Overcome challenges balancing work and fun by doing what you love. Reaching the summit of Ben Ime, Scotland, 2014.
Doing what you love as a career gives a massive sense of achievement. Everything you’ve worked towards has paid off. You’ve made it. But now is not the time to take a breather. You must keep on top of your fantastic new position by working, if possible, even harder than before.
But what does that mean for your private life?
As I have mentioned in a previous post, I currently work as a freelance 3D Architectural Visualizer. As well as a Game Artist. And in retail. And personalized portrait artist… See the recurring theme here? I’ll go in depth in a future post about what these careers entail, but essentially they have taught me to become somewhat accustomed to a finely tuned balancing act. I’ll try and share some tips that I’ve learned along the way.
1. Take a Break.
To begin with, working non-stop 24, with no breaks to eat, sleep or poop, is not the most efficient way to manage your time. Theoretically, using all the time available to you within a day might seem the logical way to go about it. Without rest your cognitive processes slow down making your work even harder. You become more irritable All work and no play makes Jodi a dull boy.
Fooling around and visiting Der Klimm in Amsterdam
2. Have Hobbies.
Don’t ever give up something that you enjoy for a job. Other than helping take breaks and keeping mental levels on the up and up as mentioned above, this is also who makes you, you. If you are lucky enough to get a job in your field, chances are they hired you more than your clear cut c.v. Your personality and what makes you you are a major component of why you may have been employed. Losing hobbies and yourself, might make you unhappier as a person and either feel like you can’t keep up with your employment or maybe make an employer think they’ve made a mistake.
Going for a run, baking cakes, climbing mountains, even binge watching shows on Netflix (albeit in a lesser amount) will all help maintain the happiness balance in your life.
3. Look After Yourself.
All the things mentioned have been to help with your mental health, but another major factor is your physical body. Exercise, healthy eating, getting enough sleep. All these factors are essential in keeping a healthy body to supplement a healthy mind.
4. Be Passionate.
If you are wanting to become a master of the juggling act in taking on multiple projects, there is one way they’ll never coexist together. And that is if you don’t want to do it. If you are putting in your time, effort and your soul into some projects and not others, you’ll start to resent your time given to one, when it could go towards the other. So aim to only work on stuff that will give you a sense of achievement with clear cut advantages. Financial situations allowing.
5. Get Help.
And by getting help I don’t mean hiring other people to do work for you. But if you find yourself wasting your valuable time figuring something out when there could be someone with the knowledge within talking distance. Don’t be too proud and just admit you could use their help.It doesn’t make you any less of a person and if anything, it’ll give that person a nice boost that they could help you out.
6. Be Organised.
Im going to end on what might seem to be the most simple piece of advice; my calendar is my best friend. And I don’t mean the one on my kitchen wall. I use an electronic calendar that syncs automatically up with all my devices. This allows me to organise and see quickly everything I need to do in that day. Its great to get into the habit of waking up, checking what you need to do and setting out tasks that need to be completed on each day. Not only does it simplify everything in your own head, it also makes sure you don’t double book yourself for much needed appointments or even down time.
So there you have it. Although there are possibly MILLIONS of ways to help balance yourself in your busy life, these are the 6 major points that help me. If theres anything you think I should include or try, or any tips you can think of, please let me know and I’ll try and cover it in a future post! Also if anyone is helped by this post please don’t hesitate to let me know 🙂
Thanks for reading!
ninetyeightynine 