Adventure Specialists' Advice
August 12, 2016
Research: Keeping Work and Life Separate Is More Trouble than It’s Worth
I read an interesting article this week that challenges the goal of maintaining a work-life balance. Instead, this article suggests that mixing our work and home lives is actually healthier.
"Many executives and employees strive for (and struggle with) work-life balance. Finding enough time in the week to both carve out meaningful home experiences and also complete high-priority work assignments seems to leave both domains depleted, and too often we’re left with strife and stress. To try to control that stress, many of us try to impose better boundaries on our selves and our time: we set up strict rules about when we will and won’t check work email, where we do and don’t bring our mobile phones, and how often we can and can’t bring work home with us.
It’s true that for some time, the best advice on work-life balance was to create stiffer boundaries between both. But new research suggests that maintaining strict distinctions between work roles and home roles might actually be what is causing our feelings of stress to set in. Instead of leaving work at the office and home at the door, integrating both might be a better strategy for enhancements in well-being and performance." (You can read the rest of the article here.)
I've been thinking about this and how it applies to our lives here in Penang. I think that most of us would find it impossible to completely separate our work and home lives. Your car breaks down, and you have to take it to the mechanic in the middle of the day. You get e-mails from students in the evenings that require an answer. You and/or your kids are involved in sports at crazy hours. The bank closes at 4:30 so you have to go during "work hours." The list is pretty long.
The idea of embracing the integration of our work and home lives rather than trying to control it gives a sense of freedom and can also take away the guilt we sometimes feel about doing things at the "wrong time." Isn't this really what integrity is all about, anyway? Living our lives as an integrated whole, rather than in small, isolated pieces. Let us continue to strive to serve wholeheartedly and to live our lives in an integrated way.
Student Support Reminder
Important Dates
August 15-16: Picture Day
August 22-26: MS MAP testing (planning to use all of the iPad's); schedule
August 23: PD Meeting
August 26: Open House, 5-8 PM
August 31: No School (Malaysia Day)
September 6: Combined Staff, 4 PM, Chapel
September 7-9: SEW
September 9: No uniform day
September 10: MS Community BBQ (hosted by Larry)