance, I would say creating (and maintaining) it is partly down to having the luxury of time, but more significantly it\u2019s down to our mind-set and the ability to define boundaries (without the guilt) and prioritise the things that really matter in life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All good advice that I am determined to follow for myself \u2013 if I don\u2019t fall asleep on the couch after the kids have gone to bed that is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until next time …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" How many of you feel you have managed to achieve the perfect work-life balance? As someone who is feeling a little frazzled around the edges of late, I have been giving the subject some thought. Life has been a little hectic, a continual balancing act between keeping the little bumbumbees fed, cleaned and watered, childcare […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":12559,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-hive-blog"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12555"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12561,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12555\/revisions\/12561"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bbbeecreative.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
COVID was an opportunity to rethink how we could do things since it became apparent people were as productive if not more so, working from home and employers were forced into looking at new models of employment. You may have seen the term \u2018hybrid\u2019 appear on the likes of LinkedIn \u2013 meaning the option to work remotely and\/or at home. I have been quietly hoping \u2018the good\u2019 in spending more quality time with loved ones could be retained from that experience \u2013 but the nature of some employment makes that tricky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>That\u2019s quite an eye-opener when you think about it that way. Yes, it is about \u2018time\u2019 to some degree because we all have so many things we \u2018have\u2019<\/em> to do \u2026 like pay bills \u2013 or feed the hangry ones – but if we start thinking about work-life balance as setting some boundaries around how we prioritise our time, perhaps we would start to create our own work-life balance \u2013 rather than have it dictated by mounting stress levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Set time in your schedule \u2013 even if it\u2019s only 20 minutes.
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Work out what absolutely HAS to be done \u2013 and move the rest a bit further down the list.
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