Lately, I‘ve had a lot of stuff on my plate. Of course, I’m not alone in that regard, as we all have impending deadlines. I have, however, come to the realization (unfortunately…through stressing myself out in the past) that there’s no need stress out about it. There will continue to be work to do, and I will continue to do my best to get it all done as fast as possible. It’s hard to not get stressed when there is so much work to do and seemingly not enough time get it all done. In this situation, it really helps to have a strong work-life alliance.
Having a strong work-life alliance is crucial to staying happy and maintaining a level head when work gets crazy. Yes, getting the work done is important, but even more important is your personal sanity. Do your best to get it done, and then when the days at its end, stop working. Go home and do something else that you care about. Often times you will actually tackle the work more effectively the next day with a fresh perspective rather than overworking yourself until you finish it late that same day.
In my opinion, there needs to be something outside of work that you look forward to doing in your free time. It can be any combination of things from writing, to working out, to building things, to playing video games. For me, the most important thing is finding time to play music. I love writing songs and jamming with friends. When I get done with a long day of work, I try to spend at least an hour or two playing music. It calms me down and takes my mind off of the looming obligations I have with work.
That doesn’t mean that I don’t take the obligations seriously. I care a lot about getting the job done and getting it done well, which is why I tend to get stressed in the first place. But I know that it’s extremely important for me to find time to completely take my mind off work, and I do that by playing music. I’m sure y’all out there on the internets have your own awesome hobbies/passions/pastimes that you do when you aren’t working. Feel free to share below! What keeps you sane when the shit hits the fan at work?
We're building an AI-powered Product Operations Cloud, leveraging AI in almost every aspect of the software delivery lifecycle. Want to test drive it with us? Join the ProdOps party at ProdOps.ai.