Maintaining a healthy work-life balance can be difficult in today’s culture that celebrates being always on. In fact, 94 percent of 1,000 professionals surveyed by the Harvard Business Review said they put in 50 or more hours a week at work. What’s more, nearly half that group clocked in more than 65 hours a week.
In today’s always on workplace culture, where employees are rewarded and oftentimes expected to work long hours and communicate continuously, balance can be hard to find. In fact, more and more people are prioritizing work over their personal lives, tipping the scales toward burnout and stress.
Work-life balance has been around for a lot longer than the Millennial generation. Despite their focus on creating better work-life balance, the term has been in use since the 80’s.
Someone once said “Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re going to get.” Okay, well, it was the sage wisdom of Mrs. Gump, but regardless, it’s a great metaphor for how unpredictable life can be. Sometimes it leaves a bad taste in your mouth, sometimes it’s disappointing, and other times it’s so incredible you need to stop and savor the moment because you know that it’s fleeting. This rings true in every facet of our day-to-day, especially in professional settings. There is so much that is beyond our control, so how we approach life directly impacts our work attitude and how we navigate our workday.
While there are many approaches, there are 4 that have a big impact on success.
We all have these items on our to do list. We all want to be in tune with our work, harmonize with our team, and love what we do. Conversely, we need the resources to experience the adventures modernity has to offer. Traveling, city breaks, amazing escapes, meeting people, reinventing, and rediscovering oneself. Hence, our bucket list.
Yet, there is one key element that affects our existence. Our most valuable resource: time. And for some reason, most of us spend almost 1/3 of our lives sleeping. And those that don’t, should. Balance work and life through better sleep to be productive, stay passionate, and get into focus.
Photo by Michał Kubalczyk on Unsplash
Sit-stand workstations are said to provide a solution to the sedentary lifestyle of office workers, but new research suggests that sitting isn’t directly correlated to mortality risks, as previous studies have claimed. And standing has almost the same results as sitting, the researchers say.
The study, published in the International Journal of Epidemiology, acknowledges that sitting behaviors have long been linked with increased risk of all-cause mortality. However, it cautions that previous studies have examined single indicators of sitting or all sitting behaviors combined, whereas the current examination looks to enhance the evidence base by looking at type-specific prospective associations of five different sedentary behaviors (including standing) as well as total sitting
Photo by Mikito Tateisi on Unsplash
Some think there’s a good chance the Universe doesn’t actually have purpose. That it just exists and will forever contract and expand, with no reason other than it can.
But to bring something into existence, something else must have existed to produce it. Big Bang aside, everything we see around us today has been created as a result of chemical and physical processes. Each processes got its purpose in the chain of events that led to it. In other words, existence without reason doesn’t make much sense, be it living or non-living. Author Joshua J. Marine has a famous quote on this: