I don’t balance things. I try to simplify them
Work-life balance is all about prioritizing between work-related things and lifestyle-related things. It’s about this equation:
Work, Promotions, Goals, and Making money = Health, Family, Friends, and Holidays.
Here comes the main challenge: How do you balance everything?
We have to decide:
- Keep changing career vs Setting down
- Taking risks vs Playing safe
- Chasing money vs Peace of Mind
- Working vs Relaxing
- Spending time with family vs friends
Not able to decide? Result: Worry, Anxiety, Stress
Research has shown that the lack of a healthy work-life balance can result in a variety of stress factors, including Fatigue, discouragement, heart disease, high blood pressure, depression, unhappiness, anxiety, etc.
Just a few days back, I was talking to one of my friends. He and his wife recently had their second baby. And he was saying how they struggled with balance when they had their first child.
But this time, they simplify things. 90% of his time goes to the family, work, and himself. All the other things in life he ignores. And he doesn’t need to worry about balance.
And I do exactly the same.
Let’s take an example:
Let’s say you work from 10 AM to 7 PM (and 1 reserve hour if there’s anything important). That whole work aspect of your day takes 10 hours in that scenario, which is not uncommon. Let’s say you sleep 7 hours. That gives you 17 waking hours.
That means you spend 59% of your time on work-related things. There goes your balance. You have 41% time to the things that REALLY matter to you. Just don’t make things harder for yourself. And you will never have to worry about work-life balance.
To me, there are only a few important things: My health, Job, having a good relationship, and my side hustle. That’s it.
It’s pretty easy to balance that. We spend too much time balancing things we don’t need in our lives. That turns things complicated.
Don’t get me wrong. I like complicated things. I like Quantum Physics :)
But I don’t like it when people complicate very simple things. And why do you even need to balance a thousand things?
You don’t need to do everything. Just decide what your life is exactly about and you will find there are only a few priorities that matter.
Don’t balance things. Simplify them.
Henry David Thoreau put it best:
“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand.”
I hope you enjoyed reading the story as much I did writing it. :)
