A so-called workaholic’s guide to work-life balance: 10 activities for a more fulfilling life

” And yet, the entire world believes you are always working.”

An interesting sentence from my boss. Before I get into the situation behind this statement. Let me give you a back-story.

Introduction

In the last 50 odd months of my professional career, I noticed that those who some-what know me call me a workaholic, while those who know me pretty well will never even consider using that term on me.

Since in life, the people who somewhat know you are more than the people who truly know you, the term spread around, and since I work in a fast-growing small becoming a big company, word got around and suddenly, everyone called me a workaholic.

Well, for all the negativity associated with the word, I am pretty sure that the image of a workaholic helped me climb the corporate ladder faster.

As I hit my 50 months in the corporate world and was going into reminiscing mode, I asked myself. ” If I am a workaholic, then what does the term actually mean? What parts of my life, actually define the fact that I am a workaholic?”

This is because, my understanding of a workaholic and validated by Wikipedia is that “A workaholic is a person who works compulsively with disregard to other parts of his life”.

I never had that problem. I am able to maintain all the relationships (friends, family & :P) I want to; attend most of the social events like anniversaries or birthdays (of course sometimes for certain people you are supposed to organize the birthday party. The reason for failing there is not because you are a workaholic; it’s because sometimes you do not know how to throw one).

In terms of my professional life, I am able to attend networking events and learning sessions and read all the books I want to ( Am told my love for books borders on the insane :P)

In terms of time wasters, I am proud to say that thanks to Netflix and Prime, I am up to date with all major sitcoms from the late 90s to the current date.

I also have time to write the occasional article on Linkedin or a short story in my personal blog.

In this scenario, what makes me a workaholic?

Is this because I spend a lot of time in the office?

That’s the answer I got from most people to whom I popped the question.

That’s when I understood, most of the time, the term workaholic is misunderstood and there is a misconception that a workaholic has zero “work-life” balance.

So with this background story and a better understanding of your author, I go into deconstructing the term work-life balance.

Deconstructing work-life balance

We all have 24 hours. A good work-life balance means that we have to split the 24 hours we have into activities that will provide us sustenance, make us happy and make us feel fulfilled. In order to do so, I feel, the 16 odd hours of waking life should have the following activities

1. An Activity to pay the bills: A job to pay the bills. A job that gives me enough money to let me do whatever I want to do with my life.
2. An Activity we feel passionate about: An activity I am passionate about. Sometimes, it may be something not related to your career, but this passion according to my definition should be related to some skill with which you can make money off. For example, one of my friends who has a day job as a communications specialist is extremely passionate about baking and he is doing the set of activities required to set up a commercial bakery both by saving from the activity he took to pay the bills to improve his skill-set as a baker by making us his friends taste his experiments
3. An Activity for recreation: Everyone needs to unwind. Everyone needs to have their space. Everyone needs an activity for recreation. It can be as simple as reading a book or watching a movie. For me, the activity for recreation is one activity which we do to escape from the current reality.
4. An Activity for maintaining 3rd-degree relationships: 3rd-degree relationships include colleagues, acquaintances, or basically any relationship with people who know you at the surface level. Activities here include the occasional meetup and making sure you both don’t slip into the stranger zone.
5. An activity for maintaining 2nd-degree relationships: Friends, Mentors, well-wishers come into this category. A lot more effort is required here. Here we need to do the set of activities that makes sure we are involved in each other’s lives. That includes not missing any events of importance in their lives as well as the occasional “You are alive, so I want to see you” meetings.
6. An activity for maintaining familial relationships: Family, the boon and bane for most of us. Dad, Mom, Brothers, Sisters, Children, Husbands and Wives; there are a lot of them and somehow we always feel we don’t do enough with them. But one thing, I have noticed here is that with family it’s not about the activity you do; it’s just important that you show up and be there. Making sure you are in time for the family dinner every day does more to maintaining familial relationships than meeting your family once a year during the one-week-long vacation in an exotic locale. Here it’s not about the activity, it’s just about being there present, both mentally and physically.
7. An activity for self-growth: Either, you move forward or fall down. There is no standing still. I read somewhere that most billionaires spend an average of 5 hours a week learning something new. We need to learn something new. It can be something related to our job or it can be a self-realization journey. But activities related to self-growth both personal and professional plays an important part in our life as if we don’t do this we won’t have to worry about the work part of work-life
8. An activity for health: Realized this a little late but activities for making sure you are in good health are a must. The internet is littered with advice on how regular exercise can help you maintain a disease-free lifestyle.
9. An activity for maintaining financial health: Whilst Physical health is one thing, financial health is quite another. None of us will become truly financially independent on a salary. None of us can afford to hire a personal financial advisor either. Instead of spending some time going over your finances and learning new avenues for investment will provide rich long-term benefits
10. An activity for planning for our future self: Yes, work-life balance is about enjoying the now, making sure I have time now to handle all parts of my life, But then we need to have a vision for the future. For whatever reason, we as humans have an innate need to live fulfilling lives. A fulfilling life can be had only when we have a dream. The above nine points will work well together only if it is all tied up by a dream. And dreams become reality by planning. So spending some amount of time every day/week to write down our dream and plan for the future is a must-have activity to maintain a quality work-life balance in the future.

Yes, there will be overlaps between these activities. Playing Football with your friends is combining Activities for recreation, maintaining 2nd-degree relationships and maintaining health.

In the end, as long as we don’t miss out on the above activities or if you feel you are leaving one part of your life in the lurch then it’s time to hit the stop button and have a hard relook at our life.

This brings me to the question:

Am I a workaholic?

Do I spend a large amount of time in the office? I think, I do. Being part of a fast-growing dynamic firm means there is something happening somewhere and if you are interested there is always lots to do.

This office where I currently am is a place where I tick off a lot of the above activities. This is the place where I have a job doing activities which am passionate about. It has enough space and free cabins to provide me a quiet place when I want to learn something new or read a book.

But most importantly though, it gives me space to work in my own pace. There have been days when I was in the zone and so worked 16 hours straight to days I came to the office at 10:00 AM and was out by 11:30 AM because I just wasn’t in the zone to be productive.

This meant sometimes when people saw me working in an office during what they consider are odd hours, they labeled me a “workaholic”. It might change, but currently, based on the future goals and dreams I have this place gives me space to have a superior work-life balance.

Yep, this so-called workaholic has some pretty good work-life balance.

Conclusion

Coming back to the beginning of this article, the reason for my boss’s statement “…And yet, the entire world believes you are always working.” is because I went AWOL one Thursday evening because one of my favorite pubs in the city was having its anniversary special discounts and I didn’t want to miss that. This statement came in when I told him the reason behind my absence and also because it was just a few weeks back the other senior leaders within the org were complimenting my work ethic :P.

Finally, it comes down to us. Don’t label people as workaholics or lazy or whatever. For you, it might be the job you wanted since you were 10. For the other person, it might be the job that pays the bill until their side hustle becomes profitable enough. For some, Family is the most important part of their life, and sacrificing a little bit of pay for family time is a no-brainer. Some might be extremely ambitious and hustle hard whilst providing little time to family and friends.

To each his own. Each has defined their own work-life balance based on their dreams/goals. Let’s not label people based on their decisions. Let’s not judge. Then we all pretty much can lead fulfilling lives together.