22 Seeking Work-Life Balance
The concept of “work-life balance” is about creating the ideal split between your work commitments and other roles outside of work. For a graduate student, this may involve balancing your academic and teaching responsibilities, such as working on your thesis, with social, cultural, religious, and other commitments.
Techniques to achieve “balance”
- Keep work at work. Create healthy boundaries between your work commitments and extracurricular and home life. Actively separating your work and home life, such as walking home from work or turning off your email/electronic devices at home is key. Even though it might be possible, you do not need to be available 24/7.
- Make choices that bring you a sense of fulfillment. Learn to say “no” to commitments that are not aligned with your future directions.
- At the start or end of each day, make a list of core priorities for the day (e.g., 2 to 3 manageable tasks) and set aside enough time to complete the tasks. Even if other tasks come up, you will have achieved part of your to-do list.
“Having a dog, I was forced to go for a walk and play with her everyday, which was amazing. Living with my partner now, he does a very good job at pulling me away for dinner, and little things that let me come up for air.”
Anthropology, 3rd year, PhD
“While I was a thesis in lab I wouldn’t say I had a great work-life balance while writing. At times my work-life balance was okay. I would suggest the following:
- Maintain consistent wake and sleep times
- Do some physical activity everyday (at least 30 minutes)
- Talk to someone daily even if it is just to complain about the writing process; it’s comforting to know that everybody struggles with this to some degree
- Don’t feel the need to physically be present in the workspace/lab if you are just writing. Inform your supervisor that you will be writing from home, library, coffee shop, etc. Be in an environment that makes you most productive
- Work hard and play hard. Take at least one day off a week if possible. Play sports, read, sleep – whatever rejuvenates you.”
Chemistry, 2019
