How do you maintain work life balance?

Ankita Katdare · 2015-10-05T16:58:58+00:00

A friend shared this video with me telling me how hard it is for her to maintain work life balance. All work, No Play - she wrote as the caption. It turns out that like her, most of my friends wake up between 6-7 am, get ready for office, gulp down some cereal and rush to the bus-stand by 8-8:30. Take 1.5 hours to reach office (thanks to the traffic). Most catch a sleep on the bus or listen to music. They can't read a book as the roads are bumpy and the bus is crammed. Reach office at 10 and work till 1 pm, get off for lunch, laze around for a bit after it and get back to their desk by 2:30 pm. Meetings and conferences follow and then comes tea time. Around 5 pm everyone rushes to the cafeteria or tea stalls outside campus and usually kill time by passing remarks about colleagues and boss. Get back to desk in 30-45 minutes and work till 8 pm. Rush to the bus stand and reach home by 9:30 to 10:00 pm (again depending on the traffic). Once back home, they are too tired to cook, so either take a parcel on the way home or heat something prepared beforehand and eat it. Watch a movie or TV show till sleep takes over. Repeat on Loop. This happens between Monday to Friday and sometimes work load demands them to work on weekends too. If not, they sleep off the saturdays, hang out with friends or do laundry on Sunday and bang comes Monday again. These friends of mine are a common picture across all IT hubs across India. They are trying to figure out how to maintain work-life balance. Any suggestions, folks?

How do you maintain work life balance?

Ankita Katdare

Administrator

Updated: Oct 26, 2024

Views: 1.2K

A friend shared this video with me telling me how hard it is for her to maintain work life balance. All work, No Play - she wrote as the caption.

It turns out that like her, most of my friends wake up between 6-7 am, get ready for office, gulp down some cereal and rush to the bus-stand by 8-8:30. Take 1.5 hours to reach office (thanks to the traffic). Most catch a sleep on the bus or listen to music. They can't read a book as the roads are bumpy and the bus is crammed. Reach office at 10 and work till 1 pm, get off for lunch, laze around for a bit after it and get back to their desk by 2:30 pm. Meetings and conferences follow and then comes tea time. Around 5 pm everyone rushes to the cafeteria or tea stalls outside campus and usually kill time by passing remarks about colleagues and boss. Get back to desk in 30-45 minutes and work till 8 pm. Rush to the bus stand and reach home by 9:30 to 10:00 pm (again depending on the traffic). Once back home, they are too tired to cook, so either take a parcel on the way home or heat something prepared beforehand and eat it. Watch a movie or TV show till sleep takes over.
Repeat on Loop.

This happens between Monday to Friday and sometimes work load demands them to work on weekends too. If not, they sleep off the saturdays, hang out with friends or do laundry on Sunday and bang comes Monday again.

These friends of mine are a common picture across all IT hubs across India. They are trying to figure out how to maintain work-life balance.

Any suggestions, folks?

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Bijay Krishna Nandi

Member • Oct 8, 2015
Here are my few suggestions:
1. spend less time to get ready for office. You wake up at 6-7 and taking more than 1hr to get ready is hard to digest.
2. If it takes 1.5 hrs to reach office, traffic be the reason, choose to stay near to your office area. IT companies are generally located in developed cities, so its not hard to find a home near to office.
3. If you cant read books during the journey then I would suggest you to jump into a healthy conversation with your co-traveller. any topic like your work related, politics(my suggestion), sports, biography, etc.
4. here comes the passion, you just need to explore it within yourself and do it with dedication as it gives immense pleasure to yourself than anything.
5. Apart from these a very obvious solution is outing on weekends than being FEVIQICKED to your bed.
What I feel is Work-Life balance is hypothetical and it depends on your approach in work and life. if we strive for fun at work then we don't need to maintain a balance in our work and life...
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Anoop Kumar

Member • Oct 8, 2015
I have been in situation for 7-8 months, with hectic schedule of office. Here what I learned.
- You should not be living at place which take more than 30 min to office. If it the case, like you have your own house and can't relocate. Spend time to read books. I have read over 5-6 books in a year by just in cab for 30min daily, I know it's slow but utilizing in something is better than nothing. Otherwise just calculate if your commute time is >1 hour, you are wasting 45 hours per month.
- Working extra hours to increase productivity is illusion. Never work for extra hours to make your impression or if you think you are increasing your productivity. In fact after a week or two, your productivity will start declining. You work with your brain, which needs to relax from regular work.
- Never ever bring office sh*t to home: Don't keep office thoughts after leaving office. Come home have fun with family, friends or roommates.
If office is too much pressurizing, better, start working of your resume. Why to spend your life hours just for the sake of few cents 😀
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Saandeep Sreerambatla

Member • Oct 13, 2015

My case which i am currently following since few months, a day or two being exceptions.
I wake up at 8 Am.
I will help my wife cook breakfast and lunch, I will play with my kid until 11.30 Am.
I will get ready to office and start by 12 PM.
Reach office by 12.45 PM.
Work or meeting or anything till 2PM.
Lunch till 2.20 pm
work or meeting or anything till 5 pm.
then calls , or some more work till 8 pm
Start home and reach by 9 PM at the max.
Then spend time with family, and they sleep at 11, if i have any pending work i will do it after 11 PM.

I will travel to office by car, if its by bus its more or less same time (add 15 mins at the max).

As I am travelling by car, i will call random friends everyday and talk to them and will stay in touch. and will talk to my parents while going back.

Somehow, I am not missing work - life balance or missing anything by following this schedule.

Forgot to mention - I take 1 or 2 tea breaks which doesnt last more than 10 mins.

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Jeffrey Arulraj

Member • Oct 13, 2015

I am new to this corporate world. But one thing I learnt in this short period is "I am the person ho makes my work - Life balance go imbalance".

When Given a responsibility If I decide to spend the productive work hours in my desk giving my best shot, I can very well finish the task assigned before COB. No one is over burdened it is our own thinking and laziness that makes our nights longer in office than in our house.

But there will be a few days that are exceptions, We can't rate the entire office life just because we spent a few days longer in office.

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