The idea of working five days a week with two day weekends and a few weeks of holiday each year has become ingrained in society. But it wasn’t always the case, and it won’t be in the future. Could people eventually take three and even four day weekends? Certainly. Will job-sharing increase? I think so. People will need to be paid the same or even more for working less time, so they can afford more leisure time. That’s going to be a difficult balancing act to get right, but it can be done. If it works for individuals and works for businesses, everyone would want to spend more time with their loved ones, more time exploring their passions, more time seeing the world outside of an office and more time getting healthy and fit.
Do you ever have such a bad day at work that you have to imagine your favourite fictional character kidnapping you from it just to wind down? Because same.
Everyone would likely agree with Aristotle that “we work to have leisure, on which happiness depends.” The motivation for employees to work hard is the carrot of a relaxing retirement. Yet this cause-and-effect often gets flipped such that we fit our lives into our work, rather than fitting our work into our lives. The widespread belief that happiness and life satisfaction can be found exclusively through hard work is at a heart more a management myth meant to motivate workers than it is a philosophical truism. Read more.
Thinking a lot about mental health in relation to my career and work-life balance lately.
Dealing with ongoing mental health issues like ADHD and depression can be a very uneven experience.
Sometimes you’re doing great, taking your meds, having what I like to call “good brain days”. And these might last a while! Long enough that you start to feel like you have a handle on things, even like you might be in something resembling remission.
Then you go downhill. Often you’re still taking your meds, still practicing the healthier coping mechanisms you’ve learned, all of it. Despite that, you’re really struggling again. You remember that no, this isn’t something you can be cured of. There is no silver bullet, and this struggle will continue to be a large portion of your life.
I’ve mostly accepted that, but it can be hard when a long good period is what’s been allowing you to get up and go to work like every one else. When that period comes to an end, what do I do? Am I ever going to be able to maintain a 40 hour week for more than a few months before I burn out?
The pandemic has really opened my eyes to this, because I’ve been working costuming jobs mostly from home, which requires me to keep close track of my hours. I’m realizing that left to my own devices, I struggle to put in more than 30 hours a week. Sometimes I can’t even make 20. And the ADHD can make it very hard to work as efficiently as another seamstress would.
I think actually working around other people again might help with that, but my career goal is costume designer, to which independance & time management is crucial. And in the meantime, the average wardrobe stitching job is often a lot more than 40h/week. How can I ever hope to make a good life for myself when I can only handle part-time hours?
I guess I just hope that it will become easier if I find a job I actually like that pays a living wage? But there’s no guarantee for any of it.
My manager would always remark that, “Perception is important.” And I would sort of shrug but now I’m really “getting” it. People will perceive you differently based off what you show or tell them (kinda like social media).
Truthfully, I don’t think you can be too honest about your work to anyone (outside of your close friends and family), especially to your work colleagues. Take my situation for example. Since working from home since mid-March, I’ve been doing my work diligently and meeting all of my deadlines.
Am I straight working for 8 hours? No. I’m doing laundry, cooking, hanging out with my dog, etc.
Are all of my working hours busy and crammed with work? No. There are slow periods during my work day.
Would I ever flaunt to my manager or colleagues that I enjoy working from home because I can do other things during the work day such as laundry, cooking, etc and that work can be slow at times? Not really. It would give the impression that I’m not hardworking and lack initiative.
Instead, I tell them I enjoy working from home because I no longer have to commute from work and have more time in my day. I tell them I meet my deadlines and I love my home office. I tell them working from home allows me greater flexibility in my life.
It’s not lying, but it’s making things appear “glossier” then they are. Or with a more professional tone.
Perception is very important. Be very mindful of your professional work image and how people perceive you. Don’t say things that may impact how people see you.
Healthy living can be time consuming. It requires time purchasing food, time preparing meals and time spent exercising. Many healthy meals can even be more time consuming to eat due to the higher fiber and water content (and resulting lower caloric density). For many of us, this can be a challenge when our time is already occupied with other commitments. Personally, this is something I have…
6 hour workday maximum i’m not kidding, if it can’t be done in that timeframe it doesn’t need doing.
this doesn’t apply to jobs like childcare
If i worked in childcare and my 6 hours were up i would start putting babies in ziploc bags and shipping them to Turkmenistan listed as endangered fruits and vegetables
tumblr user possiblyfrogking somehow completely unaware of the concept of shift work
It applies more to jobs like childcare, elder care, and healthcare, where there should be 4 hour direct-care shifts with 6-hour supervisory shifts. That means quintupling staff and making sure that all of that staff gets the same or better pay to the current rate, and that’s how it should be.
The human brain cannot focus correctly on complex tasks for more than 4 hours, or simpler tasks for more than 6 per day. It can’t. That’s not how neurology works.
The fact that we’ve been conned into thinking the mostdifficult,highestvalue work tasks in the modern world (caring for those in need) should be done with the least regard for actual safety and effectiveness is obscene.
Capitalism fucking rots your soul, and convinces you that the most delicate and difficult work should be done by people too impoverished and exhausted to even see straight.
Shut the fuck up. Get a shorter work day and take a nap, then maybe you’ll be able to see how backwards that line of thought is.
“The young doctor should look about early for an avocation, a pastime, that will take him/her away from patients, pills, and potions…No one is really happy or safe without one.”
—William Osler M.D., The Medical Library in Post-graduate Work (1909). (viamednerds)
“The timely question of vacation was enlivened the other day in the ‘Hundred year club’ of New York. Its annual banquet was devoted to the discussion. The man who presided over the banquet was 94 years old, and responses to toasts were made by several who ‘had not tasted tea, coffee or medicine for 50 years.’
The views of such men upon ‘vacation’ as a restorative and means of prolonging life are necessarily of high practical value. The man who has lived to be almost 100 may not be supremely wise in all things, but it must be admitted on all sides that he has ‘staying power.’
Perhaps the most instructive address was by a member who had made a close study of the art of living in this country and in Europe and who declares that Americans try to crowd into one day that to which Europeans would devote two or three days. This habit applies to vacations as well as to work. The European not only takes more vacations than the American, but he leaves all care and thought of work behind him; vacation with him is not a frantic effort to see how much he can see or do in given time; he selects a favored spot, arranges for his special needs, and stays there, resting, happy and contented. He is a stranger to the American habit of flitting from place to place. To him vacation is a different matter from traveling to see the sights.
There is much in this that merits serious consideration by Americans, who are prone to make a hurried, strenuous, nerve-racking affair of a vacation. We have not acquired the fine art of intelligent loafing.
Another venerable speaker advocated tent life as the solution of the problem. He has been ‘a dweller in tents for 50 years’ and claimed that tent dwelling greatly adds to the probability of living a century.
Of course these venerable gentlemen discuss the question only from the standpoint of longevity. It is by no means certain that everybody cares to live 100 years. But it is certain that every sane man desires to live in good health and with fullest strength as long as he does live, and there is no better means of doing this than by sensible vacations interspersed with periods of hard labor.
But any fixed rules for vacation is impossible. The vacation that is most helpful is determined largely by each individual’s employment, temperament, physical condition and the climate and character of the place in which he lives and toils.
It is well worth any man’s while to give serious thought to this subject. It is one of the most important with which he ever has to deal.”
~The Spokane press. (Spokane, Wash.), 13 July 1903. Chronicling America. Lib. of Congress.
So my manager at work has a habit of texting me on my days off. These texts have nothing to do with finding coverage, etc. She just texts me to ask me, “how things are going,” etc. I don’t trust her as far as I can throw her (there is currently a rumor going around the clinic that I and another tech have beef with each other [which we 100% dont] all because she talks shit behind peoples’ backs), so it’s not like I’m going to tell her anything is other than fine and I don’t appreciate being bothered on my days off. Is this an unreasonable request? To not be texted on my days off (and at times when it can be assumed that I’m sleeping since I work overnights)? I understand if there are emergency situations or coverage issues, but it’s almost never that. Am I being an asshole here?
Goddess please give me the ability to have a normal healthy work-life balance. A clean, clear on and off switch in my brain for work and play. No more procrastination. No more laziness. No more overworking myself. No more self sabotage. No more burnout.
Goddess please give me the ability to have a normal healthy work-life balance. A clean, clear on and off switch in my brain for work and play. No more procrastination. No more laziness. No more overworking myself. No more self sabotage. No more burnout.
