T-SQL Tuesday #141: Work/Life Balance? - Wrap up

As the challenge was accepted by many folks, I tried to keep track of their thoughts and make my own notes. I really enjoyed watching everyone attempt to tackle this topic and inspire others while sharing their own experiences, hopes, dreams, attempts, and so on. 

Each blog that I experienced felt like the authors really sat down and tried to outpour their souls. I can only assume, in an effort to help others along their own path with these folks' experiences. 

Here is what I pulled from each of your posts. 

I feel like I should revisit these posts and reread them from time to time, to see if I have implemented any of these ideas myself, but more importantly to revisit how I am doing now, or then, as things will change and my efforts toward achieving balance will most likely need to change as well over time. 

--Blogs

 Rob Farley his attempts in finding relevant quests to achieve work life blance thru activities he enjoyes or wants to enjoy. Mainly finding a distraction from current engagements to satisfy.

 http://blogs.lobsterpot.com.au/2021/08/10/work-life-balance/

 

 James McGillivray also notes that its about balance. Realizing life needs you to not give 110%, taking control, self introspection to course correct.

 https://jimbabwe.co.za/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-141-its-all-about-balance/

 

 Tom shows us time spent in various activities, work and personal life. And stresses that we need to manage expectations, get enough sleep and take time off.

 http://www.straightforwardsql.com/work-life-balance-t-sql-tuesday-141/

 

 Brent Ozar makes a joke about using JIRA to track your homelife. But in all reality realizes that what is tracked can be understood and altered and made good. (my words). And gives practical advice to implement these ideas.

 https://www.brentozar.com/archive/2021/08/want-a-better-work-life-balance-use-jira-at-home-tsql2sday/

 

 Gethyn teaches us that people dont know when to stop. Simply working from home is not the balance we seek. And then offers concrete rules that have helped.

 https://www.gethynellis.com/2021/08/work-life-balance.html

 

 Kevin used to work from home and was able to help coworkers do so when Covid hit. As well as organize a virtual event. It is important to realize that others can help us out. REach out.

 https://www.kevinrchant.com/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-141-work-life-balance/

 

 Cathrine entertains us with her list of nopes and yeps. With real life examples that have helped, and may help us. 

 https://www.cathrinewilhelmsen.net/yeps-nopes-balancing-work-life/

 

 Jeff has had experience already working from home and luckily has a strong enough marriage to allow them both to be at home. And then answers my questions with real world answers that helped. 

 https://sqladm.in/posts/tsql-tuesday-141/

 

 Aaron shares absolute rules to follow that have helped. I love the idea of making up time to the family spent on after hours work. What a nice example to flip the script.

 https://sqlblog.org/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-141-work-life-balance

 

 John also believes that the outdoors is key in affecting this balance and provides rules that have helped achieve this balance. 

 https://johnmccormack.it/2021/08/balancing-work-and-life-the-covid-years-tsql2sday/

 

 Dale engages the frace 'forcing function' to let things enfore the rules to provide balance. I have to do X to do Y so I must step away from work now. 

 https://dalehirt.com/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-141-work-life-balance/

 

 Camila has learned to listen to the body and mind and seek a comfort between work and personal. Acknowledging the idisyncracies of ones own mind and the impact this has on tasks and plans. 

 https://camilahenrique.com/2021/08/10/work-life-balance-tsql2sday/

 

 Chad seeks to find success while working from home. Replacing moments with new tasks like naps and walking the dog. At home or the office. 

 https://callihandata.com/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-work-life-balance/

 

 Deepthi acknowledges that guilt and pressure that leads to stress. Instead, make little changes in life to your schedule. And uses one of my favorites phrases, findging happiness. I say, Find Your Happy. 

 https://dbanuggets.com/2021/08/10/t-sql-tuesday-141-work-life-balance/

 

 Travis details rules that have helped. Setting up rules that provide boundries, then mental breaks and stress relief, remembering to ask for help, and leave bad situations. 

 https://www.travis-page.com/t-sql2sday/T-SQL-Tuesday-141-Work-Life-Balance/

 

 

 --Twitter

 

 Chris reflects on how fast life moves and kids and family change quickly. Controlling what you can manage and letting go has helped. 

 https://t.co/ZiOQnmGo2r?amp=1

 

 Jess reflects on how the pandemic has shifted work and commutes and things. Having a hard stop or other activity helps stop the work day. Exercise and support from others has really helped.

 https://t.co/eZxnyxy2pU?amp=1

 

 Ken learned that timings are not immutable and giving in to ebb and flow, can lead to the balance one seeks. 

 https://t.co/fdkTPGZ1o9?amp=1

 

 

http://tsqltuesday.com/tag/2021/

https://tjaybelt.blogspot.com/2021/08/t-sql-tuesday-141-worklife-balance.html

What does Work/Life Balance mean to me?

This month's T-SQL Tuesday challenge is this topic. I am hosting the blogging event, and this was my topic of choice. Because it has been on my mind a lot these last few years, and more so recently. 

It seems like an easy answer problem to answer, no? 

I've had coworkers simply say that they will never answer a message after work hours. Others turn off their phones. Some leave on the dot of a specific time, and work is done for the day. Others talk about how to maximize their usage of vacation time. Others mention that they work a lot of overtime, because they can, and want to get that big promotion. Others come in early because they believe that is the magic ticket. 

What I get from these is the age ol' answer to everything. 'It Depends'.

Review the below list yourself. And answer each of these honestly. If you can, compare with someone else, and see the disparity of answers.

• Should we work late on that thing cause we are almost done?
• Should we get to work at a specific time each morning?
• Should we leave at a specific time each day? 
• Should we eat at our desks for lunch?
• Should we leave for a lunch break? 
• Should we get exercise in the morning before work? During work? After work?
• Should we check mail and work apps first thing in the morning?
• Should we check mail and work apps after you have left for the day?
• Should we never check mail and work apps when we are not truly 'working'?
• Should we get showered and dressed each day, and still work from home?
• Should we shower once a week and dress poorly since we work from home? 
• Should we use a scheduling technique to keep us on track during the workday?
• Should we stretch the workday out, adding breaks within for personal stuff?
• Should we never take personal breaks during work hours, because work is a priority during 9-5 hours?
• Should we work late today because we started late this morning?
• Should we leave early today because we started earlier this morning?
• Should we leave home before starting work, to get a morning beverage, and delineate our days with normal tasks?
• Should we check mail and work apps on the weekend?
• Should we check mail and work apps on PTO?
• Should we stay at the gym for one more game on Friday, since it's Friday, and we work from home anyway?

I find that some of these ring more true to me than others. And I will tend to dig into these individually more than others. Some really force the answer 'It Depends'. Because it does. It depends on a lot of things. Where I am in my career, what my goals are, and so on. 

Since the answer can often be 'It Depends' to these and many of life's questions, it behooves us to individually dig into these, and other similar questions, and form our own answers. Individual answers. And realize that these may work for a time, and cease to work after a time. 

For example, when I had younger children at home, it was much more important to me and my family that I was home at a certain time. Dinner was a planned event, and we enjoyed it together. But as my kids have grown, and moved on, this is not so important anymore. So I can stay later now than I used to. However, maybe at this time in my life, I don't want to. But maybe I do. So its changes with time. One answer works for a while, then stops being the right answer, because reasons. So I urge you to constantly evaluate your answers and make sure that they still fit for you now. As now will forever change. 

So, what works for you may not work for me. But we can definitely learn from each other and see examples. We can review our activities and moods and responses, and adjust as needed.

What's worked for me?

Several years ago I got an app called Daylio. It has a daily reminder I set for 10:45pm to input daily data. It wants to know the overall mood for the day. It also lets me tag specific activities performed within the day, presumably that support this overall mood for the day. These are Rad, Good, Meh, and 2 lower moods I've never actually selected. 

This becomes an interesting exercise. I get to evaluate the entire day and pick a single mood. So it must be an average for the day, not a high or low mood, in my interpretation. I could have had a terrible morning, but a better afternoon, so would that be average ok for the day? Can you have a Rad day while you are at work? It feels like a Rad day would be a weekend. But why cant a workday be Rad? and why can't a weekend be Meh? 

In any event, it makes me think. And forces me to evaluate the day. Over the years I've used this app, I've been able to refine the activities to things that really seem to matter to me at the time. For example, I used to have activities for TV and Movies separated. But I realized that these were not core activities, and stopped using them to measure against my overall mood. I might watch TV or see a Movie, but it rarely weighs in to make a day Rad as compared to Good. So I have stopped including them in the overall activity exercise. I have since added different items in an effort to measure and weigh what makes me happy. I have separate entries for Outside and Desert and Mountains. Desert and Mountains are outside, but Outside also means in my yard, or playing pickleball at lunchtime, or simply being outside. This is also different from Garage Time, which usually entails some activity of creating or building. 

The point being is that for me, I have fine-tuned this data gathering to fit me. It will probably not fit you. But I highly recommend you do something similar. I have been tracking my data for over 900 days now, and have learned a lot. Annually, I review the data and use it to change activities or priorities as I see patterns. 

For me, spending time doing an activity of exercise daily has elevated my mood and work/life balance. Sprinkling in a couple other days of other activities has definitely helped, and this is usually after work. Spending time outside has become a positive point in my life, as well as spending time in my garage. So I try to do these things as often as I can in the week and notice when I have not, it affects me. So I've been known to say 'It's been too many days since I've been in the mountains, I need to return'. Or fill in the activity I've not done, and then I need to make sure I do that more. 

Some things are seasonal, but still bring me joy. I ride dirtbikes, but not in the winter or the summer. More spring and fall. I also don't hike in the winter but do switch to snowshoeing. So seasonal things also happen when necessary. And on repeat, enough that I feel satisfied. If I do not feel satisfied, often it's because something like this is missing.

Now, switching gears, if I concentrated on the outside and fun activities only, I could find myself ignoring work. Why not do the same thing at work? What items should I track while at work that brings me joy or subtracts joy? If you can narrow those down and track them, you'll be better poised to make changes to them, possibly, and make yourself feel better about your work/life balance.

I have added 2 entries in my activities that let me track when I work on my tasks, vs when I work on other people's tasks. As I have noticed that being pulled into other people's issues to solve them or assist in solving them subtracts from my joy, I am not poised to respond better to these requests. When I can pour myself into my tasks, I am happier. It may not be that easy, but at least now I have identified the problem and can act towards a fix. It may require a new job or an acceptance of the job I already have. It may require out-of-the-box thinking or even conversations with bosses or other team members. But you are on the path to solving it, rather than allowing the activity to control you and your mood and your balance. 

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So that was a lot of words. And if you made it this far, I'll reward you with a shorter version.

• Find what makes you happy. 

• How do you find this? I measure daily activities and moods. But you do you. But find it!

• Once you find 'your happy', repeat 'your happy' as often as possible. 

• How do I find 'my happy'? Using various tools and data collection and retrospectives.

• Work towards repeating 'your happy' more often than not.

• How do I do this? Make a plan to repeat when time allows, and schedule it and make it happen. 

 

T-SQL Tuesday #141: Work/Life Balance?

Work/Life Balance?

Having gone thru this last year of strange upheaval around the world, I've been thinking about this topic quite a bit lately. My company has a mentor program where one can sign up and discuss this topic. I signed up. I've had several 'sessions' with my mentor. We've had some productive conversations about what this all means to me, my career, my skillset, and so on.

As I transitioned to work at home, some 500 days ago, it was a shift in perspective, timing, and many things. Trying to keep those scales balanced has been a focus and a struggle from time to time. Especially recently, but throughout my career, it's a topic I often lapse back into. Trying to find that balance.

My invitation to you for this month’s #tsql2sday is…

I want to invite you to share your experiences dealing with your own personal journey with Work/Life Balance, either thru experience, or hopeful future goals…

• What are the cool things have you learned?
• What things did you try, that simply didn't work out? 
• What rules have you implemented that made it easier to balance?
• What rules made it harder to find that balance?
• What are tips or tricks can you share to help others?

*** The Rules ***

Your post must be published on Tuesday, August 10th 2021 (in any timezone). (Not the 17th, like I initially said here. Oops)

Include the T-SQL Tuesday Logo and make it link to this invitation post.
Please add a comment to this post with a link to your own so I know where to find it.
Tweet about your post using the #tsql2sday hashtag.