"people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it" (foreword)

Part of being a grad student studying Organizational Psychology means that, supplementary to the endless readings on how people interact with and behave in organizations, I also get to learn about the commonly administered tests or "inventories" given to these people by taking them myself; they call this experiential learning.  What I am talking about when I say tests or inventories is that when an organization is experiencing inefficiencies due to an endless number of things, they may call in a third party (me, the consultant) to uncover their underlying issues and find resolutions to them. To do this, administering inventories to employees, as they call them, is often useful for discovering the root of the problem depending on the problem itself and its players. But I digress…

So lasts week’s topic in my Org. Behavior class was work-life balance and stress. Part of my weekly assignment, in addition to the 300 pages of reading (ugh), was to take a stress level indicator and a work-life balance assessment. I think the stress level indicator is pretty self-explanatory, but to be sure you know what is meant by this commonly used notion of work-life balance, that assessment measures the balance between the time you spend doing three things: working, either at work or simply working from a Blackberry or the like, cultivating your personal life, and cultivating your relationships (family, friends, significant other etc.). So after taking both assessments, I discovered that to my complete surprise (not a surprise at all), my stress level is pretty close to off the charts and that it’s no wonder the phrase “work-life balance” is never uttered out of my mouth when speaking about my own life...because it doesn’t exist. Allthough these cold hard facts make it hard for me to ignore the fact that I have a slight problem, the relieving part about it all is knowing that I am far from alone but am in the company of the majority of other people in this country who also suffer from this 21^st century epidemic I’d like to call workaholism- that’s right “I am powerless over [the amount of time I spend working] and my life has become unmanageable.”

So ya, that picture of grad school that I painted of myself spending my hours outside of class leisurely sipping on coffee in some quaint café while calmly flipping through the pages of my textbooks or writing well thought out papers a month in advance just because I had the time….ya, that’s hardly my reality. I now employ 3 part-time jobs (thank god the 4^th ended last week), am taking 5 classes, and am assisting 2 year-long research studies. I hardly know what having a social life means anymore, I recently considered putting a hold on my gym membership, and sleep is just something I do if I have time…I guess sipping my to-go cup of coffee while driving from one destination to the next could be considered leisure time?  

Grad school aside, this type of lifestyle of being constantly on the go, cramming as many of the “have tos” into our day as possible, has become so mainstream that we hardly even recognize it as a problem anymore. The average number of hours people spend at work is unheard of and the number of hours people spend working on work during their off hours (family time, at the gym, at the dinner table) is even more disturbing...and I fall right in there with the rest. When I stopped to examine how I spent the hours of my day (part of the work-life balance assessment) I realized that they’re spent in one of two ways- doing the things that take my energy (work, school, errands, meetings, appointments etc.) or doing the things that are completely neutral or mindless- the things that neither take energy nor give me energy (e.g. sitting behind a TV or computer screen watching some variation of reality television or the lives of my Facebook friends unfold before me on the Newsfeed). At most, I was able to identify maybe a few hours per week spent seeing the social light of day but other than that I make almost no time for doing the things that I used to do- the things that rejuvenate me, that give me energy, inspire me, slow me down, release stress- ultimately, the things that would sustain my mental and physical health during stressful times like these. Sadly, it’s always these things I cut out when life gets hectic so it’s no wonder I am a walking ball of stress/mental case. But I'm not alone, right? If you're anything like me, you may continuously catch yourself saying things like: “I’d love to do more of [this or that], I just don’t have the time”. Be it cooking, hiking, playing music, painting, swimming, gardening, writing, jogging, pleasure reading etc., the question “what do you do for fun” is becoming one of those harder questions to answer these days given we simply have no time anymore. Or do we, we just don’t make the time to create a balanced life?

So I’m left wondering, how do I make the time? It would be completely idealistic to say that I should quit all jobs, take a smaller class load and start-up a coin collecting hobby, or maybe in your case, readopt that obsolete notion of the 9-5, turn in your Blackberry and join a painting club, but that’s just not the reality of the times. Technology has changed the landscape of how fast we have to move and how connected we must be in order to keep up. My answer then becomes that of strategic, almost anal retentive, time management. If working 3 jobs and taking 5 classes is what I need to do to  get to where I want to be, then that's that. It only means though, that my free time outside of my obligations needs to be prioritized almost down to the minute. Although watching mindless television or reading about what Jonny ate for breakfast on the Newsfeed may serve me once in a while, I realize that I need to be more aware of when to replace these kinds of empty activities with activities that actually give me energy, inspire me, get me thinking- thinking about things other than work, school, Facebook, or Snookie. Afterall, awareness is the first step, right?

My second step was starting this blog. This blog will be my outlet for the creative things I enjoy doing that I never make time for- my "hobbies", if you will, although I always think of that word in describing something more trivial. Whatever it is, this blog will hold me accountable for doing those things that give me some piece of mind; after all, now that the url is here, I’ve got to fill it with somthing...

Home décor/interior redesign, I guess you’d call it, is the first piece. I told someone during my last year of undergrad, “I think I want to major in interior design.” A week later I came to my senses and realized it was a bit too late to switch and that I’d have to settle with International Relations. Since then though, I’ve realized that it’s true what they say, “it’s never too late” to at least make it a hobby, which is what I’ve done over the past several years. Maybe someday, when I’ve exhausted my time changing the world of big business, I’ll start my own little business doing some sort of interior design work and I’ll look back at this blog and acknowledge it as the start of building my brand name J

 Second, I’ve been blowing up pictures ever since I had a camera. I love photography, although I’m definitely nothing more than a novice.  Without photographs, we’d see no history, no tangible memories. It’s fun to freeze moments, especially good ones so that is the second piece to this blog; it will be a place for me to cultivate my other casual hobby, photography.

And finally, the most stated advice I’ve heard since being in grad school is “if you want to be successful and you want to be heard in your career, you need to write…a lot”. Although this won’t be focused around text (like this never ending abstract), this blog will carry one final piece- a place for thoughtful writing when I’m in the mood.

Without further ado, I have to end by stating one last thing. I’ve always kind of been turned off by the concept of blogging, although there are some great blogs out there that I really do love to read. I don’t know what it is, it just seems a bit presumptuous-as if I think any aspect of my life or my simple opinion is noble enough to write about or even more, noble enough for somebody else to want to read about. So that’s the final piece of this that I hope to leave out-coming across as a talking head with some opinion you should adopt. I’m not an expert on anything and this isn’t about me and what I know- it’s just a good excuse to slow down, think creatively, and write.

I hope you enjoy!