The importance of work life balance
The second I have hit the “publish” button on my previous post I had a few seconds of feeling proud and accomplished right before realizing that there’s no way I could write a post once a week in the next couple of weeks. University tests season is back and I have no idea what I’ll be tested on in 2 weeks time
I had no choice but to postpone my new passion project and sit down and study. No distractions allowed.
Im writing this post on my way to the last test after most if not all days recently followed the same loop of wake up → work → study → sleep → repeat.
How did we get here?
It was a stressful and exhausting but I thought to myself, “what’s a small stretch here and there if it will all be worth it in the end?”
While naive, this thought process is not inherently wrong. Enjoy your time, study for the test, pass it and keep going. But if you think of it, life after high school and military service, especially while living on my own has me hold responsibility for much more things, making this thought process simply unsustainable for my life style.
I started this bachelor’s degree way back in 2021 while still in service thinking that if I sneak a few university courses here and there I’ll finish most if not all of it by the time I discharge from service, and at the start it actually looked promising. My friends were studying too and some really finished by the end of their service.
though passionate about starting my academic journey, the military slowly but surely started to take toll on my studies, I started skipping classes here and there and eventually even complete semesters just to focus more on my military work. while at the time this was the right decision for the greater good, I’m not quite sure that this was the right decision for my own self improvement
When I started work I kept doing what I knew best. Take as much responsibility as you can, be super available for anything anytime. And yes I did try to study again but that was just way too much for me to handle so the studies once again were pushed to the bottom of my priorities. And 5 years later, I’m only half way through the bachelor’s degree I started way back when.
What’s the Solution?
The last year since getting discharged has been mostly me going through highs of stress to the lows of anxiety and total shutdown. Both in studies and work, I’d find myself pushing a stressful deadline and staying in the office for most evenings only to realize that I had final in 2 weeks and stressfully start studying, barely passing. this is no way to live and this has to stop now.
I’m still thinking of a plan to fix my stress from studying and work but here are some of the things I’ve come up with in the last couple of days.
- Leave work at most at 18:30 unless absolutely necessary, even if I don’t have plans for the evening
- Take at least one course in a physical class. All the courses I’ve took up until now has been taken through Zoom calls and recordings and it’s just annoying to sit at a Zoom call for 3 hours without engaging with any of the participants.
- Read more, Fiction, Self improvement, even just the books that come with course I never read. Opening the mind for more information than just the day to day interactions I have.
- Treat my calendar and todo list like the holy grail. Avoid cancelling or moving stuff just to fix another bug that probably can wait for the morning.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I think the last couple of weeks has really showed me the consequences of not managing your time correctly over time and it sucks. I’ll keep logging my progress here and seeing how these changes actually affect my day to day stress levels and hopefully I can learn something about life here to
Until next time, Kovler :)