During a fifty-year career in government, and long before the phrase work-life balance became a thing, I struggled with balancing my duties with the demands of family and personal fulfillment. When I retired from government service in 2012, I thought those struggles were a thing of the past. I soon learned that they were just beginning.
My initial view when I transitioned from the bureaucratic environment to the life of a freelancer was that it would be a snap. I work mostly from home, set my own hours, etc., balancing work and personal responsibilities would be a snap. Boy, was I wrong.
Where I’d been working 10 – 12 hour days in government, and had to deal with a cumbersome, demanding bureaucracy, and thought that presented the ultimate challenge to carving out time for my personal life, it turned out that when you’re your own boss, it’s even harder.
When you work ‘for the man’, you can at least escape the demands of the office at times. When you’re commuting (and in most of my jobs my commute was about an hour one way each day) you have an excuse to be ‘out of touch.’ When your work is just upstairs, though, and your commute is less than twenty feet away, getting away from it presents an incredible challenge. The number of hours you work, instead of going down, tends upward. I’m an early riser, getting up most mornings at around 5:00 or 5:30. In the past, this was my personal time before hitting the road around 7:00 to begin my commute.
Now, though, I often found myself immersed in a work task as early as 5:45 in the morning, and again, as late as 11:00 at night. There were no more weekends. Saturday and Sunday became just two more days during which I was staring a long to-do list squarely in the face. Now, I was looking forward for an excuse to get out of the house and away from work.
This went on for a year, well actually ten months. Then, I fell and cracked my right femur. I didn’t know this until six weeks later, though. The leg hurt, but I thought it was just a bruise, so I kept on working, including the occasional job that required travel—including one trip where I drove twelve hundred miles roundtrip. When the leg pain was still present after six weeks, I consulted a doctor and an MRI discovered the six-inch fracture of the femur. I was admitted to the hospital immediately for surgery involving the insertion of three titanium pins and a three-day stay in hospital during which time I was mostly under sedation.
Then, I was released but on crutches or a walker and confined to my house for two months. Going up and down stairs was difficult so I stayed mostly on one level with the injured leg elevated, making it hard to spend more than thirty minutes at my computer each day, which was just about enough time to check emails and little else.
My customers and clients were very understanding of the situation and, thankfully, my new freelance ventures didn’t really suffer. But I got something else out of this tragedy that was even more important. I discovered that it wasn’t necessary to be ‘plying my trade’ during every waking hour. I could pace myself, get just as much productive work done, and still have time for family, personal relaxation (I’m a puzzle fanatic and I love to read). Once I was fully mobile again, I began to deliberately set aside time for non-work activity.
For example, at least five days a week—weather permitting—an hour to ninety minutes is set aside each day for a brisk walk which not only helps me control my weight, but manages my arthritis. In the morning, rather than jumping on my computer immediately, I go downstairs, fix a light breakfast and watch the news and at least thirty minutes of a streaming sitcom or drama while I eat. I still get up around 5:00 or 5:30 but I now don’t start work until around 7:30 or 8:00, and I stop at 11:30 for a leisurely lunch, coming back to work at 1:00. Bedtime for me now is 10:00 unless I have a real critical project, and I stop work at 9:00 to give myself an hour to decompress.
That’s my work-life balance. Each of us should have this balance. It’ll be different for each individual, which is as it should be. Finding the appropriate balance between job and personal activities, a good work-life balance is the key to having a longer and more fulfilling life.
Don’t make my mistake, though. Don’t wait until you break a leg to realize the necessity of doing it. | NWI
