Work-life balance. We need a new perspective, because is that a thing? I don’t think it is a thing. I think we are so far from a balance. How can you call it a balance when it is 5 to 2? Five days on and two days off? How can one call that a balance. Four to three? I like the sound of that better if that is what we have to do.
It is not just an eight-hour day. You have that lunch break. Despite, the fact that you are not working but still at the the work place. Now it is a nine-hour day. What about the commute time? 45 minutes both ways. Got to stop and get gas or return a library book. Okay, now let’s just round it up to an hour both ways. Add that to the work day and now we have 11 hours of your daily awake time devoted to work. Finally, when you get home it is time to make dinner and get ready for bed. Hustle, hustle, hustle. This is no way to live. This is life and we are just going through the motions. There is no time for yourself, for any kind of enjoyment. I hate it. HATE IT.
Still at work on the weekends
On the weekends you find yourself playing catch up. Basically, one day of fun, but then it is washing laundry, tidying up the house, and meal prepping for the week ahead. Sunday you check your emails just to see what the impending week looks like. Wait. Now you are “working” on your day off. Not intentionally.
Am I just a bad manager of my time? I think not. I was listening to a radio show with Del Walmsley, the founder of Lifestyles Unlimited and he stated that he believed a 40-hour week was not necessarily productive. Optimal productivity could be achieved in less time. During an eight-hour shift, maybe only four of those hours are “productive hours” and the other four hours the worker becomes less alert and is much less productive.
This is burnout. The forty-hour work week was originally invented for a household where one member worked and the other member stayed home and took care of the family and the house. Now everyone is at work and life is getting neglected.
Covid opened our eyes to a lot of things
This whole covid pandemic opened our eyes to how we can work from home. How we can have a bit of life to enjoy. Weird how that worked out. The problem is some people had to go back to the five-day-a-week thing and dang are we dragging our feet.
We lost loved ones from covid but we gained insight of what life is and has to offer. Now we want more. More me time, more we time. Time for living not just working.
I hate to be tied to a time clock. Things need to make a change.
How do you think we could make a work week with less time at work?
Do you work a 40+ hour a week job?
Are you feeling the burn out?
